Wide-eyed in Zambia: Africa’s last great place
BMFUWE, Zambia — Alex Stewart, waiting on the steps of Bilimungwe Lodge, deep in the Zambian bush, likes nothing better than surprising first-time visitors to this wilderness outpost with an introduction to the next-door neighbors.
“Come in, come in, you’re just in time,” she urges, a twinkle in her eye, leading me to the rear deck of the lodge, one of six Bushcamp Company lodges in the South Luangwa National Park. When she points to the backyard waterhole, I get it.
There they are, two female elephants and a baby, splashing each other, cooling off on this hot October day.
“Junior is a year old now,” says Stewart, beaming as the little guy rolls over and over in a bathtub-shaped hole, smacking the water with his trunk and feet, the very image of a 4-year-old let loose in a wading pool.
“And that’s Harry,” adds Stewart, as a hefty hippopotamus rises up in the water, blinks at the commotion and sinks back down. “He walks over from the Luangwa River to get away from the other males,” she says, tossing back her hair, a thick white mane. “He likes it here, where he’s top dog.”
After 26 hours and three flights from California to Zambia, in southern Africa, with a three-hour drive from Bushcamp’s Mfuwe Lodge to Bilimungwe, I was dragging. But not for long.
I’d forgotten how it feels on your first day in the bush. Exhilarated and wide-eyed. Over the moon. And then, sobering up, eager but cautious. A safari lodge is a thousand times better than any zoo, but you — not the animals — are the ones in the cage.
“You need to be aware, to look around you, and especially, never go out at night without an escort,” says Bushcamp manager Amy Alderman. The safe way to watch lions is from an off-road vehicle, which the big cats ignore.
When your tracker climbs up on the fender and your guide shifts gears, the adventure begins, a search for the legendary “Big Five,” (lions, leopards, elephants, hippos and buffalo); and the “Lesser Eleven”: hyenas, zebras, impalas, bushbucks, giraffe, wildebeest, rhinos, wild dogs, crocodiles, civets and genets.