15 hours in coach is brutal. Why do the places we like to visit have to be so far away? Luckily, we both had window seats. Luckily, Moira had an empty middle seat next to her. Unluckily, I had a rather large gentleman who kept encroaching on my area so I spent half the flight curled up uncomfortable against the window.
We arrived in Joburg on Sunday at around 530. Having connected through there so many times, we know it pretty well. But Kensington had arranged for an escort to meet us - which we have known had we read our itinerary closer - get us through customs, and deposit us in the hotel van. He knew the magic password and did manage to get us in a shorter security line. It was for South Africans but apparently unnamed escort knows people as we got right through.
The airport hotel, chosen for convenience as we were leaving again the next morning, was comfortable, clean, convenient etc. The only notable thing to mention is that on Monday morning, when we opened our door to go to breakfast, the man across from us was also exiting, in full military uniform, compete with multicolored bars on his chest. Having seen the Hamilton PBS special on Friday, and in my case having the soundtrack be my primary iTunes playlist, we proceeded to both sing "here comes the general" for the next few hours. Thanks Lin Manuel Miranda for your ear worm music. No seriously...thanks. It is still amazing after all these listens.
We flew to Lusaka, Zambia's capital. Our pilot announced on the flight "as most of you know, today is Zambia's Independence Day." Most did not include the two of us, although Moira's book did tell us that Rhodesia became Zambia in 1964. So there's that. After waiting a bit on the runway, the pilot also told us "we didn't forget how to fly...we are just waiting for the other planes in front of us to take off." Good to know.
In Lusaka, we were met by another guy to escort us through security. This time, we were taken to the diplomat line. I am not sure it was shorter but it made us feel important. Cute guy, as Moira called our escort (not THAT kind of escort...get your mind out of the gutter) got our bags then deposited us next to a small restaurant where we had a 2.5 hour wait until our next flight. Our memories of Lusaka will be that it smelled like French fries (due to the restaurant where we got iced coffee) and that it was hot. Like no AC or fans type of hot. Keep that in mind as it will come up later.
We boarded a 4 PM flight to Mfuwe, which would take an hour and 10 minutes. Oh, and even though the prop plane was small, about 30 or so people, there was a flight attendant and we got drinks and potato chips. That is more than you get from the trash can in the sky, aka American Airlines, trademark Carrie Buse, on a 6 hour cross country flight.
Upon landing, we were met by Bwalia from Flatdogs camp. He told us the drive would take, what sounded like to me, either 15 or 50 minutes. When I asked again, it was 30. I love African time. There were a lot of people waking along the side of the road and on bikes. We did see a large group celebrating the holiday. We drove through Mfuwe which we were convinced we were pronouncing wrong and we actually weren't (Meh-fooey).
Upon arrival, we met Rachel who checked us in and Lydia, who escorted us to tent 8. Like other camps we have been to that are on or near parks or reserves, guests aren't allowed to walk anywhere at night without an escort (wow, we have a lot of escorts on this trip) and we need to be cautious during the day. At night, if we were in our tents and needed an escort, we had to wave our flashlight (aka torch) at the window and someone would come to us. Lydia also told us that we had to be careful to lock the tent and not leave anything in the bathroom (which was partially exposed to the elements) as the "cheeky monkeys" steal everything. We also had to surrender anything we had resembling food (good bye Werthers my old friend) as they said the elephants and hippos could smell any food, even if it was wrapped up.
Our tent was nice but hot. Like very hot and still. Easy bake oven hot. Moira declared pretty quickly that she was, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz, melting.
There were also a number of bugs, which made Moira decree that she wished she could be like small African children - and Hillary Clinton - and have bugs land on her without swatting them away. Looking for a break, we sent up the bat signal and an escort came. We visited the bar and had, as is our tradition, our first drink of the local beer - Mosi. It was quite delicious. Mostly because it was quite cold. The dinner was a la carte which isn't usual for safari camps and we are supposed to order in the afternoon. A lot of the day here revolves around food.
Back in our sweltering tent, we also discovered that the mosquito netting doesn't get rid of all the bugs. And even after taking showers, we were sweating again. This, along with jet lag and various animal sounds during the night - particularly hippos grunting, did not make for a good night's sleep. At one point there was an elephant near the tent, and a watchman's light somehow chased him away. At around 5 AM, as we were getting up, we heard crunching and munching and heavy steps, and realized a hippo was enjoying breakfast right next to our tent. As he was in no hurry, we had to wait awhile to walk out. Early breakfast, which consists of coffee, toast, cereal, and yogurt starts at 530 but we didn't feel safe leaving until close to 5:45. One of the camp workers was coming to meet us as we left. They were concerned, not because we might be in mortal danger from the most deadly animal in Africa, but more because they thought we overslept. When we explained the hippo, he told us that they patrol and would have told us it was dangerous to leave if they thought it was. Alrighty then.
Our guide was Bwalia who picked us up the day before. He likes to be very prompt. We had two others in our jeep - Chris and Miriam - who were together but not really a couple. Chris said they are both in academia. He is from England, worked at Oxford and is now a professor in Perth. Miriam is originally from Iran and lives in Germany. She arranges conferences where Chris speaks and they had one in Lusaka.
Flatdogs (which means alligators) is located right outside the main gate of Luanga National Park, which is 9,050 square kilometers. So it is big. According to Moira's book an Zambia, it rivals the better known Serengeti and Masai Mara. And is less crowded which is a bonus. It has pretty much every form of game except rhino. This camp does a morning drive from 6AM - 10AM and an evening one from 4PM - 8 PM, which essentially becomes a night drive. Within our first two drives, we pretty much saw everything below:
Elephants
Guinea fowl
Lots of hippos
Croc
Royal egret
Egyptian geese
Impala
Kookson wildebeest
Thorncroft giraffe
Crawshays zebra
Lion
Hyena
Civit
Baboons
Blue Monkeys
Leopard
African wild dog
Buffalo
Warthog
Eagle owl
Some highlights include:
- Watching a family of 6 elephants cross the river bed (which is mostly dry) and ascend up the bank
- Following a lactating lion looking for its next meal (although the it never pounced) and then seeing 5 lions sleeping in the shade
- Seeing wild dogs which, while not one of our favorites due to how mean they are, just recently returned to this area
- Spotting a leopard, briefly, in the night
- Watching, and hearing, a lion finish off an impala it killed. I would post the video but it's a little disturbing.
I should also note we met a number of nice people at the camp. Adrian and Jessie are British and the owners. Wendy and Jamie are Australian and the camp managers. They moved here 8 months ago to run the camp for a year and just re-upped for another year. Jamie used to sell mobile phones while Wendy was a travel agent. They are grandparents (though I would put them in their late 50s) and just decided to do this for a life change. Moira and I debated whether we could do that. She instantly said no because it was too hot and she wouldn't want to have to be nice to everyone all the time. I said yes, I could do 6 months to a year. But then I realized while I could get good South African wine, there are no iced lattes around. And I would miss my DVR. Which means I guess I won't be a safari camp manager.
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