African Lion Safari!

Too excited to sleep, I lay in bed and tried to mentally prepare myself for my own personal 4 day “African Lion Safari”. No need to set the alarm, as the tap outside our window will be turned on no later than 5am and everyone will be milling about talking, shouting, crying or sweeping (a daily occurrence).

Jason and I woke up bright and early and excited to face the day. We gathered up our things and headed for the mini bus. We arrived at the Kiboko Hotel almost an hour and a half early. We didn't want to take any chances on being late as mini buses aren't exactly known for being reliable. We sat on the balcony of the hotel trying to cool off from our small morning hike from the minibus station to the hotel. We sat and waited for our driver and the other passengers to arrive. The balcony was the perfect place for us to have a light breakfast. Jason had bought some apricots, paw paws and the smallest peaches I had ever seen. The fresh fruit was a nice treat and a great way to start the day. We met the other passengers 2 minutes before boarding a Land Rover together. We were traveling with a couple of Medical Researchers from Germany in their 50's named Gerd and Claudia. They sat in the middle row and Jason and I sat in the rear seat for about 30 seconds until we realized that we couldn't sit without our heads touching the roof. We regrouped and soon we were off to Chipata the border town 2 hours from Lilongwe between Malawi and Zambia.

When we arrived at the border there were no lines of cars or people. It was fairly barren except for the taxi drivers and the money handlers. Luckily for us we had booked our trip 2 weeks in advance and were exempted from paying for a Zambian visa. We filled out all the paper work, showed them that our yellow fever vaccines were up to date, got our passports stamped and then preceded to the Zambian border. Our visit at the Zambian border was the mirror image of our time at the Malawian border, except for one tiny detail. When I was filling out the paper work, I wrote LIEBREGTS instead of TEIXEIRA. I asked for a new form and the customs guard said, “What is the problem? Don't you know your last name.” “Yes Sir. I know my last name. I accidentally put down my maiden name. It is an honest mistake.” “How long have you been married?” he said to me with one eyebrow raised. “Ummm 3 years” I said trying not to turn red. The customs guard now had both of his eyebrows raised and luckily he decided to give me a new form and no hassles. Phew! With all the forms filled out, we were now in Zambia and making the 5 hour journey to South Luangwa Park (SLP). We made a quick stop half way to enjoy a delicious picnic lunch. The road to the SLP is fairly good most of the way. The last 2 ½ hours are quite bumpy and uncomfortable. They were grading the road and the places were the road wasn't being repaired were in horrible states. We were lucky that we had a 4 WD vehicle or else we might not have made the trip. When we arrived at the Kiboko camp I had to peel myself off of the seat. The heat was incredible and exhausting. Every seat in the Land Rover was covered in pools of sweat that left marks on the seats. The temperature was 43C and the heat from the engine didn't help to cool things off. We unloaded our gear and headed for our tent. This was no ordinary tent. It was very similar to the tents that the army uses. The tents were on raised concrete platforms complete with beds, a bedside table, 2 Bibles, a shelf, bug nets and electricity. There was a pleasant grass hut behind our tent which was our washroom. As we were unpacking our bags we could hear the sounds of Hippos. They sounded extremely close so Jason and I decided to go and investigate. I read up on hippos and everyone tells you that they are very dangerous and surprisingly fast. If you get between a hippo and the water, the hippo will feel threatened and may attack. With this in mind we set out to find the hippos. During our safety briefing, we were told not to go beyond the boundaries of the camp because of all the animals that were around. Our camp wasn't in the park itself. It was a 10 minute drive from the main gate and it sat directly across from the park. The only thing that separated the SLP from the Kiboko camp was an almost dried up river bed. We started walking and we could hear the hippo's getting louder which meant they were getting closer. At this point I was terrified. “Um Jason. I think we should go back to the camp. We aren't even supposed to be out here. What if a hippo is up here? What if a lion is up here? Let's go back.” “Relax Erin. We will be fine. Besides, if there is something up here, I can run faster than you, so I have nothing to worry about.” At that point I pretty much stopped walking until I found myself alone. I caught up to Jason and we finally found the hippos. They were still off in the distance in the middle of the river, so Jason finally agreed to go back to camp.

A nice spaghetti Bolognese dinner was waiting for us when we returned. We sat down to eat and to get to know our German friends a little better. Gerd has traveled all over the world and has been on safari adventures before. His first trip to Africa was on a ship when he was 15 years old. Claudia has been all over the world as well and they were spending the next month exploring parts of Southern Africa, as they had already explored most of the west and the east parts of the continent. They were very down to earth people and we got along with them very well and enjoyed their company.

