Namibia and Zambia 2015 - What could go wrong this time

[dlo]

Looking at the times on our pictures its 30 minutes after leaving the leopards that we come into an open area and see a few cars watching something. Four trips to Africa spanning 7 months and finally my first wild dogs I can't even tell you how happy this makes me and after the leopard party this is an amazing day and its not even 9 AM. We watch them play for a couple of minutes before we make our way closer to see them. Of course when we pull up they have decided its nap time so the rest of our time they are lazing away except for one guy who brings back his breakfast which is of course followed by 2 of his mates rolling around vigorously in said breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the morning obviously calmed down but we still managed some more elephants and quite a few bird species. Probably my favourite game drive I've had with the only exception being in Ndutu and seeing some lions go crazy with 3 kills and even though they hadn't touched one zebra deciding to add a wildebeest to there total.

 

Never get enough elephants

 

.....Kingfisher

 

Catch of the day

 

 

 

 

 

[Atravelynn]

I was very amused by the Flatdogs tale, enchanted by the baby elephant, highly impressed with your civet shot, and shocked at 37 beers!

[dlo]

@@Atravelynn

 

37 beers was just the first night! They stayed the same 4 nights as us and never did another game drive usually getting up around 2. The beer count was unknown.

[xelas]

@@dlo

 

So they make their own Oktoberfest in Africa! A costly one, but surely one of a kind!

[Atravelynn]

I can't speak to the ones you didn't post, but the two nighttime lion shots above look great to me!

One thing I loved about night safaris is how the spotlight makes such thick, black shadows, and how when you are driving along the trees almost appear as two dimensional cutouts popping up along the road (just something your video reminded me of).

Definitely Agree!

 

You show the sibling rivalry perfectly. Those faces say it all. 3 leopards is quite amazing.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Atravelynn

[dlo]

@@dlo

 

So they make their own Oktoberfest in Africa! A costly one, but surely one of a kind!

 

They told me they were thinking of moving to Canada, I could imagine they would easily get sponsored by any number of Canadian breweries!

[Marks]

Love the dogs! You've caught them in many hilarious poses.

I also laughed at your reaction to being amongst die hard birders.

[dlo]

Still buzzing back at camp we have breakfast and get some visitors into camp.

 

 

 

 

 

I head back to the room thinking a short nap would be great while Chris says she will catch up with me. Of course the hunt you've all been waiting for occurs now. For some reason I head back to the bar(gotta start now if I'm gonna do 38 beers!) and Chris is there still stunned by this big mean snake that attacked a poor little frog! Her screams as she's deathly afraid of snakes probably saved the frog who while stunned for a few minutes went on to make a full recovery!

 

 

 

 

Needing a rest after this traumatic incident Chris heads back to the room while I chat to our English friends and am informed that a few people are going to Tribal Textiles and would I like to join them. Would I, another chance to shop of course I'm going! Tribal Textiles basically provides employment to local artists with hand painted textiles. We tour the factory going through the process of producing there art and do some shopping picking up a couple of things.

 

Turning back on the road back to camp an elephant is browsing just off the side of the road and decides we are just to close and forces a backwards retreat off to a side road. We have to wait a few minutes until we are able to squeeze by as he again lets us know he doesn't appreciate us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dlo]

Love the dogs! You've caught them in many hilarious poses.

I also laughed at your reaction to being amongst die hard birders.

 

I wish we could have got there a little earlier and watched them play longer but man it was fun. The look we exchanged was just so priceless, we knew exactly what the other person was thinking. It's funnier because they turned out to be such good people, we ended up having dinner and lunch together to end our trip.

[ZaminOz]

Excellent report and photos @@dlo

 

As stated the antelope in your post #112 is a male Bushbuck.

 

The raptor in your post #103 may be a Lizard Buzzard (not sure?), but it may also be a Dark Chanting Goshawk?

[Towlersonsafari]

@Dio your picture of the frog reminds me-did you have Zambian Tree frogs in your Tent?- We always request them when we stay in Zambia!

