Free Range Safari

From notes made by Mick Pilcher

A few weeks ago a good friend of mine who runs a unique safari business here in Zambia, asked if I’d like to come on a 14-day roaming trip he had on his books for six visitors from the Netherlands. Of course I jumped at the chance.The clients gave their okay to me travelling with them, and we were on our way.

We set off in two vehicles – a luxurious air-conditioned 4x4 wagon for the clients driven by Joshua Chizuwa, our expedition leader and the company’s chief guide, with Dominic, Joshua’s son, to assist in looking after the clients’ welfare.  We followed behind in the crew vehicle, a Landcruiser, towing a trailer laden with all our katundu. Vernon, AOE’s owner, drove this vehicle. He doesn’t often get the chance to escape his office but on this safari there would be some rough territory to cross and Vernon was short of a driver with the requisite experience. He leapt at the chance to get away from his computer.

The clients were young professionals aged from around 23 to 37, mostly friends from university days. They were led by Dave and his fiancée Marije, both of whom visit Zambia from time to time to carry out highly original management consultancy work. All but one of the clients had travelled with AOE the previous year so they had a good idea of the sort of conditions that might lie ahead of them. They knew it wouldn’t all be easy going.

It’s always great to escape Lusaka and leave behind the drabness of the outskirts, mile after mile where there’s barely a tree left standing. So depressing. As if in rebellion, we were heading for Mutinondo Wilderness, just this side of Mpika. It’s a long haul when you’re travelling in convoy, but shady stops for hot tea or coffee, sandwiches and a rich fruit cake helped ease the way. And then there was the reward of arrival at Mutinondo, some 25 kms off the Great North Road. I was taken aback by the magnificent surroundings. This spectacular site is making quite a name for itself. It’s not a big game destination; its owners, Mike Merritt and his partner Lari Bosman, specialize in showing visitors the smaller, often overlooked delights of the bush. They offer a whole new dimension to the usual business of game viewing.

While the tents are set up, Alick, our safari cook, got to work on the evening meal, and immediately becomes the centre of attention. The skilful show he puts on is amazing. Alick is professionally trained but of course for this sort of travelling safari he has to adapt – downsize is probably the word – and he does it brilliantly, juggling pots, meats and vegetables, condiments and so on over a campfire, ably assisted by crew members Suta and Mike. We sit at table for this, our first evening meal and life seems just about as good as it gets. A long, satisfying day, great food, a good quaffable wine, a pipe of sweet tobacco, a log fire, and the campers gradually drift off for an early night.

Up early. It’s cold. And judging from the yelps coming from the showers we guess something has gone wrong with the heating. Sure enough, but a cold awakening does wonders for the appetite for a large English-style breakfast complete with freshly-baked bread and coffee. Mike Merritt has drawn us a map and we set out in various groups to explore Mutinondo. Among our options are horse riding, canoeing, swimming in the rivers, walking, bird watching, or just lying back reading a good book. Just as relaxing was sitting at the throne-like loo where you could gaze out at the open countryside, bird spotting, or, if you preferred, reading about birds in the glossy magazines on either side of you.

After a couple of days we’re packing up to move on. I’m amazed at how quickly the crew can pack up camp, under the watchful eye of Joshua, and leave not a trace behind. Our first stop is at Mpika for refuelling and a brief visit to what I suppose you’d call Mpika’s CBD just off the main road. It’s Sunday, and all but two of the shops are closed. I have the feeling of being on a film set and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Clint Eastwood ride into town, stogie clenched between his teeth, looking for someone to shoot. Make my day, punk.

Today we’re heading for Shiwa N’gandu, the home that Sir Stewart Gore-Browne built for himself near Chinsali early last century. It’s described variously as being in the style of an English gentleman’s country house, or a Tuscanny-style mansion. Take your pick. Whatever, it is built entirely from local materials by local workers and is something of an oddity in that remote location. What is extraordinary here are the out-buildings and workers’ cottages all built with the same bricks and tiles as the main building; they have a feudal look, from another time, another place, which in fact I suppose they are. I half expected a hobbit to step out of one of the cottages.

We drive on to Kapishya Hot Springs, part of the Shiwa Estate, and are greeted by Mel who shows us to the leafy campsite on the banks of the Manshya River.

We spend only one night at Kapishya and I’m woken very early by the sound of the camp being rapidly dismantled. I move with unaccustomed speed, but a quick (hot) shower, a mug of sweet black coffee, and I’m ready to take on the world. Today we’re on our way to the North Luangwa National Park, and to Buffalo Camp in particular. It takes us about five hours, compensated for by sweeping views as we descend the Muchinga Escarpment and pass through spectacular groves of ancient trees to the Luangwa Valley.

Buffalo Camp, on the banks of the Mwaleshi, a tributary of the Luangwa, is rustic, imaginatively and appropriately so of poles, reeds and thatch. And necessarily too since, being located in a national park, it has to be dismantled at the end of each season then reassembled the following year. ZAWA rules. The chalets are ingenious, two-storied affairs, with sleeping quarters upstairs and ablutions downstairs. We are welcomed by our host Mark Harvey, who, with his partner Mel, also runs Kapishya in tandem with Buffalo. Mark is a marvellous raconteur with refreshingly blunt views about life, love and the universe, and with a huge store of local knowledge about the flora and fauna of North Luangwa, and also of the Bemba people whose language he was speaking before he could speak English.

North Luangwa is not your run-of-the-mill, wall-to-wall animals kind of environment. This is wild territory. Roads are few and far between, so you walk. And it’s all the more rewarding for that. The animals are not habituated to traffic, as they are in South Luangwa for example, and so you encounter them on foot, on their terms - with an armed scout in attendance, of course, and with Mark or one of his guides to lead the way. This takes some adjusting to, since with most game parks, in Zambia as elsewhere, you simply drive up to animals that pose for you, do your thing with a camera, then move on to the next sighting. Not here. Here you are encompassed within the wilderness, enveloped in it. The animals will be close, sometimes disturbingly so, if approached the right way, but neither will they hang about if they’re suspicious. Some of this scariness is no doubt due to an inheritance of recent-past poaching – the scourge which threatens all of Zambia’s parks to greater or lesser extent. In North Luangwa, thanks to control measures funded by the Frankfurt Zoological Society, progress is being made to limit the scourge, but it’s a continuous battle. A slow, grinding, distressing war. Who’s winning? Who knows?

After two days we prepare to leave North Luangwa. An odd thing this. Travelling through the landscape like this, time seems to expand. The natural-world kaleidoscope passing before our eyes is so packed and changing, that even an afternoon can seem days removed from the morning. Yesterday can feel as though it occurred weeks ago. The splendid curry that Alick cooked, was that last night or last week? So that two days at Buffalo Camp have a feeling of utter, relaxed luxury, but also impart a feeling of wanting to move on, experience more. So that’s what we do.

We’re due to cross the Luangwa River, turn east and head for Nyika National Park in Malawi, but we hold a council-of-war with the clients and decide instead to head for Mfuwe and South Luangwa National Park. Why? Because one of the clients, Rob, a large, clever fellow with challenging thoughts and questions about the world around him, is on his first visit to this part of Africa, and he wants to see more wildlife. Also, he’s due to fly out in a few days from Lilongwe so this is his last chance to see animals en masse. His companions agree that he should and South Luangwa seems the obvious place to head for. We debate whether to ford the Mwaleshi and Luangwa Rivers, which might be dodgy given the amount of soft sand and a heavy trailer, and instead opt to go for the new pontoon across the Luangwa. This will take us out of our way, but it will be. So before we’ve even had breakfast – we have a long way to go -- we find ourselves bumping slowly along a winding track pitted with elephant and hippo tracks, through the tight foliage along the banks of the Luangwa.

It’s close to lunchtime when we finally arrive at the pontoon and find ourselves staring down a wickedly steep slope to the new, perilously small-looking pontoon. The entry point to the pontoon is too uneven, the barge’s landing shelf can’t settle evenly, so we have to find more logs and branches before committing a vehicle to it. In fact, the pontoon is too small to take a vehicle and trailer at the same time, which means we have to unhook the trailer and manhandle it aboard the pontoon once the towing vehicle is safely across. This all takes effort, and by the time we’re across and resting in the shade of a large tree, we’re all thoroughly knackered and ready for brunch. Alick pulls more of his magic: he feeds us huge dagwood sandwiches with tea and coffee and then – wait for it – doughnuts which he just happened to have whipped up early in the morning before we left. Bliss. And energy.