The night was very warm so I thought that I would have a cool shower before heading to bed. Since living in Kawale I have had to make a fire and heat up water for my daily baths. I was looking forward to just being able to hop into the shower and adjust the water to the desired temperature. Jason escorted me to the shower (I was supposed to get the night watchmen after dark, but the washroom was only 30 feet away). I went in and let out a tiny little shriek, there were white, albino frogs everywhere. Well, maybe only 3, but 3 too many in my opinion. Once I realized that I was safe from the frogs, I turned on the tap to enjoy a nice shower. The shower felt amazing; the only problem was the temperature. The water was HOT. I wanted a cool shower to help cool me off from the hot day, but for the entire trip there was no cold water to be found. I guess it was a trade off, to have a hot shower or a cold bucket shower. I preferred the first option. After my hot shower I hopped into bed, and tried to fall asleep in the heat. Jason was lying on his bed covered in sweat and moaning as if he were in pain. He couldn't take the heat or sleep. I had a hard getting to sleep, but I realized that the only way I could avoid feeling uncomfortable was to fall asleep. I woke up several times during the night. I could hear animals all around us. They were walking around or making all sorts of noises. I could hear baboons, elephants, hippos, crickets and frogs. It was nice to hear, but knowing that the only thing that separated us from these animals was a thin canvas tent, was not exactly comforting. I asked the night watchman if he could wake us up when there were elephants in the camp and the watchman said that he would. I guess there must have been something lost in translation because the he never woke us once. Every morning we were told about all of the elephants walking around the camp, near our tent, at one point there were 12 elephants in the camp at once. I thought that elephants would be really loud when they walk, but surprisingly they are relatively quiet.

Reveille was at 5am.. We were to have a small breakfast of tea and toast before heading out at 5:45am.. I had toast with butter, peanut butter and jam, and a hot cup of tea with milk. It tasted heavenly. We grabbed our day packs and headed to the Land Rover. The Land Rover that we used to drive around the park in was different from the Land Rover that we arrived in. This Land Rover fit 2 people in the front and then behind the front seat there were 3 rows of seats which could hold 4-5 people each. Since there were only 4 of us plus our guide Geoffrey, we had lots of room.

As we started our 10 minute drive to the park we saw Baboons all around the camp. They did not seem afraid of the vehicle and just looked at us with odd expressions as if to say, “What are you doing here?” We slowed down to take a couple of pictures, but Geoffrey assured us that we would see plenty of Baboons once we entered the park. We arrived at the park gate and drove over a bridge crossing the same river that separates our camp from the park. As we were crossing the river we got very excited as we could see crocodiles and hippos below us. It was amazing how many hippos were cavorting in the waters below. There were at least 40 that I could see from the bridge, but I could only see pink little ears and a few eyes sticking out of the water. After we were finished we made our journey along the rest of the park. The park was so calm and relaxing. Since the sun had just finished rising, all the animals were out looking for breakfast. We came across some Impala on the side of the road. They had absolutely no fear of the vehicle or us which allowed us to get close. Impala's seemed to be everywhere. You couldn't go more then 500m without seeing some sort of wildlife, but typically it would be an impala. During our morning drive we seemed to have come across almost every animal in the park. Jason was quite fascinated by all the different species of birds in the park. It almost seemed as if he was there strictly for the birds. Geoffrey was an excellent guide and was able to identify all of the wildlife, including 43 birds that we saw out of the 400 species of birds recorded in the park. We were peppering Geoffrey with questions and he seemed to really enjoy answering them all. There was such an ease about the way he answered questions. Later on that evening we found out that Geoffrey guided Steve Erwin (a.k.a. The Crocodile Hunter) and his crew through the park and helped them to locate crocodiles. At around 9:30am we parked the Land Rover along one of the plains and had a small break with tea and biscuits. Then we were off to find the lions that had been eluding us all morning. We passed another safari vehicle and there was an exchange of words amongst the drivers and then we were off again. Geoffrey slowed down and turned to us and said, “don't stand up when you see the lions.” Then he pulled the vehicle beside a bush and voila, lions! There were two male lions sleeping in the shade. One of the lions looked up to see what was disturbing him, and once he realized it was another group of tourists he lay back down. They both just laid there sleeping, it was quite disappointing really. They look like they are dead in the photos! After we saw the lions, we made our way back to the camp for brunch. Brunch was delicious! We had more tea and toast, followed with omelets and quiche. Yum! After brunch we had down time to do whatever we wanted until 3:30pm.. Jason and I grabbed the camp's telescope and tried to find wildlife in the river and across the banks. We also went to the pool and bar area and mingled with other guests from all over the world. One of our nice finds was the Bailey family from Canada. It was such a comforting feeling to speak to Canadians. We spent the rest of the afternoon discussing all sorts of topics with them and enjoying their company. The pool was a called a hippo pool. The edges were all curved so that you could walk right in. The reason for this was because to many hippos have come up from the river and gotten stuck in the pool. I was a little hesitant to go in the pool because of its murky green colour and the possibility of a crocodile lying at the bottom. The heat (46C now) overcame me and I had to go in the pool to cool down. Like the shower, there was no cold water to be found. It was like sitting in a hot tub, without the jets of course. I got out of the pool and my body including my hair was completely dry within 15 minutes!

