Well, hello there. I hope that you are fabulously well and have had a lovely weekend. Here in the Luangwa well let me tell you, we are getting the best natural shows possible on all fronts.
During the course of the day as the heat builds, the clouds build and the skies go from blue with white whisps to almost purple/black in colour. Then the thunder starts followed by the lightening and the skies are alive with electricity then the heavens open and let me tell you, some of the downpours that we have had recently have been epic up to 50mm in an hour; everything is soaked without exception. A few days ago, we were at Luangwa River Camp checking on progress with the rebuilding when suddenly out of the blue with no warning the loudest clap of thunder erupted. James the carpenter almost fell off the roof and Emmanuel the groundsman who was in the boat covering it up leapt out of it with such speed it was quite incredible.
With all the rain comes the joyous colour of the bush this time of the year. Lagoons are full and even in many instances flooded. Trees are several meters deep in water which lends itself to some exquisite reflections and with the river so high the boating possibilities for the first of our guests to Nsefu was simply magical.
They even managed to boat all the way into Stork Colony which was done with a certain amount of uncertainty by Sebastian the guide, as last year the storks just didn’t nest there. But good news folks, they are back!
Storks asides the rest of the bird life is just magnificent with so many enormous spur winged geese dotted around, sacred ibis (Watch here), woolly necked storks making the most of all the food that is now available to them and in amongst the greenest grass you have ever seen there are splashes of red and black in the form of the fire-crowned Bishops. The males are in their full breeding plumage this time of the year and they really are rather magnificent.
As well as exploring all the flooded gulleys and little channels there has been wonderful sightings of hippos, elephants (Watch here), giraffe, zebra and as always plenty of antelope. The evenings have been busy with lions calling but no sightings of them yet and there have also been leopard tracks through camp but those have also been very definitely happening at night. Heading up to Nsefu this time of the year is a completely different way to experience it and is rather serene. With no cars for miles around, absolutely no roads and everything full of water it’s a very relaxed version of safari life.
Heading back down river to a slightly less relaxed way of life Sarel and the River Camp (watch here) team are flat out trying frantically to get all the rebuilding works done. We have 6 weeks until the doors open which when written down is somewhat daunting, but I have absolute faith that it will all be ready and camp will be looking fabulous. This week the mission is to complete all the jobs on the kitchen and get the chefs in and starting to unpack all of their equipment. The waiters will be kicking the carpentry team out of the main area which is where they are storing all their timber because it’s been so wet. The room attendants are circling the building and thatching crews a little like a pack of hyena but sadly they will need to wait another week until they can get started on cleaning and preparing the rooms to paint and the grounds men well they are quite simply tearing their hair out as they look on in horror at the amount of work they have to do not helped at all by the fact that each time they sort their pathways out there is another deluge of rain washing it all away.
Lastly as this time of the year is generally a lot lighter on the guest front as majority of camps are closed, we make the most of the situation and Kanga gets stuck into some guide training. Heading out every morning into the Park with our pack of potential new guides getting them to lead game drives to the rest of the group before coming back and spending the afternoon in the classroom discussing and researching questions and topics that came up during the morning. We look forward to this new group of guides coming through the system in the next few years.
So, on that note I am left with very little else to add shall bid you a very fond farewell and hope that you have the most fabulous week ahead with plenty of smiles and laughter and don’t forget to look after one another.
