Zambia: South Luangwa National Park

First day started out well (after a night of good sleep, interrupted intermittently by Hippo snorts and grunts). Pleasant slightly cool morning, chef made good GF muffins and French Toast for me, plus a dish of fruit made a nice breakfast. In a moving car I needed a jacket, but when it stopped I was too warm. We started out watching some of the multitude of hippos in this river, most back in the water as the sun came up; also saw Cape buffalo and a couple of leopards – they’re much more common here than in Botswana. Waterbuck are also plentiful; this is a particularly nice one close enough for a good photo, near a small waterhole with several of these colorful storks and a juvenile crocodile, maybe 6 feet long. A herd of elephants were parading toward a waterhole so we drove there and took a number of nice photos and a couple videos of the elephants drinking. We had a bit of excitement a little later; came across this mama elephant and her half-grown calf, along with another couple of elephants and these impala. Shadrack (my guide / driver) decided that we should take a closer look at the cow and calf, so he drove on to the road behind them, drove up to the point where we had a good view and stopped the vehicle. Mama elephant did not appreciate our presence that close to her baby; she gave a loud trumpet and charged. Leonard (the park service guard with us) raised his gun (to shoot in the air to scare her off, not to shoot the elephant) but she stopped less than 10 feet from the car, swayed, flapped her ears at us, and glowered for a minute or two then turned and ambled on away from us. My heart rate picked up a bit, and I didn’t get a picture (or a recording of her trumpet) – too busy scooting to the far side of the vehicle. We saw one more new animal, a local variety of giraffe, shorter neck and legs than the ones in Botswana, and darker color (Shadrack says that’s a sign of age.) The morning concluded with a brunch picnic in the shade of some trees next to the river. Apparently they get a lot of British clients, since brunch was “Full English Breakfast” – I would have far preferred something lighter focused around fruit and cheese rather than beans and fried mushrooms! Both for lunch and for dinner, they had 3 meats, 3 starches (all with plenty for seconds) and one each of vegetable and salad (with not enough for more than a small serving). Now I am sitting on my deck listening to birds and watching a kingfisher (I think) catch and eat minnows. This is winter in Zambia; nights get cold enough to need a jacket, days only a little hot, for a couple of hours in the afternoon. On my deck, In the evening we went for an informative walk, then drove to an open area by a river with a number of hippos in it and elephants on the far bank for a “sundowner: -- gin and tonic, with some sausages. (I am really getting overdosed on meat – spoke to the hostess about it; she promised to talk to the chef.) After the cocktail hour, we drove through a lovely sunset meadow; I took a few pictures, one of which nicely captures the mood. Golden light, impala and yellow baboons feeding in the meadow. As it was approaching dark, we spotted a leopard, stopped to watch it. It was obviously eying a herd of impala a few hundred meters across the meadow. The light wasn’t good enough for pictures, but with the help of Aubrey’s (the spotter) spotlight, I got these pictures of the leopard stretching and setting off back into the woods. Shadrack was confident the leopard was going to circle around through the woods and try to get one of the impala, so we circled around for a bit, trying to get in front of him; found him again, watched him stalk the impalas, drove out to the herd to be in position to watch the attack if he attempted it (by now it was totally dark). The impala only glanced at us and were all looking intently in the direction of the leopard. After another half hour or so Shadrack decided there was not going to be any action that night, and we went back to camp, where I changed into clean clothes for dinner. Again three meats, all bbq, chicken, think pork chops, and beef steaks, some small thin-walled half squashes (about 1 or 1.5 tablespoon of flesh in each), a cornmeal dish eaten by the natives, and a skimpy bowl of cole slaw, about enough for a large tablespoonful apiece. Instead of taking all the meat up when it was done, they waited to serve it directly from the grill so the pork steak in particular was overcooked and dry. (I only had that and the chicken.) For dessert they served everybody but me what looked like either cheesecake or some kind of custard pie; they set a small green apple on a plate in front of me. It pissed me off and I almost got up and left it there and went back to my room but I didn’t want to spoil the evening for the others, so I cut it up and ate it without comment. I did speak to the hostess this morning; today’s lunch was a vast improvement, cold ham & pineapple, a nice cucumber and avocado dish, oven fry potatoes, rice, and a large salad (at last!) We’ll see what happens at dinner.