Back from Zambia !!!
 

Hello All

I got back from Zambia last week after spending 8 nights in the Lower Zambezi National Park. I spent 5 nights at Chiawa Camp and 3 nights at Sausage Tree Camp.

I normally do video when on safari but I decided to try using a digital SLR this time. I took the camera out of the box used it in Zambia for the first time. I did not know what I was doing half the time so please accept my apologies the the quality of the photos (a link has been posted below).

I have never been a bird person before, but Zambia has changed that! Please correct me if the names of the birds are wrong.

I will provide more details of the trip soon, but some of the photos have stories in their titles.

Enjoy :)

http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/ShareL...2_832413270133

If the link does not work, please copy and paste the URL in to your browser

Gaurang,

I really enjoyed watching your beautiful photos!

Greetings,

Johan

So nice to see such recent photos. We leave in less than 2 weeks but will be in South Luangwa and across the river in Mana Pools. We're looking forward to the details!

The link I'm getting seems to be your personal link and is asking me to sign in as you!

Best way to share the link is to use the Share tab and send the email inviting friends to see your photos to your OWN email address. At the bottom of the email you receive will be the link to give out to others...

Loved your photos. Especially the monkey on the shower head and the lion cubs playing with daddy!
Thanks!

Great photos -- I really liked the martial eagle in profile. Thanks for sharing,

Michael

Your photos are terrific, I loved the action sequence of the lion cub crawling on daddy's head. This must have been very special to see in person.

Thank you for the encouraging comments.

Kavey...I just tried the link and it goes to my slideshow (i.e. click on the first picture).

Kodak Gallery with non-Internet Explorer browsers (e.g. mozilla firefox) does cause problems sometimes, as I found out recently when working with different browsers. It may be worth a try.

:)

Ah, I'll try it using IE instead!

Ah, I have discovered the problem! I was trying to view it whilst logged in so I could leave comments on pics but apparently my account at kodakgallery.com doesn't work for kodakgallery.co.uk! Oh well!

Lovely photos - some absolutely great ele shots plus wonderful images of the smaller things like crickets and butterflies and so on! Also really appreciate the accommodation pics too!

Oh and meant to include all the wonderful lion cub ones too - absolutely fantastic pics - really special! A couple of the ones with Douglas and a small cub are magical!

Thank you for the kind comments. :)
Regarding Douglas with the cubs, he is the most caring pride leader that I have seen in 10 years of safaris. He was very relaxed and really enjoying his time with the cubs.

But then again, Douglas is the first male lion that I have seen who has no competition from other males, and that also means the cubs are safer in that respect. It was a truly relaxed and happy family.

The guides told me that there was another male with Douglas, but he was killed last year by buffalo.

Loved the images, loved the captions. brilliant!
Cheers

Oh what fabulous photos!! Thank you!!

The lions, the leopard, that magnificent tortoise, the ellies, the majestic birds. It was as if the camera was looking at their insides as well as their outside.

Gaurang,

Great pics, thanks.....some great pics of elephants, birds and yes, Douglas and cubs too.....

Now that you tried SLR...what is your first choice for ur next safari? SLR or video? If i remember right, u hv a Botswana trip coming up.......

Thanks again.

Hari

I'm happy people are enjoying the photos.

Hari...I leave at the end of October and I will be in Botswana for 1 month. I will do both options, but probably more video than stills. I hope to have my final itinerary for Botswana confirmed this week.

What will you being doing during your August trip?

Hi Gaurang,

Your trip sounds awesome!!! One month must be fantastic....pl share your itinerary when you r confirmed.

As for me.......i start at Phinda Forest lodge for 2 nights and do their walking safaris for 3 nights. Then do 10 nights at Kwando camps (3n Lagoon, 4 n Lebala, 3n Little Kwara)/////mid-august trip......

Regards
Hari

Gaurang,

Sorry....misunderstood your question....i will do bit of both, but, mostly stills....

Hari

Hello All

I have done a short comparative review of Chiawa and Sausage Tree camps, based on our experience.

It is a tabled document, so it is difficult to post here. If anyone is interested, please email me and I will send you a copy as an attachment.
[email protected]

Hari, I really look forward to hearing about your trip, especially the 3-night walking safari.

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing! :-)

Thanks Favor....I'm not good at trip reports, so I try to add text to the pictures.

Africa~Great pictures, brought back a lot of memories of my trip to Lower Zambezi last year...it's a great place huh? Thanks for sharing!!

Africa,
Many thanks for sharing your well done photo journal. I particularly enjoyed your bird shots - stunning. The cubs and Douglas, of course, are priceless. Those hippo shots looked so nasty - could you see much to really tell what was happening?
Sherry

Thanks Dennis and Sherry

Regarding the hippo fight, it was far more horrific than the photos show us.

Even our guide and spotter drove straight past them and then asked us if we wanted to go back after explaining what was happening. Even they seemed a bit distressed, as one of the hippos had lost a lot of blood. The victim looked very weak and was still trying to run away, but would only manage about 10 meters before being attacked again. It was when the injured hippo moved towards our vehicle (for protection), our guide drove off at speed, as the aggressor was also moving towards our vehicle.

Gaurang,

Yep....sure thing

Hari

thanks for sharing the great photos, especially appreciated your comments

Wow, these are amazing -- thank you so much. I just love looking at them and the final sequence is fantastic.

These are incredible. Thank you so much for sharing.

Stakerk, Leely and Lisa - Thank you

TRIP REPORT

Introduction

This was the first time that I was leaving the “security” of East African safaris to venture into the unknown (5 previous safaris in East Africa).

The plan was to spend 10 days relaxing at a safari destination to celebrate my wife’s (Jayna) birthday and give her a well-deserved break. We wanted to stay in one location and at a maximum of 2 different camps. The options were narrowed down to Sabi Sands (SA) or the Lower Zambezi National Park (Zambia) and the thought of relaxing on the banks of the Zambezi river won it for me (together with the reputation of Chiawa Camp). It was Fodor’s and in particular Rocco’s posts that introduced me to Zambia, so I asked if he could help me to book this trip through his company. It was at very short notice (the idea was only presented to Rocco, 8 weeks before departure!!!), but Rocco done a great job and everything went smoothly and as planned. Living in London, Lusaka is only a 10 hour overnight BA flight with a 1 hour time-difference.

The itinerary was:

- 5 nights Chiawa Camp (superior luxury tent)
- 3 nights Sausage Tree Camp (honeymoon room)
- 1 night Taj Pamodzi (Lusaka)

This was also the most luxurious safari that I had ever booked (on my last safari, I spent nights sleeping in dome tents with a hole in the ground as my toilet) but it didn’t distort my thoughts from my main priority – GOOD GUIDING

Location

Zambia is unique on the African safari circuit as you are allowed to do night drives and walks within the National Parks. I love the thrill of night game-drives and all of my previous experiences had been in private reserves and conservation areas in Kenya.
After arriving in Lusaka, we still required the assistance of a light aircraft (25 minutes), a landcruiser (20 minutes) and a boat (15 minutes) – just to reach our first camp. Despite my love for the Mara river, the Zambezi was breathtaking and magical. During the transfer, the experience of speed-boating down the river and passing the curious animals on the banks, made me feel as though I was on my first ever safari. It was a wonderful new experience.
The LZNP was very green and bushy during our May visit. This made for some very suprising encounters during our game drives, including elephants that could hide but be just 10 meters away from the vehicle. During night-drives they would get as close as 3 meters before being seen – the most memorable encounter was when one elephant trumpeted in Jayna’s ear from 3 meters away during a night drive. The elephant was completely hidden by bushes at the side of the road and gave everyone a fright as we drove past. We also experienced some of our best “off-road” driving to date – very bumpy but enjoyable. The most amazing aspect of the LZNP park was it’s remoteness. I can remember 3-4 hour gamedrives where we did not encounter another vehicle. After spending so much time in East Africa – this was another new experience!!! Also, the guides from one camp will not radio guides from another camp if they find a good sighting – information was only passed on when guides crossed paths during gamedrives – and this was very rare!! During one gamedrive with Sausage Tree, whos guides had tracked down the lion pride, we passed a Chiawa vehicle and informed them of our find. Two Chiawa vehicles then followed us to the location and it was such a reassuringly pleasant affair. We were allowed to spend as much time as we wanted with the pride while the first Chiawa vehicle waited at least 25 meters away from us (and the second Chiawa vehicle waited a further 25 meters behind the first one). Not once did we feel rushed or crowded and the other vehicles even positioned themselves out of our view – so it was just us and the lions. Jayna and I have never seen such consideration for the animals or other guests during our East African safaris – another new experience!!!

Guiding

The guides at Chiawa (Joe, Daniel, Dispenser) and at Sausage Tree (Moses, Lawrence) were all young, highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic. After 10 years of safaris and reading, I thought I already new all there was to know about African wildlife – but I was wrong – I learnt so many more new and interesting facts about the flora and fauna. These guides made you sit up and want to listen. The guides in Zambia have to work hard to qualify, especially if they want to take clients on gamedrives, walks and canoe trips (all three activities would require obtaining +70% in a total of 3 written and 2 practical exams). The standard was fantastic. Another observation that I made was that guides who are based in just one park are far more in tune with their surroundings and that confidence leads to a greater sense of reassurance.

The Game

The game-viewing was not as prolific as in east Africa and you had to work hard to find the game, mainly due to the time of year (water was available throughout the valley and escarpments + visibility was reduced). In the peak of the dry season (September – October), the game-viewing is more spectacular as most of the animals come to the valley floor in search of food and water, resulting in herds of animals on the banks of the Zambezi. The animals here were very “wild” and skittish. This made photography more of a challenge but also made us appreciate the time we did spend with the animals. I had never been a “bird” person before but I did enjoy the challenge of trying to capture them on photo, as you’ll see from my many bird photos (this trip was first attempt at using an SLR camera). I think the main reason for this is that in all of my previous safaris, I have focussed on video – and it’s much easier to capture birds on video. The guide’s tracking skills were really tested at times and this made it more rewarding when the animals were found – a great sense of achievement for both yourself and your guide.

Highlights (there were so many but here are a few…)
- the 4 meter African Rock Python. It has taken me 10 years to find this amazing animal and it was such a beautiful one. It was found by Daniel (Chiawa) during a night drive and very close to the camp. That night Daniel was following a leopard who was in sight, but when he saw the python crossing the road, he left the leopard to stay with the python (that would have been my choice too because it is quite a rare sighting). They left a plastic bottle on the side of the road to mark the area close to the slow-moving python. Joe, who was our guide that night, found the marker and allowed me to get out of the vehicle and walk within 2 meters of the resting python. Surprisingly all of the ladies remained in the car!!! (As you may be able to tell – I love snakes, especially the constrictors).
- Watching two equal sized elephant bulls having a good old fight. They boxed for 3 rounds, with stops for feeding between each round. It was fascinating to watch and required us to reposition our vehicle when the big elephant dust-ball was moving close to our vehicle.
- Two wonderful leopard sightings.
- The wonderful interaction between a male lion and his young cubs.
- A pair of honey badgers sighted during the day time and very close to Sausage Tree camp.
- One hippo trying to kill another during a night game-drive. This is one sighting that I will remember for its cold-blooded brutality rather than its beauty.

Biggest Regret

- Jayna and I went for a game-drive every single morning EXCEPT one (at Chiawa) – where we decided to go for a guided walk instead. That morning the Chiawa game-drive found 3 wild dogs while they were hunting and by the time they caught up with them, they were already feeding on an impala. By the afternoon game-drive, the dogs had moved on. If someone had asked me before the trip to choose between wild dog and python - then python would have been my first choice (as I had seen wild dog before in South Africa).

More to follow soon ......

More more more! Can't wait!
:D

Your pictures are amazing - We are headed to Namibia in Sept., and in the process of researching cameras. What type of camera and lens did you use ?

Thanks !

Gaurang,

Great material so far! Before you get too much further along, I would propose that the actual trip report be placed in its own thread.

The Rock Python was an amazing sighting as was the hippo fight, unfortunate as it was for the defeated hippo.

Thanks Rocco - I will start a new thread titled "Trip Report - Lower Zambezi National Park" I will also incorporate the camera details and the info regarding the two camps (I'm getting quite a few requests by email) - please bare with me, it will be up soon. :)

How did I miss this? fabulous report and photos! OMG - you got some fabulous shots of Douglas - We only saw him once, in the bushes. LOVE that final sequence. Unbelievable. Brought back a lot of memories. Thanks!~

((@))

Thanks Cooncat.

As I was leaving the Lower Zambezi, the rest of the Fodorite army were just arriving - so I missed everyone.

The full report with some more pictures taken by my wife can be found here:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34819431