We are outside of Mfuwe, Zambia. Near the South Luangwa game park, where we do daily game drives in search of wild animals. And we have seen many of those!
Day 1: We arrived in our puddle jumper at the Mfuwe airport around 9am. Drove 45 min down dirt roads to the Robin Pope Safari accommodation which I thought was going to be a tent. Instead we pull up to this enormous 4 bedroom treehouse. The front door is a giant, mahogany thing that pivots in the center. Imagine a one paneled revolving door that resembles a ribeye with a skewer through the middle running top to bottom. Through that is a grand living room/dining area completely open on the backside which faces a deck, infinity pool and field filled with wild animals. We see elephants, giraffes, baboons and impalas in our backyard everyday. And they are not kept there, it is their natural stomping ground. We have a dock that stretches out into this land and we have lunch at the end of it every day at 11:30.
After a swim and a yummy lunch of vegetable quiche, salad, and pumpkin couscous we headed out for a game drive in the reserve. Right off the bat we saw a leopard eating the remains of an impala up in a tree. We saw hippos, zebras, and giraffes. We had cocktails at sunset overlooking a small river. We went back to the leopard tree and saw a hyena waiting at the bottom for scraps. It was all so very incredible.
We returned around 8pm for a 3 course dinner of pumpkin soup, baked chicken with vegetables and sticky toffee pudding. YUM.
Every room in the house is open to the outdoors. It's basically like sleeping outside. I am on the second floor in 'the metal room' called thus because of the large metal headboard behind my twin beds. I have a mosquito net, a deck with two chairs and screens and curtains that are pulled down around all the open spaces at night. I barely slept a wink the first night after waking up at midnight in the pitch black (the power had gone off) The fans were off. I was hot, sweaty and blind, and could hear every animal noise from outside plus the bat swarming around my room. I was terrified. I didn't know there were screens beyond the curtains and I pictured a baboon climbing up the tree outside my window and jumping in and ripping my face off. Now I'm used to all the animals, insects and reptiles and sleep like a baby, but that first night was very restless.
Day 2: Woke up at 5:30am by a knock on my door from one of the incredible staff here. We have Fred, Peter, Emanuel, Edward, and our guide, Obi. Obi and Emanuel are my favorites. Sweet, gentle souls. Breakfast is served at 5:45 and consists of porridge, toast (which I slather with Marmite mmmmm...) and fruit. After that and a black coffee, we are meant to be out the door at 6. We have been unable to to meet that goal thus far. I'm not naming any names, ahem. It's been more like 6:15.
So we pile into an open topped ute, drive to the river, get in a boat, go down and across the river to the park where we get in to another open topped vehicle and start our adventure.
First, we go back to check on the leopard tree. There's not a lot left of the impala kill and the son of the leopard we saw the night before was now there feeding on it. And more hyenas waiting for handouts. The leopard jumped down out of the tree right next to the hyena and hissed at it. We also see water buffalo. Highlight of the day was seeing an aggressive male elephant charge a male giraffe, butt him with his tusks and then chase him into the trees. All of this happened right in front of our truck.
We go home in time for lunch and go back out in the truck at 3:30 for our afternoon/evening drive where we find a lions pride consisting of 1 head male, 3 females and a young male. They are just sleeping in the grass. Eventually they wake up, use the facilities and move on. Obi predicts they will hunt this night, as their bellies looked empty.
Return for 8pm dinner of salad, beef with green beans and mushroom gravy, and ---. And lots of wine.
We turned up the music and had a dance party, kicked off by my brother and I doing a stellar performance to "Thrift Shop."
Slept like a baby and up at 5:30 again. On this mornings game drive we found the lions pride with a kill of a young zebra. Actually we found one lone female and, thanks to my alert hearing, tracked down the rest. The male was chowing down on the kill, the females and youngun lying in wait for their turn at the meal. As soon as the male stood up, announcing the end of his meal, there was a mass growling and all the rest of the pride pounced on the prey and made off with a leg or other chunk of zebra and went to it.
As we pulled away from the scene, Cathy noticed a leopard in the tree overlooking this whole thing! The same young male leopard we'd been watching the last couple days! He was perched up in the branches, staring at the lions. In the end, the lions went for water and he snuck down, waited til the coast was clear then went over to look for scraps. It was awesome too see this, and all the other inter-species interactions we've seen. Learned that impala sometimes hang with Puku because they need to be part of a group and get lonely. And now, during mating season, there are a lot of young males cast out from their herd on their own. This came up because we saw an impala male hanging with 2 Puku females and a baby one. I guess even the male Puku are ok with this because they won't mate outside their species so they are not a threat. So these impala males are basically like a gay best friend.
Came back for amazing lunch of chicken and veggie salad, broccoli, tomato tart and artichoke and mushroom pasta salad.
Watched a large family of elephant traipsing through our yard. They have a small baby who is still nursing and is adorable. There were 10 giraffes out and about. 2 were doing something very strange. They were just standing out in the sun, slamming each other with their long necks and little horns, and then they'd take a few steps and do it again. Need to ask Obi about that. Then saw hundreds of baboons come through our yard and leap frog over the creek like a hilarious high jump parody. Pretty soon the left side of the field was covered in monkeys!
We then went to a market and to the main drag of town which consisted of strips of run down, concrete shops selling their wares and services to the locals of the community.
Nap time. Awoken by something wet splashing onto my chest. Scream thinking its the frog I saw on my headboard the night before. As I come to my senses, I see a puddle of water next to me on the bed, then look down behind the headboard and see two legs connected to two feet. "Wait! Who is that??" I yell. Of course it was my brother who had come up and dumped water on me in my sleep. Hilarious. At least he thought he was.
Dinner of baked Aubergine, tomato and mozzarella stack. Divine. Followed by pork medallions wrapped in bacon with a mashed potato tower and shaved carrot. Lemon mousse for desert. I have to say, the meat here has been out if this world. It tastes so much better than the mass produced, hormone induced stuff we eat back home. You can just tell how fresh and natural it is. It tastes totally different. Tomorrow we start our day with a walking safari. Looking forward to getting some exercise. Goodnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment