ZAMBIA | NORTH LUANGWA CONSERVATION
REMOTE AND WILD: Luangwa’s exploring North new self-drive circuit [ WRITER / PHOTO: Mana Meadows ]
In late 2021, the North Luangwa Conservation Programme launched its first tourism circuit – a self-drive loop that brings together some of North Luangwa National Park’s finest undiscovered northern areas, opening up parts of the park that were previously inaccessible. It was still early in the morning: the moon was so bright that it seemed just a shade darker than twilight. A sharp snort had woken me. Half asleep, but somehow also sharply alert, I sat up, mind scrambling … Buffalo? Hippo?
Lion?! Then, I heard the swift soft footsteps of elephants. Aware that tents in this part of the park would be relatively new to them, I froze and watched with a mixture of reverence and primal tension as three grey ghosts walked by in a hushed single file, just fifteen meters from my tent: heads high, steps high, a cautious eye on these strange human homes freshly sprung in their domain. Earlier that night we’d heard lion roars in the distance and, sometime later, the sawing cough of a leopard, followed by the unnerving
screams of terrified baboons, presumably in combat with said leopard. We were at Mushika, a campsite on the brand new “Chimana Loop”, and it was night one of a camping trip I have always hoped would come to pass. The launch of the four campsites (three on the eastern Chimana Loop and one at Lufila Falls) marks the first time in its near 50-year history that self-drive campsites have opened in North Luangwa National Park. Recent infrastructural funding has allowed park management to build new roads for improved access for park activities and, excitingly, for local tourism. Up until now, North Luangwa’s tourism has primarily catered to a mostly international market, consisting of a handful of simple but high-end bush-camps on the iconic Mwaleshi River, which cuts the park centrally from west to east and which, on the valley floor, is wide, sleepy, and peppered with wildlife. But this loop celebrates the Luangwa River: one of Africa’s longest free-flowing rivers, and the park’s namesake and eastern boundary. It also celebrates the Mwaleshi River in its faster-flowing form as it emerges from the western Muchinga escarpment; and introduces the beautiful but little-known Lufila River. Additionally, the circuit includes Samala and Ituba community camps outside the park (on its western and eastern boundaries), creating a sense of ownership and enterprise around local community-based tourism.
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TRAVEL & LEISURE | Jan - April 2022