Revived, we set off again. And what a change in the landscape. We’re in a thickly wooded area now, with huge, battle scarred trees – elephant damage of course. Then the landscape begins to thin out a bit, fewer trees, signs of cultivation here and there, a multitude of confusing criss-crossing paths, but if we worry about taking a wrong turning then a couple of fortuitous meetings with helpful villagers assure us we’re on the right track. Then at the appropriate place we turn west (instead of east to Malawi) and drive through mopane forests to the Chipuka Gate at the entrance to Luambe National Park.  

By now I was beginning to find out what this journey is all about: it’s a real (would you believe?) safari – the word means journey of course, specifically an African journey – with more to it than simple game viewing. Animal and bird sightings are a bonus, the icing on the cake. We’re ingesting the sights, sounds and smells and experiencing the immensity, of a wilderness which only a privileged few ever visit. This is far removed from the fly-in-fly-out, or drive-in-drive-out, routines to look at elephants or lions that I’ve experienced over many years. In its own way it must be a small echo of the safaris of yesteryear.

It’s late afternoon by the time we pull in at Luangwa Wilderness Lodge in Luambe National Park. It’s a nice camp and we’re made very welcome. Luambe is plagued, as all the parks are, by poaching (ZAWA, please note) but I make a mental vow to return some day; this is a seriously relaxing spot. We set up camp overlooking the Luangwa and a raucous collection of hippo, before once again dining under the stars on one of Alick’s feasts, and retiring to bed with warnings of an irritable lion and a lone leopard to give us a frisson of excitement to sleep with. But those weren’t going to stop anyone sleeping, not after that challenging leg of the journey.

Next day, after our visitors had gone off to the ponds where a large number of young hippos are being kept prior to their release, it’s more of the same as we near Mfuwe. The Landcruiser has developed the annoying fault of, when put into low ratio, refusing to come out of it until Dominic and Suta remove the protective shield from the transfer box and manhandle the gearing back into place. This causes delays of course, and tempts Vernon into rushing at dry sandy riverbeds in high ratio, but the weight of the trailer was too much on two occasions. So that meant unhooking the trailer, driving the vehicle out, turning it around once on firm ground, and winching the trailer out – with assistance from teams of manpower which appeared from nowhere, as often, miraculously, happens whilst deep in the bush miles from anywhere. All in a day’s work.

At Mfuwe, we set up our tents at Wildlife Camp run by Herman and Patsy Miles. Herman must be just about the Grand Old Man of South Luangwa by now. Most of the proceeds of the camp go to the Wildlife Conservation Society of Zambia. The Wildlife Camp, and nearby Flatdogs Camp, are two of the best of their kind in Zambia – well priced, a range of options, and a welcoming atmosphere. Rob and the others went and gorged themselves on close-up elephant and giraffe sightings while we stayed behind and undertook the labyrinth task (in Mfuwe) of stocking up with fresh supplies. Then it was off to Lilongwe via Chipata, and I have to say that the road to Chipata is as bad I remembered it from 30 years ago. It’s a disgrace, always has been, and a shame on those responsible for it. Why on earth the second-biggest tourist attraction in Zambia has such lousy road approaches from both Chipata and via Petauke, is beyond sane comprehension.

We drop a game-gorged Rob off at the airport, pick up Franc, a friend of the group who has just flown in to Lilongwe, and spend the night at the Lilongwe Golf Club camping ground, successfully applying ourselves to making the changeover from Mosi to Carlsberg. The following morning we make good time along excellent roads as we head for the southern coast of Lake Malawi.

Big developments are afoot in Malawi. The road from Mua to Monkey Bay is being completely rebuilt as a major highway, so we had a few detours on the way. But here’s the rub, no one we met was quite sure as to why such major construction was being undertaken. One theory we heard was that big things were planned for Monkey Bay port, which is pretty listless these days, but no one knew what those “big things” were, or the why of them. Another was that major tourism developments were planned and the new road made Blantyre as easily accessible tom this holiday area as Lilongwe.

