Africa Safari Blog

In July this year, I flew from cold and rainy Cape Town to much warmer weather in Zambia. JENMAN AFRICAN SAFARIS runs a 14-day Zambian Adventure Safari, and myself plus 2 Jenman guides were fortunate enough to explore this route in a 6-day safari.

On our first day, we traveled from the town of Livingstone towards Lake Kariba. The road was long and had a few surprises in the form of huge potholes, but the scenery and numerous small towns we passed made the time fly by. The tranquility of Lake Kariba was soothing after the first day on the road and our lodge – Eagle’s Rest, has an excellent location right on the banks of the lake. The next day took us across the Zambezi River by ferry and towards the Lower Zambezi National Park. The road to our lodge – Mvuu Lodge, was an adventure in itself and very much an eye-opener to the daily lives of the locals, who live in the small mud-hutted villages found along the road. We were greeted at Mvuu Lodge (meaning place of the Hippo) by a family of elephants who were feeding. Mvuu Lodge was a welcome respite after the bumpy road and the perfect spot to relax and enjoy the Lower Zambezi River.

On entering the city we immediately noticed how clean and lively it was especially considering it is a major town in Zambia with the typical congestion found in all major cities. Because of the delay while driving to Lusaka, we decided to overnight at a lodge located on the outskirts of the town, called Pioneer Camp. The friendly staff fixed us a hearty lunch which put a smile on our faces and the outside chairs by our comfortable chalets was the perfect spot for me to end the day as I watched the sunset.

Day 4, we had to travel out of Lusaka – which ended up being a much harder task than expected especially since we were caught in morning peak hour traffic. We drove along the M9 towards Kafue National Park, which has one of the most bushbuck species in Zambia. There were Puka’s for Africa in this reserve! The drive through the park ended up into a game experience with sightings mainly of the different bush buck species as well as the odd crocodile in the rivers. Our overnight camp for this day was Lufupa Camp. The camp is being upgraded since it was recently taken over by Wilderness Safaris and the staff is very much excited about this new venture since a new 5-star lodge is being developed on this property.

Our last day on our adventure showed us that not everything goes according to plan and that while you are on safari, you have to be flexible. Our plan was to travel to Lochinvar Park which has a huge variety of birds and is wonderful for the birding enthusiast, but due to delays on the road and some more wrong turns we unfortunately could not make it to the gate in time before closing.  We decided then to drive all the way back to Livingstone and arrived at the Zambezi Waterfront Lodge at about 10pm.

And so our Zambian adventure ended, with 3 very tired and dusty travellers but all enriched with a better awareness of what Zambia has to offer.