Hello there! I hope you are fabulously well and have had a lovely weekend. We start our week with excellent news out of Malawi…borders have now reopened! This gives you another excellent country to opt for, for some safari or fresh water beach experience before the year is out.
Back here in the Luangwa, I don’t think that anyone needs any sort of reminder of how the tourism industry has changed over the last year and a half, so to keep things going and give our few guests an amazing experience, we have had to chop and change a few things. So, this year as guests were, shall we say, not as many as in previous years, we decided to have our Mobile Walking Safaris up in the Nsefu Sector instead of the traditional Mupamadzi area further north. Why not take advantage of this incredibly game rich area while vehicle traffic is so low, and wildlife is in abundance… And let me tell you, whilst it is not Mupamadzi, the guests have certainly not had any shortage of sightings over the last few weeks that it has been open.
Kanga led the charge in the Land Rover swiftly followed by the team in the Samil 50 truck, and before you knew it, they had arrived with huge smiles on their faces and great anticipation. Things kicked off to quite the amazing start as they were clearing the camp getting the ovens dug and the tents up, when suddenly the baboons started to bark furiously.
Heading out on one of his morning walks towards the Tena Tena area and making their way past a lot of elephants, Kanga and his guests came across a lovely leopard fast asleep on the ground. The leopard was completely unaware that they were there – well at least it seemed to be, and they were able to crouch down and watch this magnificent animal having a cat nap!
This was just the first of a few leopard sightings on foot and it doesn’t stop there. Over the last few weeks, the various guests have been treated to incredible numbers of game with 21 giraffe in one sighting, plus kudu, zebra, impala and puku. The lions have also been plentiful and almost every group has been fortunate to walk onto lions, which is an incredible experience if somewhat heart in the mouth experience.
Hyena in the Nsefu Sector have also once again not failed to impress and there have been quite a few sightings of them on the morning walks as they head back to their dens and prepare to sleep off the nights activities. Then at night their eerie calls pierce through the night sky just to remind everyone that they are around. Moreover, let us not forget the wild dogs which have been phenomenal this year, with multiple sightings on foot. This includes a somewhat dramatic sundowner on one of Daudi’s trips as from out of the thickets burst an impala swiftly followed by a pack of wild dogs. All of this whilst everyone was standing around enjoying a lovely cold gin and tonic – I don’t think it can get much better than that.
As you can see despite not being up on the Mupamadzi, we are certainly making the most of what is proving to be a real treat by running our Mobile Walking Safaris in the Nsefu Sector, as we are light on cars and heavy on animals. We look forward to more guests as the season progresses and hope that the wildlife continues to wow. For now, however I am going to bid you all a very fond farewell for this week and hope that you all have a fabulous week ahead with plenty of smiles and laughter and don’t forget to look after one another.
