Game driving in South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Text | Anninka Kraus
Photography | Tobias Kraus

Zambia

South Luangwa National Park in Zambia is one of the world’s greatest wildlife sanctuaries and home to about 60 different animal species and over 400 different bird species. We visited the park on our Africa Overland Tour with Nomad and stayed at a camp inside the park.

The Wildlife Camp warden’s briefing on using the toilets at night in South Luangwa National Park elicited a few nervous cackles from the group. He told us to use common sense (sure, always), point our flashlight in every direction and if we couldn’t see any hippos, elephants, or lions (which frequently pass through the campsite) it was time to make a dash for the toilet! But, he continued, it was probably best not to use the toilets at all at night.

Listening wide eyed, just when I thought he’d finished, he went on to tell us to pitch our tents with plenty of space in between because the animals, elephants in particular, were known to get rather irritated when they were unable to walk along their familiar routes. I forced myself to close my mouth and saw that many of our group stood there with gaping jaws also.

In the end there wasn’t much to do but hope that the guard on night duty had good eyesight and knew how to use his rifle.

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what to expect.

South Luangwa National Park with 9,000 square kilometres is one of the greatest wildlife sanctuaries in the world

A great variety of wildlife gathers around the Luangwa River in the dry season – the park is famous for its large hippo population and high concentration of leopards

While Etosha and Chobe can feel crowded there’s no mass tourism in South Luangwa NP. In fact, we almost never came across other jeeps on our game drives

location & visitor information.

Where is South Luangwa National Park: Zambia is a landlocked country in southern Africa. The country’s famous wildlife sanctuary, South Luangwa National Park, is located in the Luangwa River valley in the east.

How to get to South Luangwa National Park: The easiest way to get to South Luangwa National Park is to fly to Mfuwe Airport via Zambia’s capital Lusaka. The park is also accessible by car, but a 4WD is required and it’s a 9-hour drive from Lusaka and 4-hour drive from Malawi’s capital Lilongwe (waiting time at the border not included).

When to visit South Luangwa National Park: The best time to visit Etosha National Park is in winter (July – October), during the dry season when game is gathered around the Luangwa River.

Where to stay in South Luangwa National Park: South Luangwa National Park offers a wide range of accommodation options including luxury lodges and tented camps. All meals and safari activities are included in lodge stays.

How to get around: Self-driving in South Luangwa National Park was allowed at the time we visited, but you needed to be out of the park by 6pm whereas the guided tours could stay until after sunset. We loved the game drives at dawn and dusk and saw plenty of wildlife up close. My recommendation is to go on safari with an experienced guide.

South Luangwa National Park

Lions did indeed roam the campsite at night as we saw their tell-tale droppings the next morning but I had not spent two full days driving through Zambia to get to South Luangwa National Park only to have a lion nibble at my butt. So, when I couldn’t hold it in any longer during the night I ran as fast as I could in the direction of the toilets. Our days were as exhilarating as those night-time sprints but somewhat less daunting.

South Luangwa National Park is only half the size of Etosha National Park but well-known for its large hippo population and the highest naturally occurring concentration of leopards in Africa. While animal sightings in the Okavango Delta had been scarce (though possibly largely due to the tour guide’s attitude) our four-hour evening game drive in two open canopied 4-wheel drives here instantly revealed an incredible wealth of wildlife, either gathered on the fertile banks of the Luangwa River or traipsing through the underbrush of low bushy trees that cover much of the park.

Whereas the sheer number of tourists at times made Etosha and Chobe feel like a theme park, we almost never came across other jeeps in South Luangwa. Instead we saw a leopard leisurely tiptoeing through the bush alongside the jeep for a quarter-hour, a pride of lions lazing idly in the shade of a Mopane tree before disappearing into the tall grass, and dozens of hippos splashing in the Luangwa River quite unfazed by crocodiles on the river banks.

At the end of the day when the heat relinquished its grip we watched the sunset from an elevation overlooking the plains. The sky changed colours, daylight yielding to dusk, and the plain woodlands dissolving into pitch-black night, which in Africa is darker than any other place I have been thanks to the scant light pollution.

Visit to a local textile factory in the village of Mfuwe

As meeting the Himba people in Namibia had filled us with unease we were understandably a little apprehensive about the visit to a local textile factory in the village of Mfuwe. In a clearing surrounded by bush and chattering monkeys we came upon a cluster of large tables set up out in the open under canopies.

Tribal Textiles was founded by local artists in 1991 and grew into one of Mfuwe’s biggest employers, providing work for more than 100 locals in an area of high unemployment. The hand-painted textiles – cushion covers, wall hangings, and napkins to name a few – depict traditional African motifs in a contemporary, colourful style.

During the first step motifs of the country’s rich wildlife were outlined on cotton fabric with a starch solution, dried in the sun, and washed. Then the faint white contours left on the fabric were painted with dazzling colours, dried in the sun, cooked, washed, and dried again. While this factory certainly wouldn’t win first prize for efficiency or turn-around, it would for the happiness of its workers expressed in their deep gratitude and the beauty of the works they created.

We received an enthusiastic welcome from a gaggle of smiling children who showed us around their village after visiting the textile factory. They were adorable with the younger ones holding our hands while the older children, especially the girls wanted to pose for the camera and did so like beauty queens, afterwards crowding around the tiny display to see their pixelated image.

A male villager told us that until a few years ago the tribe had practised polygyny but now “unfortunately” men were only allowed at most one woman and four children. Teenagers in the village moved into a hut of their own at the age of 14 which seems a tad early to me but then again most German teenagers would probably jump at the chance (that is until realising that said huts lack television and internet access of course). The village in fact lacked most modern amenities we take for granted and the existential threats were obvious.

While we are losing ourselves in self-actualisation at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, here daily life still addresses the most fundamental needs in the pyramid’s bottom layers – to put it plainly: human survival. Another villager, with a smile on his face, revealed to us the village’s most pressing challenges: work (any kind of work to feed the tribe), substantial meals in the dry season, access to clean water, protection against elephants that wreak havoc in the village at night, and access to the most rudimentary health care.