[dlo]

Thanks @@ZaminOz Lizard buzzard it is. I remember hearing that at least 3 times from the guides.

 

@@Towlersonsafari

 

I don't think you could go 10 feet without seeing a frog.

 

 

 

The first picture is from the lock leading to the bathroom in the back of our tent. He stayed there for 3 days! The second guy caught a ride to Tribal Textiles in the pouch of the seat in front of Chris. He randomly decided to jump out landing in Chris's shirt!

 

 

Not a frog but this spider hanging out in our shower meant an urgent request to me to get to the shower but only to remove said spider! He returned the next day, I did not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dlo]

The evening drive would be very quiet until sundowners with a lot of the usual suspects. The highlight probably even for a non birder like myself was the sight of what seemed like millions of egrets flying in and landing for the night. Okay it wasn't millions but there were a lot.

 

 

 

 

They never stopped coming in

 

 

Is there anything cuter than waterbuck?

 

Having our sundowners near a little forested area all of a sudden the baboons start making quite the din. Another leopard is in the vicinity and we quickly load up and head over. The baboons are not having it though and we can't get to close so we circle around a couple of times but can no longer find any sight of this leopard so it appears our luck is running out. Well it doesn't take long before we drive upon genet and civet but they are in no mood to stick around and grace us with brief glimpses.

 

 

 

 

Typical of many shots tonight

 

Our luck increases quickly though as we get a leopard that wants to hang out for a bit. Just as with the lions he appears to be off on a hunt and we get the light switched for the first time to the red infrared light for the first time. All of the vehicle are also turning off there headlights as well so you really experience the African night with all you're senses when they do this. I'm sure with several vehicles and the lightshow going on any chance of a successful hunt are gone and we decide to leave. Another short drive away we get another first and one that's pretty exciting for me, our first porcupine! I don't know if they are a big deal for some but its pretty cool for me even though he quickly leaves without so much as posing for a picture. No problem though because 10 minutes later another porcupine appears and this time I have the camcorder ready and get some video. Chris is slacking again though and we only get a shot of his backside.

 

 

 

We did see 2 porcupines!

 

This guy was a long ways from water

 

The evening was quiet overall but it seems Luangwa is always throwing something interesting at us and I'm already getting a little sad with just 1 game drive left.

 

@@Marks @@Atravelynn

 

We had a few good night shots but a lot of close but no cigar moments.We just couldn't get any of the lions coming out to the road, when they were greeting each other playfully before heading off.Here are a couple of examples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Atravelynn]

Two porcupines is a very successful night drive!

 

Great wild dogs.

 

Fascinating snake and frog drama.

[dlo]

An active night at Flatdogs, shortly before alarm time there is a lot of noise outside but its gone before I know it and I decide to try to get a little more sleep. A short while later the loudest hippo bellow right beside our tent lets us know its time for our final game drive. The morning noise was apparently a leopard after a puku with no witnesses to the end of that drama. The drive is a quiet start with lots of giraffe and zebras and a couple of young ele's testing each other.

 

 

 

These 2 battled for quite a while

 

 

The cookies always just out of reach

 

 

 

A little further in we get one final leopard for our farewell. He's just passing by and we don't follow as he heads into the bush but I can have no complaints at seeing a final leopard. The rest of the game drive becomes very relaxed as we've come to know each other quite well and we all decide to take over from Bwalya and do some spotting ourselves. Bwalya hands out several well spotted comments and I destroy all comers with a Marabou Stork spot to give me the unofficial title The next part of the drive becomes a hunt for the biggest Baobob, at one point as we are admiring one another vehicle drives up to see what we are looking at and I'm pretty sure the guides were laughing at us for our Baobob spotting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've actually stayed out a little long and need to get back for a quick lunch before our flight. We cross a man operated bridge and pass a few upset ele's on the way back but we don't dally to long at any sightings. We pack our stuff up and say our goodbyes with a few hugs even given out. Chris is even getting choked up as she hugs it out with Jess and I would say this has become our favourite ever place. Its not just the safari as honestly we've seen more in Kenya and Tanzania but the safari was outstanding, the guiding quality, great staff and location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bwayla's always smiling

 

 

View from our tent

 

After flying back to Lusaka we check into Taj Pomodzi. Our flight leaves at 1:10 A.M to Nairobi and on to Amsterdam and with only 6 hours till we have to go back to the airport and being completely unable to sleep on a plane I pop a sleeping pill and actually get 6 hours of sleep while poor Chris stays awake the whole time. 15 hours after leaving our hotel we land in Amsterdam enjoying an interesting day and then we arrive home the following day.

 

A great first trip to Namibia and Zambia with lots of safari firsts and lots of non safari fun. Thanks to everyone for there comments, likes and anyone who just took the time to read this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marks]

Can't believe we've reached the end already! Enjoyed every bit of this report. Your hoopoe pics in this last post are really excellent.

 

 

 

I had to laugh, because I have a picture of what is unmistakably the same baobab. So I, at least, wouldn't have thought your spotting competition was weird!

[xelas]

That was one great journey to tag along, @@dlo ! Thanks for sharing, and looking forward to read more from you in the (near) future.

[michael-ibk]

Very sorry this report has come to an end already - I thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you for sharing. The pull of South Luangwa is getting stronger and stronger.

[Towlersonsafari]

Very much enjoyed your report so much so that will forgive you for your sad taste in sporting teams!!!

[Atravelynn]

Baobab spotting on safari is not that weird. I once went with a woman who looked for "artistic trees" and since art is in the eye of the beholder, it was hard to know what was and was not artistic.

 

You saw the hoopoe, my favorite! So all in all, not much went wrong! And a whole lot went right. Wonderful trip and report!

[mapumbo]

Very fun read. Just discovered it and read from beginning to end. I am ready to plan our next safari to South Luangwa.

 

Do you know, is it possible to hire a private guide at Flat Dogs?

[Anthilltiger]

Great read, phots and detail.

 

Please would you give details if there is a border crossing between Namibia and Zambia through the Caprivi strip and if its a river barge or normal bridge.

[dlo]

@@Anthilltiger

 

You actually can take 2 different routes, we crossed directly to Zambia doing a bridge crossing. Back in 2002 we crossed at Kazangula which was the slowest barge crossing ever. One of the truck drivers said it could take 3 days to cross! From Katima you would have to enter Botswana and this way I believe you would have to drive through Chobe to get to Kasane before crossing at Kazangula to get to Livingstone.

 

@@mapumbo

 

You can hire a private guide, they also had just built a safari house that I believe would include a private guide in the cost.I would email Jess and confirm this with her and they can also book any other Zambia plans you would have.

 

@@Marks @@Atravelynn

 

I think I'm turning into a bit of a birder. I do love that hoopoe picture. I enjoy baobab spotting as much as the next guy but I can't keep up with the ladies, Chris and Nikki(the English lady in our vehicle) have started an email picture exchange of previously seen baobab's.

 

@@xelas

 

I'd say you are responsible for starting me down this road so now you're going to have to put up with some more of these. We are going somewhere at the beginning of November 2016 for Chris's 40th and our 10th wedding anniversary. Looking forward to @@Atravelynn and @@michael-ibk reports on Mana Pools as that's now my new dream destination.

 

@@Towlersonsafari

 

I can't have good taste in everything. I did pick a good wife that dragged me to Africa years ago and started my crazy addiction.

[Towlersonsafari]

@dio if I can say this without giving you the heeby jeebys we do seem to have a lot in common! It was Jane who wanted to go to Africa that persuaded me to go.Here's hoping your next trip is not too far away!

[SafariChick]

Very sorry this report has come to an end already - I thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you for sharing. The pull of South Luangwa is getting stronger and stronger.

+1 on all of this!