Be that as it may, it’s difficult to detect much going on at Cape Maclear, our destination, where many years ago flying boats used to put down for the night on their way to and from South Africa. We wanted to set up camp in the Lake Malawi National Park, trumpeted as the biggest marine park in Africa, but what a disappointment. The camp had run out of fuel for the generator and Government officials told the park authorities that there was no money to buy any, so there were no toilets, no running water, certainly no hot water. The roof of the picturesque old hotel, its tiles imported from Scotland many years ago, was falling in. We could have made do, of course, but we were nearing the end of our safari and we wanted to end on a high note.

So we turned and headed back to the motley collection of huts and mud brick buildings that are the Cape Maclear settlement, and put up camp on the sand at a place with the unlikely name of Fat Monkeys. It’s a fairly typical backpacker hang-out: friendly enough, easy-come-easy-go; there’s a bar there, a basic steak, eggs and chips menu (which we didn’t need of course, with Alick along), toilets that worked some of the time, a collection of beach touts shouting for business – scuba diving, snorkeling, boat rides, very safe, very cheap boss, all for a dollar a night, so we gave it a night. Cheap enough, you’ll agree. But you know what they say about paying peanuts and getting monkeys. Make that Fat Monkeys.

Vernon sensed that the clients were a bit restive after the quality of our experience in Zambia, so next morning while they went off scuba-diving in the beautiful clear water – a tough life, this – he and I meandered back into Monkey Bay to see what we could find. What we found was a tiny superette with lots of exercise books, hardly anything in the baking line, some ham and bacon, and where at the check-out, if they had no coins as change, they paid you out in bubblegum. But amazingly, what they did have was a great collection of French wine. Oh joy, not all was lost. Only Douglas & Tate at Kabulonga back in Lusaka could offer fare to compete with this.

They had one other thing as well, a talkative mzungu customer called Taffy (there’s apparently a long story as to why a mzungu South African should be called Taffy; we’ll no doubt hear it some time) who button-holed us on the way out, and told us about the place he was looking after, a place called -- wait for it -- Norman Carr’s cottage. Full circle. We knew without hearing more, which we did of course, that this place sounded right. Taffy made it sound like an Eden, after making us understand where to find fresh meat (at the petrol station silly, where else?), or where to buy a crate of cold Carlsberg (at the petrol station, silly).

So we went to make a recce. And Taffy was right. This is a great place. Four double bedrooms in two cottages, own ablutions, with a big kitchen, dining/living/bar area in the middle between the two cottages. A great, cool green lawn with huge shade trees spilling over to a wide sandy beach. Since we had Alick with us we could hire it on a self-catering basis, or we could have full board if we wanted it. We stuck with Alick.

Back at Fat Monkeys we conveyed our find to the visitors, they conferred among themselves, came up with an affirmative, so we packed up and left Fat Monkeys there and then. “Oh, okay,” said the lady at reception, “cool.” We spent three days at Norman Carr’s cottage, lazing about, swimming, eating, sunbathing. On one day our Dutch friends cooked us some great fruit pastries for lunch, and on another day Joshua took them to Liwonde National Park, which stunned them with its beauty and river views. Taffy talked about his ambition to one day restore the m.v. Chauncy Maples, an old passenger boat that used to ply the lake, now moored at rest at Monkey Bay. She was commissioned by the Catholic Church in Malawi over 100 years ago, built in Glasgow, then dismantled and shipped to the lake in thousands of marked crates, to be reassembled there. So we went to have a look at her, and decided that Taffy must be looney. Or have too much money, or something.

We left very happy and spent our final night at Senga Bay, bringing us closer to Lilongwe Airport where we took the clients the following morning and parted company with lots of hopes that we’d meet again. I hope they do come again, they are good company, tough, intelligent and committed. A pleasure. We’d travelled

nearly 3000 kilometres, stopped over at eight different destinations, visited four game parks, had the time of our lives – and above all took into ourselves the seminal experience of moving through a sizeable chunk of Africa, places, people and events that wouldn’t normally come our way.

I’d like to go again. The mobile safari experience sits deep in your bones.

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