Living The Life of Luxury...Luangwa Style

South Luangwa LIVING THE LIFE OF LUXURY…

Luangwa Style

Writer: Sarah Kingdom Photography: Chikunto Safaris

Having spent three fabulous days on a walking safari at the remote Mapazi Camp in South Luangwa National Park, we were ready for some pampering and luxury. Our days spent walking were some of the best days we had ever spent in the bush in Zambia. We had walked with lions and leopards; we had seen giraffe, bushbuck, eland, kudu, hippo and a myriad of other animals whilst on foot. But South Luangwa in October is HOT, and walking for six hours a day, albeit in the relative ‘cool’ of early morning and late afternoon, combined with the adrenalin of some of our close encounters, was still quite draining. So it was with great anticipation that we arrived at Chikunto Safari Lodge, an hour’s drive from the park’s main gate…and we were not disappointed.

Along the way we passed a waterhole which, surprisingly, and given the time of year, still held some water. Four large male kudu browsed in the bushes, their impressive spiral horns entwined in the foliage. A warthog family with three tea-cup-sized piglets trotted off as we passed. Two adult saddle-billed storks dipped their beaks in the muddy water, whilst their two offspring did the same close by. Not yet possessing the distinctively striking plumage of their parents, the youngsters looked like gawky adolescents with their rather drab greyish-black feathers. Various other water birds splashed and waded, watched by a bachelor herd of puku and a lone, regal giraffe, who stood tall with his deeply scarred knobbly knees and missing the tuft on the end of his tail.

Chikunto is a stunning lodge, sporting stylish, sophisticated décor with beautifully appointed spacious rooms and connected to a state-of-the-art solar system that runs the entire lodge. Cool, crisp white sheets and a fan overhead made a welcome place for a siesta after a swim in the lodge’s very inviting salt water swimming pool. As the afternoon cooled slightly we headed out on a game drive. It felt strange to be back at this vantage point and travelling at such ‘speed’ after our days spent walking at Mapazi. On a walking safari you need to exercise caution when approaching wildlife on foot; here, in a vehicle, we could get a lot closer. This afternoon found us very close indeed to a pair of lions. Clearly tired out from earlier romantic activities, they now lay almost motionless in the sand, with only the occasional flick of a tail swishing away flies indicating they were alive.

On our way to Mapazi a few days earlier we had stopped on the river bank and witnessed first-hand the savagery of the

bush. A large herd of buffalo had come to the river to drink but the water was full of crocodiles. As they drank, one of the young calves was grabbed by a croc and dragged into the water. En masse, the herd swung away from the water in alarm, and in the ensuing mêlée, as they stamped up the embankment, a female had tripped and tumbled down the bank, breaking her foreleg. Now she lay in the baking hot sun, wedged in a gully, unable to extricate herself. Her fate was inevitable, but how long it would take her to die we didn’t know. Three days later we came back to see what had happened. She had lain, immobile, for over 36 hours, before a pride of eight lions had killed and consumed her. They had stripped her body of skin, flesh and sinew, until all that remained was an intact skeleton, still wedged in the gully. This was no sugarcoated ‘Disney’ movie— this was the African bush in all its reality—the real ‘circle of life’. Another scene that we came across further exemplified the way life in the bush is played out. A fairly well-camouflaged leopard was up in a tree, chewing on a bushbuck carcass. We noticed though that a fair-sized portion of her kill had tumbled from the branch on which she lay, some becoming entangled in the branches on the way down. As we watched, the leopard stood up, stretched and descended gracefully to the ground. It was then that we realised just how much had slipped from her grasp. She settled on the forest floor to eat again, working first on the leg and then the jawbone of her prey; we could hear the violent crunches of bones breaking in her mouth.

For me, the highlight of our drive was a young spotted hyena, sitting up alertly, looking rather like the sort of domestic dog that would be referred to affectionately as ‘a bit of a mongrel’. Clearly more bothered by the flies than our presence, we had a good sighting of this, my personal favourite African animal, and once again I thought it rather unfair how much maligned these creatures are.

Dinner at Chikunto is a special experience. Arriving back at the lodge after our afternoon game drive, complete with sundowners, we were greeted with a tray of cool, damp washcloths to wipe away the afternoon’s dust. After freshening up and changing for dinner, we came back to enjoy a pre-dinner drink by the fire. Even in the heat of October in the Valley, an open fire is still mesmerising…though we didn’t draw our chairs as close to the flames as we would have in winter! The main lodge area is as beautiful as the rooms, once again with stylish décor and furnishings and a beautiful lounge and bar area all opening out onto decking over the river bank, and it was here we ate our dinner...a perfectly prepared and presented gourmet three-course meal, served under the stars. Courses were described and explained, and suitable wines were offered. It was an evening of extravagance in the bush.