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| Strange visitors at the campground |
From the border it was not far to Chipata. Here, I spent the night in
Deans Hill View Lodge. A very relaxed and inexpensive lodge with the
best (hot) showers for a long time. Dean is from England and likes to
help travellers with all kinds of information. Dean knows a young local
man, who offers a taxi service to South Luangwa National Park. The
insiders info that the young man had to fetch customers in the park was a
good one and it was a lot easier then to discuss the price of my
journey going there…
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| Crazy driver in the park |
You can also go there on public transport or by hitch hiking, but it
is very time consuming and one can easily spend a whole day on this
dusty road. In this nice taxi, it took me only 2 hours.
Croc Valley Camp is located directly along river Luangwa only a few
kilometers of the national park entrance. Due to the nearness to the
river there are quite a view regular animal visitors in the camp. During
the day we had a visit of some elephants. Apparently they do not have
affection for small yellow tents (as mine!)… Anyway, the camp manager
made me leave my tent in a hurry, when the elephants came too close. The
elephants were apparently quite attracted by my tent and got closer as I
wanted them to be (especially, as I was laying in there)…
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| Big cats already waiting |
South Luangwa National Park is one of few national parks, where they
offer night game drives. Rather exciting thing, because then you can see
the nocturnal animals. Of course hippos, but also hyenas and leopards,
smaller bush cats and a lot more. The entry fee of 20 US is valid for 24
hours, so most people combine a night and a day game drive on the same
ticket. During daytime there are many elephants, different antelopes,
zebras, giraffes and lions.
Unfortunately, our safari van driver was not exactly the best of all
Zambian drivers and put our vehicle twice in the sand. We got stuck so
badly, that all guests – despite the lions around – had to get out of
the car and push….
As all this took us nearly two hours, our group got a free game drive
the following day…. Unfortunately, it was the same driver who tried
something new this day and got stuck in a gig hole on the track. So, we
had to raise the vehicle by carriage siphon and stones on one side to
get free again!
The way back of the national park to Chipata
was easy travelling,
because I was invited to join to a group of italians in a small truck.
This was comfortable travelling for these 3 hours to Chipata, thanks a
lot to Francesca and Stefano for their help!
The next day, I went by bus to Lusaka. That is about 7-hour journey
through a very dry area. Every now and then, there are small villages,
otherwise prickly bushes, some bundles yellow grass and a more or less
straight street.
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| Lusaka |
Lusaka is the capital of Zambia. It has got a very modern centre with
quite a few skyscrapers, which reminded me of soviet constructions. In
the main street, there are many banks, assurances, a big supermarket and
some boutiques, also lots of fast food restaurants, mostly chains from
South Africa.
A little bit outside the centre, there are two big shopping malls,
which could just stand in Europe or America. There is also an
uninspiring museum, some not really attractive markets – that’s it
basically!
No wonder, that this is not really a tourist
The way back of the national park to Chipata
