muli shani

Day 117 (17/09/08) Cape McLear (Malawi) to Chipata (Zambia)
Muma Rula’s campsite
http://www.mumarulas.com/

Travelled: 391km

Debbie: We said our goodbyes to Katrien and Peter and hit the last of the good roads to Lilongwe where we found a nice little shopping center called Crossways. It had a supermarket, Steers, bank, internet and a BP fuel station. We were able to stock up on supplies and fuel before we hit Zambia where the price of everything is double anywhere else. We filled our tank as well as our Jerry Cans with diesel and then just before the border we filled our tank again just to be 100% topped up and at least not have to pay Zambia steep fuel prices for a few days. The border was irritating. For the first time ever we had to haul out our medical certificates and then you have to pay a carbon tax of ZK150000 and they wont accept US dollars. So you are forced to change money on the black market where you get a crap rate. You also get 2 different rates on the US$ - it depends on your note size. We had made sure we got low denominations of US$ notes and we ended up getting a terrible rate and would have got a better rate if we had had large US$ notes. We spent the night at a campsite in Chipata called Muma Rula’s.


Day 118 (18/09/08) Chipata to Luangwa Valley
Flat Dogs S13 06 05.1 E31 46 41.9
http://www.flatdogscamp.com/

Travelled: 133km

Debbie: The road into the park was not great – very corrugated. In the middle of know where you would suddenly get a tar bit which would last about 800m and then it would go back to dirt. It was only 130km so we could bare it. We looked at Croc Valley, Track ‘n Trail and Flat Dogs and decided to camp at Flat Dogs. You don’t get your own exclusive spot on the river and it’s busy but it was the same price as the others and you got a braai area, your own water tap, electricity, and it’s about 2km from the park gates. Also all these campsites are on steep river banks so there is not much to see on the river bar hippo. We so badly needed to charge our battery’s (camera, drill etc) and you can only charge on our inverter when you are driving and only 1 thing at a time, so we took full advantage of Flat Dog electricity! At Croc Valley the camping was cheaper at US$5 per person but the only nice spot was taken up by a huge overland group. While we were having a braai just after sunset we heard this huge chomping sound and discovered that a hippo was chomping the sausage tree fruit and the tree was right next to Bwana! She was about 4m away from us and was not put off by the camp noise and fires. Next thing an elephant rolled in also after sausage tree fruit. All night we heard chomping and even woke up to find a hippo right by our rooftop tent ladder.



Day 119 (19/09/09) Luangwa Valley
Flat Dogs Campsite

Travelled:

Debbie: Andrew had us up at 5.30am this morning so we could be in the park by 6am sharp ... another leopard hunt was on the agenda for the day. From the moment we entered the park we saw game round every corner and this continued for the whole day. We bought a park bird list and decided to see how many birds we could tick off the list which contained 487 different birds – we spotted 57 today. We found a bank full of carmine bee eaters and stopped to watch them for a while over a cup of coffee (S13 02 26.1 E31 51 39.4). Everytime we stopped for birds and a car came passed they all wanted to know what we were looking at and 90% of the time they were disappointed to find that it wasn’t a big five animal and only a bird. We found another nice spot for lunch right in front of a herd of elephants with some cute baby’s who were in the river cooling down as the temperature today reached 35 degrees. After lunch we happened to bump into a pride of 11 lionesses – they were all fat fat cats – having an afternoon kip. Then just down the road we bumped into a pride of 17 lions – males, females and cubs. It was really great to watch them as the cubs were playful but the adults wanted to rest so there was a lot of swatting and roaring. 11 hours later Andrew was starting to see imaginary leopards in almost every tree and before I got whiplash from all the slamming on breaks and reversing at pace we decided to call it a day and get out the park before our 1800 deadline. We have booked a 4 hour walking safari as well as a night game drive for tomorrow. We don’t have high hopes for them as we are not sure Flat Dogs rangers are the cream of the crop but it will at least be nice to do something different. Tonight the hippo was back for some sausage tree fruit and this time we didn’t hear her due to a rather loud man who was camped up behind us. Anyway we were sitting having a beer and next thing this hippo walks slap passed us (she was about 1m away from us) without a care in the world about us and only keen to get to the sausage tree on the other side of us – needless to say my heart did skip a beat! We then went to bed and next thing I know we have a rather large elephant slap bang next to us ... again after sausage tree fruit and making huge crunching noises right next to us. We were peering out our tent at it with a torch and didn’t dare get out our tents for the rest of the night.



Day 120 (20/09/09) Luangwa Valley

Travelled:

Debbie: We started today off with a walking safari. Yotum, our guide, was very good and we saw lots of the little things you miss on drives – like the little five – as well as herds of elephant, impala, zebra and kudu. He was very knowledgeable in his birds and trees. We walked for 4 hours and then had tea by a river before heading back to camp. Later on that afternoon we went on a night drive and we were very glad to have Yotum as our guide again. We were also lucky enough to only have 2 other people on our vehicle who couldn’t speak English and just sat there. Yotum spotted us a civet, mongoose, a huge male lion with his kill and then just as the park gates were closing he spotted 3 very cute cubs (about 6 months old) lying in the grass waiting for mom to bring back some food. Back at camp we had dinner at the restaurant before having a shower. As I came out the shower I was met by the rather large male resident elephant. I had to walk a huge circle back to the vehicle as the elephant was between Bwana and the bathroom and then he decided to be a bit cheeky and come close to us and then mock charge us right at the vehicle! The night watchman, Edwan, came to the rescue but all he has on him is a torch and he shone it on the elephant and stomped his feet which normally chases him off.... well not tonight! He mock charged Edwan as well so we decided to climb into the tent and leave the elephant alone.



Day121 (20/09/09) Luangwa Valley

Travelled:

Debbie: Today I’ve renamed myself Florence Nightingale. Andrew insists on not wearing shoes half the time and he got bitten by a tetsyfly on his food which has now swollen up and is all red and angry making it difficult for him to walk. As this is the 3rd time on this trip that this has happened (testy bite in Ruaha and a bee sting in Istanbul) he now thinks it’s not a bad idea to wear closed shoes... He has made himself comfy in the tent and I’ve been left to protect myself from some very cheeky baboons that have come into camp. They are not scared at all and walk right up to you. I had some bread snatched this morning from RIGHT under my nose but I’m now armed with a catty and stones and the baboons seem to know what a catty is and have not come near me again. A heard of elephant have also just wondered into the camp and I can hear the hippo all moaning in the water so life is not too bad! We have booked a morning and night drive again for tomorrow as it’s a lot nicer than going in our vehicle which is so heavy and hot. The vehicles here are all open and you tend to see a lot more birds and it’s better to take photo’s in. Also the rangers are not scared to go boondoo bashing down some of the roads where as we are a lot more cautious as we don’t want to break shocks. Flat Dogs has emptied out a lot and there are now only 3 vehicles here and so far no overland trucks have arrived so it’s very peaceful. Mr Loud Mouth is still here but he has found a chick and since she arrived he is not nearly so loud.


Game spotted:
Water buck
Hippo
Elephant
Zebra
Buffalo
Puku
Kudu
Bush Buck
Mongoose
Civet
Warthog
Baboon’s and monkey’s
Crocodile
Giraffe
Lion (a pride of 11 and a pride 17 with cubs and then 3 cubs cuddling together while mom hunted)


Day 133 (02/10/09) Kushiya Farm

Travelled:

Debbie: We left the Luangwa after a great morning drive around the park and headed back to Chipata where we spent the night at Muma Rula’s. Next day we drove to Lusaka and a semi decent road and arrived in Lusaka early afternoon to do a bit of shopping and then headed to Gavin and Lee’s house (my cousin and his wife) where we spent the night. The following morning we headed up to the farm in Mazabuka where we have been for the passed week and will stay here for a while. We have been loving the farm as there is so much going on that there is never a dull moment. Andrew has been put on culling duties as well as checking the game on the game farm and has just graduated to senior pivot manager. My skills have been tested in the farm office. Pieter and Katrien have joined us for a few days and Andrew, Ian and Pieter will represent the Lubombo district in a touch rugby tournament on Saturday at the Maz club. We have been fighting run away fires, going on game drives, feeding Lindsay’s cows with beer (the yeast in the beer helps with stomach issues) and helping with the planting.
Life is good!!

Day 165 (03/11/09) Kafue National Park
Kafwala Camp
http://www.wcsz.org.zm/kafwala_camp.htm

Debbie: Last week we were lucky enough to join my Aunt and Uncle at Kafwala camp in the Kafue National Park. The camp is owned by the Wildlife club so not anyone can go to it and we also had the whole camp to ourselves including a great cook and his team. We left the farm at 3.30am with our boat firmly attached behind us. Bwana was left at home as it would have taken us all day to get there with the Land Rover towing a boat so we drove up in one of my Uncles Land Cruisers .... Just after we entered the park Zulu, boat boy who was sitting on the back, tapped on the window. Andrew slowed down, wound down his window and we heard Zulu shout – “Bwana, bwana your exhaust is speaking in two voices ..”. Rather confused we stopped and in slowing down to a halt we heard the “second voice” which was a loud knocking sound. Turns out our back wheel on the cruiser was about to come off .... Needless to say there was a lot of banter after this episode as to how we should have come in the Land ROVER instead of the Land CRUISER. We arrived at Kafwala around lunch time and immediately went to launch the boats and set up fishing rods. There were 9 of us and 3 boats – the competition was on.

We spent the next 6 days doing the following:
05.00 Wake up and have condensed milk coffee
05.30 Fish, fish, fish
11.30 Have huge brunch back in camp
12.30 Sleep
15.30 Fish, fish, fish
19.00 The boat that caught the least fish begins to serve drinks ...

We did see quite a bit of game from the river – Elephant, Lions, Roan, Puku, Impala, Waterbuck, Warthogs and even managed to get chased in the boat by a pissed off Hippo (I didn’t let Andrew anchor us for a long time after that narrow escape!). The fishing was good – we caught a lot of pike and a few decent sized breem. Driving home was again eventful. For one it was Zambia’s voting day so we were careful to steer clear of major roads. We also managed to kill an Impala who darted across the road but lucky we had a huge bull bar on the cruiser so no damage was done to the car and it happened so fast we didn’t have time to break and do damage to the boat we were towing. We got home later on after a fantastic time.