After James left Croc Valley I had about 3 days to myself so finished off a couple of books I had and sat watching the wildlife come and go. I was about to leave when a fellow Brit called Chris turned up. We were sat preparing lunch by his tent when a family of elephants came into the camp. We backed away as they came closer to the tent and then watched them pick up all of Chris’s bread, bananas and peanut butter. We’ve got a great video of it all happening and you can just about here Chris say “OH NO, NOT MY MARMITE!” over the sound of me laughing.Â
Chris had hitched a ride in with two Norwegians, Gauta and Anders. They had a spare seat in their car so I jumped in and we headed into the park for two days of self drive safari. On the second day we saw a lone hyena on a side road and went to take a look. After a while the hyena walked off and we quietly followed. He led us to 5 more hyenas. We watched them for a while before we noticed the dead buffalo that was being guarded by two male lions. We sat there for about two hours and watched the lions fend off loads of hyenas, a pride of 5 lionesses and another lioness with three cubs. After about an hour a flock of vultures turned up and were flying overhead which gained the attention of all the other safari vehicles.
Safari can be very hit and miss and this was about the biggest hit I have ever seen. 11 lions, 14 hyenas and one very dead buffalo!
The next day I decided to leave on a high and grabbed a lift back down to the main road and from there took a bus to the capital, Lusaka. Having been to the capitals of Malawi and Mozambique I was surprised to see that Lusaka is so busy and developed. The dutch couple that I had met in Livingstonia were on the bus and so we all headed out for the first decent meal I had eaten for a while.
This morning I took a bus down to the Lower Zambezi and have found a place with free internet! I’ll try to upload some pics…