Zambian safari with Grande and Jjajja

 

We started our trip with Grande and Jjajja at a camp called Bilimongwe in south Luangwa national park in northern Zambia. After a short flight we got to the town of Mfue were we took a van to the national park. Once in the park we switched to a safari vehicle and had a crazy three hour ride over bumpy roads in the pitch black dodging wildlife left and right. Jja jja was not quite so successful because she got hit head first with a large bird. Thankfully we made it safely and were greeted with delicious food, but just as we were about to sit down we were told that there was a leopard in the camp. So we all got back in to the safari vehicle and were were able to track down the leopard not ten minutes after arriving. What a start to the trip.

This is a Bilimongwe elephants missing one of its tusks

It turns out that Bilimongwe had some of the best food out there and for sure the nicest staff. Every night we were taken to a different place where dinner was put out for us. One afternoon we were taken to the edge of a river were a pizza oven had been set up while we were out and we had fresh pizza     (on a completely unrelated note we are building a pizza oven in Boston)

 

We were sad to leave billi but we were amazed by the next place. It is called the robin pope house, named after an early south Luangwa safari guide. The architecture was incredible on the house one side looked like a hobbit house from the lord of the rings and the other side looked like an open air safari house. It even had a pool.

The robin pope house had the best game by far, on our first day we ran into a pride of female lions near a watering hole, I used the binoculars to get a good shot through my iphone camera.

The only way to get to the robin pope house was by boat. so this is a picture of us getting from our safari vehicles in south Luangwa to our lunch.

This is a pack of 21 wild dogs that we ran into on our last day out.

This is a baby giraffe that we came upon literally on our way out.

After two amazing days at robin pope we hopped on a small plane and headed to the royal Zambezi lodge. It seems I now have an even greater love for small planes.

Our family was put into the presidential suit that had its own plunge pool and four beds. This is a great picture that my dad took of the view from our deck overlooking the Zambezi.

The Zambezi is known for their boat safaris so we had a great time out on the water. We saw a herd of buffalo that for one reason or another were stuck on an island, and had been there for the past 11 years. we also saw hundreds of crocs and alligators.

On our last land safari we were lucky enough to see two male lions. Our guide somehow tracked their footprints to find their location and we were the only group to see lions that day.

I know I mentioned this in my last post but this was an amazing last second catch. The terrifying toothy tiger fish.

I had so much fun on this trip and I wanted to thank Grande and Jjajja for giving us this amazing Zambian experience, we had so much fun and learned so much about our beautiful new country.