Wanderings: South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

August 6 to 8, 2018

After dropping my daughter off at the Hamburg airport for her flight home, we had decided to visit Zambia. Zambia is in the same time zone as Germany (GMT + 1), and we could thus avoid jet lag. We flew to Mfuwe airport, the gateway to South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia.

As we were watching elephants cross the river on our first game drive the next morning, our guide heard warning calls in the distance from baboons and impala. We arrived immediately after a leopard had killed an impala. The leopard was still breathing heavily as she dragged the fresh kill to a concealed place under a tree, pausing occasionally to catch her breath. That evening, the impala was still concealed under a tree, with the leopard lying nearby. Davis, our local Safari guide, speculated that the leopard had cubs which were concealed nearby that would share in her meal. The following morning, we saw that the leopard had dragged the carcass up a nearby tree (1). The leopard soon returned to eat more, with an apparent preference for the hind quarter. By the end off day, the carcass was gone, presumably taken by scavengers. It was quite fascinating to watch over time.

An elephant had died the day before. When we arrived at the site there was a lion guarding the carcass, the tusks of which had been taken away by park officials (to prevent poachers from taking them). There was sn eager venue of vultures who had to be chased off periodically by one of the members of the pride of lions, who had claimed first dibs on the elephant meat. The lions were struggling to open the tough elephant hide to access the meat inside. As our days at the park progressed, the lions opened the hide and were sticking their head deep into the belly of the very odorous (3) dead elephant to eat the meat.

On the final evening drive of our visit, our guide drove to a dried up river bed (it was dry season). There was enough moisture in the bed for the grass to be much greener here than elsewhere. In the river bed, there were troops of baboons, herds of impala and puku, dazzles of zebra, herds of elephant and other grazing snd browsing snimals all eating together. There is safety in numbers, and a predator alert from one species would have been heard and passed on to all the other animals.

On the morning if our departure, we heard a troop of monkeys racing across our metal roof at about 5:15. They were apparently concerned we had missed our 5:00 wake up for the morning game drive. The droppings left directly outside our door seemed to indicate that they did not want us to leave.

(1) We were on the drive with two other couples, both of whom had been in Africa for two weeks, and had not seen such action yet. You know something interesting and unusual has happened when the guide starts taking pictures.

(2) The leopard often drags its kill up a tree to avoid having the meat stolen by other animals, such as lions or hyena.

(3) An Australian on the drive with us (Greg) said it smelled like his mother's cooking. He told us his mother was a terrible cook. Greg and hus wife Patrcia were kind enough to share their binoculars with us, as they shared all four of our game drives at South Luangwa.