South Luangwa National Park

Hello all,

The post before this one is the last two days (if it works!). As I mentioned in that post, we are currently staying at 'Wildlife Camp' in the middle of nowhere near South Luangwa National Park. 

I slept terribly last night! I got straight to sleep, but two men in the next campsite kept talking and woke me up all throughout the night. Once I was awake, I could hear hippos making their snorting/wheezing noises and walking around camp. Bear in mind these kill more people than lions! I could also hear lions. At 3am I was in trouble - something was walking around the camp, and my body went into fight/flight mode and decided I needed to go to the toilet. I held on for two hours unable to sleep because I didn't want to run into something on the way. At 5am when we woke I finally got to go! I hope tonight that doesn't happen again. 

This morning, ten of the 20 of us had breakfast and were picked up for a morning game drive by our guide BJ. Initially Rob hadn't signed up, but I said to him "what if we see a leopard? You'll never forgive yourself!" and *spoiler alert* - he was glad he decided to come too! 

South Luangwa National Park is about 9000 square kilometres. Today's game drive was different and probably better than Kruger because there were only a few other vehicles in the park and it felt more like the real Africa. 

We didn't see too much at the start, but once we got going we saw a fair bit! A hippo right near our camp, snake eagle, hornbills making cool mating calls to each other. Then we saw two mother elephants with four day old babies. They were SO cute! They were so young that they couldn't properly work their ears, trunks or stand up properly. Absolutely amazing!

We then saw a giraffe, crocodiles and then a family of elephants with another baby right next to us. Then we saw a herd of 100 buffalo which apparently is rare (it was huge!) and next an elephant that really wasn't happy with us. It started stamping its foot and throwing dirt - BJ stopped our truck and it was a bit scary!!

Next BJ said he could smell a leopard and some kill, so we were on a mission to spot a leopard. We found a puku (type of antelope) in a tree that had been killed and dragged up there by a leopard, but no leopard. So we stopped under a tree for a cup of tea and decided to try again after that. 

We were in luck - we went back to the tree and spotted the leopard in its undergrowth! Not only did we spot the leopard, it raised its head, yawned and walked around. BJ said we were extremely lucky especially in wet season to have such a good sighting. Dad's binoculars meant it was basically next to me in my line of vision! In actual fact we were 8-10m away. Incredible and a memory I won't forget!

Now we are back at the camp having a cocktail and a rest. Tonight we do a night safari and I hope we get to see our friend the leopard again, maybe eating this time!!

Wish me luck for sleep tonight!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox