A safari on foot in the big, bad wilderness is amazing – and nerve-racking
SOURCE:Sydney Morning Herald|BY:Steve Madgwick
For the next two days, we’ll walk in single file, always, so animals see us as one big thing, giving them unambiguous escape routes.
I’m more likely to bump into Bruce and Richard than I am an elephant while stomping through head-high elephant grass. Even that’s unlikely, however, because Lawrence knows precisely where these lions were roaming and roaring this morning.
My left and right are blond grass and celeste sky. I don’t dare look behind me, even though I’m last in line; a challenge-free meal. Guide Lawrence Banda talks as calculatingly and slowly as he walks, five paces in front, carrying a wooden staff, binoculars, a belt-mounted multi-tool yet no water bottle. Peter parts the grass in front of him, dressed in ranger fatigues. His vanguard eyes are ever-scanning; his hefty Soviet-era rifle simultaneously reassuring and off-putting.
The grass crackles, murmurs and whispers as we clomp through it. I conjure an image of a ready-to-pounce Christopher, but Lawrence reckons his favourite leopard is sated now, after dining on a middling-sized antelope right in front of our starting-point, Tide + Tide Luwi camp in South Luangwa National Park, eastern Zambia.
Feel the tension rising? Readying yourself for that jump-scare moment, when the snarling [insert beast] charges and the rifle pops? Well, you’re barking up the wrong acacia tree if you think that’s an average day on a walking safari. In fact, if your guide promises you close encounters with anything less timid than a baby impala, then flee for your very life.
Hippo greets the day... South Luangwa National Park, Zambia.iStock
Beforehand, I sit with Lawrence on a stuffed-leather couch of Tide + Tide Luwi’s open-sided lounge “island”, in the splendid shade of Natal Mahogany and Matumi trees, almost spraying my G&T listening to him describe big-cat kills he’s witnessed from this vantage point. At this point, the very idea of wandering into the realm of southern African predators on an overnight walking safari still feels ludicrous.
Gamesmanship over, Lawrence begins to lower my red flags, as I down the morsels of three-egg omelette cooked on the campfire by chef Annity. First thing to know? Walking and truck safaris are diametrically opposed beasts with vastly different dynamics.
For the next two days, we’ll walk in single file, always, so animals see us as one big thing, giving them unambiguous escape routes. We will move calmly and slowly, sometimes painfully so. Surprising a predator or large ruminant is a potentially fatal mistake. Most predators, including those mighty lions, apparently consider us to be the apex predator, but our goal is to stay far away and generally seem non-threatening.
The contrast of where I’m sitting now and where I’m about to walk into is not lost on me. Tide + Tide Luwi’s four tents are the most well-appointed of the six remote “traditional-style” bush camps at which I’ll stay during my FIFO journey around three of Zambia’s national parks. Their al fresco bathrooms are masterpieces of remote convenience, even if the solar-heated water takes a minute or two to warm up.
I plop my empty G&T glass on the vintage-look campaign trunk, peel my bum off the couch, don my daypack and simply follow Lawrence and Peter into the bush; now at the whim of this 9050-square-kilomotre national park and its stacked entourage. South Luangwa heaves with wildlife because of the wild, dynamic and undammed Luangwa River.
Tea and G&T time.
The park has a prolific leopard population, at least 10 lion prides, more than 20,000 hippos, and significant numbers of African wild dogs and elephants. The endemic Thornicroft’s giraffe makes its home here, and there’s enough birdlife (about 400 species) to make seasoned twitchers twitch uncontrollably. In South Luangwa’s minus column: It has “only” four out of the Big Five. Rhinos were poached out of existence here last century.
We follow “hippo highways”, trails worn into the savannah by these cute brutes who prefer to plant soft feet on soft ground. Sparse diminutive shrubs thicken into Mopane woodland in sections; leaves glow burnt-orange in dry-season death throes. The desiccated ground is thirsty, scorched in patches, backburned by national park authorities because grazers – like the dramatically striped Crawshay’s zebra – won’t eat long, dried grass.
Lawrence’s left-hand rises. Across the dry Luwi River-bed, three elephants trim mopane trees of their leaves. Wordlessly, Lawrence kicks up dust with his left boot, gauging wind direction, motioning me to freeze. Ideally, they’ll smell us and wander away. The slight wind, however, blows towards us so we begin what turns out to be colossal detour around them.
The safari tents under a grove of ancient mahogany trees.
At the time, the deviation seems hyper-cautious, joy-killing even, given that the elephants seem like toys on the far horizon. I only truly comprehend how crucial giving pachyderms their space is months after I return home. In July, in this very national park, much closer to Luangwa River, two women are killed on a walking safari by a nursing elephant. We will detour many more times today.
