14 November 2018

Where shall I start? When writing this blog, I do not know when I can upload this because the internet is not so stable. It is now 6 o’clock on Moday, November 12. We left Nkhotakota on Sunday in the direction of Lilongwe. An easy road until we suddenly entered a game park. We did not see an animal but saw a lot of traces from elephants; the road was also pretty bad. From Kazunga we took the road to Lilongwe but soon to Mchingi at th Zambian border. The stretch from Nkhotakota took us 5 hours (240 km) and I was not in the mood for a border crossing.

In the Greenhill Lodge, we were welcomed very friendly as always in Malawi. The people are very nice here. Lisa arranged for the receptionist to change money for us and fetch beer. The Lodge did not serve this…

The next day we left at 8:30 and were in Zambia at 10. Malawi was easy but Zambia was professional as well. We only had to wait for a receipt because the official was watching TV.

After that, we drove to Chipata for a SIM card, money, diesel and shopping and this was all done at 12:00 after which we decided to go to the South Luanga Park. According to all the books (and the Tomtom) this was a horrible road of 130 km. It occurred to be a magnificent road thorugh the African landscape one knows from the movies. We now have a campsite at the Luanga River at the south border of the park. The elephants are walking over the camping, we see lots of birds and hear the hippo’s. This place is incredibly beautiful.

We do not know what to do the next days but for sure will visit the park

I will upload pictures separately

It is now Tuesday, 13 November. Internet remains unreliable even with my advanced MiFi router and external antenna’s the connection is only stable for several minutes. Last night some of my Whatsapp messages came through so the family knows we are OK. This night was an adventure. An elephant walked past our tent, really within one meter. Incredible! Besides that, we heard the roaring of the hippo’s and a lot of birds. We have decided to take a game ride this evening so one of us needs to walk to reception and book this.

Tomorrow we will be on the road again direction Lusaka. It is incerdibly beautiful here but we want to move on, slowly

Since this morning, we are watching the river in front of us and it is unbelievable how many animals we see. Giraffes, elephants, kingfisher, maribou and a moment ago a hippo taking a walk. It is like watching National Geographic in Ultra HD and Ultra Widescreen with new animals every minute. One only misses the comments from David Attenborough….

The upload of the blog was not succesful yesterday; very slow data line and too many users. Today we move on and hope for better connections.

On the campsite, elephants walked during the day at 10-15 m distance.

Last night we went into the park with a ranger and both Lisa and myself were completely exhausted. Tired and full of impressions. For 4 hours we had been shaken on very had seat (my bum is still sour) but we were mostly totally wiped out by the impressions. We saw loads of animals but especially the way these people ride through the bush impressed us. The drove over roads which cannot be called tracks and found animals, during the night, we would never have been able to. Especially the night drive was impressive with one ranger sitting on the car with a light. We went into rivers, parked next to animals, engine off and then we got explantions. At a certain moment we parked next to a young male lion who just killed a buffalo and was eating. At 3 m distance, engine off. Lisa went straight on to me lap and I was looking for a place to hide but after a moment I started filming. It made a very big impression. When we returned (20:15), we ate and drank and went to bed not disturbed by elephants or hippo’s. We move on shortly