We had a small snack of banana muffins before heading back to the park for our night drive. We wanted to see some more lions so we headed back to where the lions were sleeping. The lions had moved off, but they hadn't moved far. They had only moved to another bush 50feet away from the original bush. I wanted the driver to honk the horn, rev the engine, just to do something to make the lions move. I guess that would have provoked the lions too much so we just sat and watched them sleep, again. In the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight…and all day long too! We drove around the park for about an hour, spotted more wildlife and pulled the vehicle over to watch the sunset while enjoying tea, biscuits and more banana muffins.

Now it was time for the night drive. Henry was in the passenger seat and his job was to be the spotter. Henry held a 3.5 million candle powered light and his job was to look for nocturnal animals. Before the drive Geoffrey gave us another briefing, “Henry is going to be our spotter. We are looking strictly for nocturnal species. We will not be stopping for anything that you can see during the day. We are mainly looking for leopards and jaguars who hang out in the trees.” Leopards and jaguars! This was going to be really exciting. We started driving and Henry had the torch out. He was moving the torch quickly from side to side looking for any sort of reflection off an animal's eyes, or for specific movements. As Henry moved the torch around you could see everyone in the vehicle turning their heads to follow the light. It reminded me of a crowd of people watching a tennis match with heads following the ball back and forth across the tennis court. The light was too hard to follow so I decided to let Henry do the hard work. He would let us know when he spotted something. I sat back and enjoyed the ride. I could see all sorts of other animals as we were driving by. I wanted to stop to watch them but since they were not nocturnal, we were not stopping. As we were driving we could see all of the other vehicles in the park doing the night drive as well. There were many spotlights searching in all directions. It looked like we were the police looking for fugitives on the run. One of the first nocturnal species we came across was the hyena. I have seen bigger hyena in Lilongwe, but this one was moving slowly across the field and didn't seem to really mind that we were shining a 3.5 million candle powered light in its eye. We spent almost 2 hours driving around looking for leopards and jaguars, but none were to be found. We came across other animals, but nothing as impressive as the big cats would have been.

We went back to the camp to enjoy a chili con carne dinner with a salad, rice and nsima. For dessert we had lightly fried banana which for me, was surprisingly tasty.

The next morning we followed the same routine as the day before. The first day we were all excited and giddy when we came across an animal. The next day we were all much calmer and could really enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of watching the animals in their natural habitat. The only thing that was a little different was that we saw the lions roaming around an open field and we also saw a lioness. The night drive was a little more successful as well. We saw a beautiful owl and 3-4 different hyenas. One hyena was running down the road right in front of us. I think it was blinded by all of the lights and had nowhere to go. Again we were unable to locate the majestic cats that roamed the park…maybe I will find them on my next safari!

Sunday morning I woke up bright and early to take in the beauty of the camp and its surroundings one last time. We had a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage and headed back to Malawi. On our way back we stopped at a textile shop. Almost 50 people from the surrounding villages are employed here. We arrived very early so the shop was just opening so we weren't able to see any textiles being made. The textiles were beautiful. Everything from the material to the paintings to the embroidery was all done by hand. It was simply exquisite. The prices were expensive, but again reasonable considering that everything was done entirely by hand. We only spent 40 minutes in the shop as we still had a long drive a head of us. I could have spent hours in there admiring all of the textiles and watching the artists hard at work. We all piled backed into the Land Rover and made our way back to Lilongwe. South Luangwa Park was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I will cherish the small time that Jason and I spent there and hope that one day we can return for another visit.