The safari’s slow-burn tempo naturally focuses my attention on the savannah’s minutiae. I grasp the disproportionately massive effect that tiny grass-devouring termites have on this ecosystem, forcing hippos to commute ever-increasing distances from the rivers for food. The sandy ground narrates infinite stories. A single quill and scratch marks outside an abandoned aardvark burrow tells us that a porcupine has beaten honey badgers and wild dogs to this free home.
We follow two pairs of lion tracks along a sandy trail, crossed by a single leopard’s, all long gone now – probably. The veiny smoosh of elephant feet is the most wondrous sight – inconceivably shallow and delicate, given their heft. We play endless rounds of Guess That Poo. I note that spotted hyena scat is whitish, thanks to the animal’s high-calcium/bone-rich diet.
Base camp overlooks a floodplain that attracts hippos and elephants.
On a high bank, we scan a remnant pool of water in the otherwise dry riverbed. No hippos about, for once, but there are telltale swirls in the sand – sneaky, snack-seeking crocodiles. Lawrence spots a buffalo herd with his binoculars, just grazing like domesticated bovines, seemingly insouciant towards the bipedal interlopers.
He scans the herd’s peripheries, looking for unpredictable and aggressive solo males – kakuli. Near the national park’s gates, where there’s a higher density of camps, animals tend to be more “habituated” to humans. However, out here – and at Luwi and its neighbour bush camp Nkozni (Gavin Opie Safaris) – they can be warier and react “differently”, says Lawrence.
I know the drill. Stop and watch for hand signals. Peter’s .375-caliber cannon is a supreme warning-shot noisemaker, with the force to stop any land mammal in its tracks, but the gun is reserved for the absolute worst-case scenario. He is not here to shoot animals. Peter also has the unenviable job of placing himself between us and any stampeding danger. So begins our next detour.
The simple things … a solar-powered camp shower.
These tactics and techniques were developed in South Luangwa by safari-legend Norman Carr. In the 1950s, the British conservationist reportedly persuaded a local chief to allocate some tribal land for a game reserve (back when Zambia was Northern Rhodesia). Carr began a game-viewing camp, which focused on safaris where the only shots came from camera shutters.
Buffaloes avoided, we trek directly up the riverbed’s beach-paradise-white sand, the day’s heat ebbing. The savannah sticks to me; my face is a camouflage of muddy sunscreen sweat; my boots like clumps of dirt. Up ahead, small specks shift and stir. Lawrence walks on. An irrefutable meat scent swirls into my dirt-caked nostrils.
Two white prisms – insect nets surrounding our bedrolls – sit on sand that will be metres underwater in wet season. Three figures assemble in welcome, one motioning me towards the makeshift, white-table-clothed bar. The Bombay Sapphire gin bottle’s trademark mouthwash-blue contrasts chimerically with the falling dusk.
Sundowners … South Luangwa sleepout.
Barmen/waiter Mike pours me a G&T and hands me a bowl of popcorn and jerky. Chef Benwell, red-eyed from the smoking brai/barbecue, suggests dinner is nigh. I pop into the shower-half of the canvas bathroom tent, scrubbing the day’s soil and toil off me with water that’s been solar heating since this morning’s set-up.
Lawrence and I share a bottle of Alvi’s Drift Shiraz (Western Cape, South Africa) over three courses that include traditional nshima (mealie/maize) and a bonhomous beef stew. We retire to bean-chairs by a campfire that crackles with slow-burning, chainsaw-blunting Mopani wood. So much to discuss but we choose silence.
Sleep under stars … with a lookout in place.
Outlying campfires are lit around the “Sleepout Under the Stars” camp to deter hyenas that’ll inevitably circle later tonight. Peter will stay up, rifle cocked, while the rest of us will keep our eyes peeled and ears open, whether we choose to or not.
Hot water is delivered to my bed-side receptacle. A final rinse. As recommended, I unroll my bedroll just before laying down; better to retain heat from the day and the hot-water bottle. Turkey-sized southern ground hornbills gossip in the waning light. Residual heat ascends into the insatiable Zambian sky; crescent moon squinting down.
My eyelids win the initial battle but snap open with every unfamiliar sound until sunrise, but I feel renewed regardless come campfire breakfast.
South Luangwa sleepout.
The details
Fly
Qantas flies from Sydney to Johannesburg non-stop. Connect to Lusaka, then Mfuwe with Airlink. See flyairlink.com
Stay
The Classic Safari Company (Sydney) tailors multi-camp Zambian itineraries. Prices for Time + Tide Luwi from $US940 a person a night (sleep-out extra). Flights extra. See classicsafaricompany.com.au
Essentials
You must access a tourist visa on arrival (90-day).
Consult your doctor about malaria.
The high/dry safari season is May-November.
The writer was a guest of The Classic Safari Company.
CORRECTION
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the rate per person at Time + Tide Luwi as $US9400 a night. This should have said $US940 per night.
