Pre-dawn light over Luangwa River at Wildlife Camp.

Up and ready to go before the sun is up, AGAIN; this is no way to treat a non-morning-person! We all pile into our Land Rover for our first game drive of the day. This took us throughout the section of the park adjacent to the main entrance. The highlights of the day were; some close encounters with Elephants, a family of Giraffes, a herd of Cape Buffalo, a day-time sighting of the ever elusive Leopard, and a Spotted Hyaena and White-headed Vultures fighting over the remains of the Cape Buffalo from last night. We also learned that the locals call the Guineafowl, “Suicide Chickens” for their habit of running away from cars by panicking and rushing straight down the road – hence, SPLAT: a Suicide Chicken.

Having breakfast.

Hippo salad.

Two Elephants B&W.

Giraffe lookiloo.

Ele in South Luangwa.

Hippo-island.

Three Crocodiles.

African Fish Eagle.

Cape Buffalo in the morning mist.

Loping Giraffe.

Lounging Impala.

Leopard resting in bushes.

Spotted Hyaena.

Cape Buffalo calf.

Mother Ele and young.

Tons of attitude… even has a pierced ear!

Curious about people.

Just a little to the left….

Vulture – Hyaena face-off.

After an almost 5 hour game drive, we arrive back at camp for lunch and a few hours of well-deserved chilling out.

At 4 PM, Big Joseph picks us up for our evening Game Walk and Game Drive. Along the way, we pick up James (our Field Guide for the evening) and David (our protection for the walk). David has been working in and around this park for more than two decades and carries an old but well-maintained CZ 550 Magnum bolt-action repeater with open sights. It is chambered for the rather serious .375 Magnum round and he loaded it with a combination of solid copper rounds (for maximum penetration – Cape Buffalo and Elephants) and copper-jacketed lead rounds (for maximum expansion – the large cats and Hyaena). Walking about on foot in this park is a wholly different experience than being driven through it; driving in the park feels like you’re sight-seeing, being on foot gives you a completely different, if not more ominous, perspective. The sound of your own footfalls, your limited vision due to the tall grass and bushes, the cries of the birds, the noises of the insects, the smells of the African wilderness (including the sporadic waft of “dead things”), and the spoor and dung of a variety of animals visible in all directions… this was the real “Great White Hunter”safari experience! We spotted many different animals this evening; including Kudu, Bushbuck, and a small family group of Elephants (a mature female, and adolescent, and a yearling). It was simply an amazing experience to be able to track this group by foot. It is also interesting to note that the majority of animals reacted to us very differently; in a vehicle, we could approach very close (sometimes ridiculously so) because the truck was not considered a threat-source. However, on foot, the vertical profile of humans triggers an instinctual perception of a threat – the animals see walking humans as “hunters” and become very wary of our approach.

Getting ready for our Game Walk. Note the lack of “loud” clothing.

Game Walks are done single file.

Tracking Elephants on foot.

Eron the Ele-Hunter

We find parts of a Giraffe’s tail.

Kudo

After the walk-portion of the evening, we had another “Sundowner” (sunset cocktails) and continued with a Night Game Drive.

Sundowner-time.

Eron at dusk.

Dusk over the Luangwa River.

Spotted Hyaena at night.

Two Leopards treed by pack of Hyaenas.

On approaching our camp, the most magical thing happened: we could smell the mouth-watering aroma of our dinner from almost a kilometre away! More specifically, we could smell Ebron’s famous bread pudding and custard beckoning us – what a welcome “home”. After dinner, it was time to relax around the campfire, listen to the snorting and chortling of the Hippos, and light up a cigar.