This past weekend I made a whirlwind
trip back to the Western Province. It
was a crazy undertaking but worth the effort.
Last year I had failed to see this mass migration of wildebeests (the 2nd
largest in Southern Africa) which happens in the Liuwa Plain National Park (this game park
is situated about 3 hours outside of Mongu
near the Angola border) and I was bound and determined to make the journey
this year. So, with a 3 day weekend in
front of us my brave friends Simon and Shannon agreed to accompany me to find
some wildebeests.
We got up at 3:30AM Saturday morning
and proceeded to get lost trying to get out of Lusaka. Luckily, Simon is a good navigator and led
the charge so we quickly found our way to the very straight and boring road to
Mongu. We had to meet our guide into the
plains by 11AM in Mongu so we were a bit under pressure but we successfully
managed. Shannon was already in Mongu so
picked up provisions (complete with tomato sauce, cutlery, green peppers and
other random items). Unfortunately, we
later learned we had nothing to cook with but we managed to beg and borrow from
other campmates to make a one-pot wonder meal…but I digress. Anyway, after successfully arriving in Mongu,
we immediately left on our next leg of the journey with our guide (you need a
4x4 to maneuver in the park) and headed south to Kalabo. The road was…let’s see how do I describe the
road to Kalabo? A bit bouncy? It’s this crazy road that’s being constructed
through the plains and it keeps getting washed away during rainy season. We had fun being launched around the land
cruiser (no napping for me) and then bargaining with the construction workers
to cross the somewhat constructed bridge because the pontoon was broken. We ended up giving them a half-eaten loaf of
bread in return for allowing us to cross the bridge which may or may not
collapse at any moment as cars cross.
Ahh, this is Africa.
Pulling into Kalabo we paid for our
campsite in the park (after chasing down the worker who was supposed to be working in the tourist information center but was off attending church) and boarded
another pontoon to get into the park.
This park is remote…but beautiful. It’s just open space. I don’t think my pictures will truly capture
the beauty. And we quickly found
wildebeests. Unfortunately, we didn’t
see thousands of them as anticipated (just hundreds).
Apparently their journey into the park from Angola is delayed a bit…but
it was still pretty spectacular. We also
saw the largest hyenas I’ve ever seen. And
a jackal. And bubble fish, a water
monitor and amazingly large birds (I have no idea what kinds). There are lions in the park but we failed to find them? Those sneaky lions.
We had a great time camping with very
little equipment, skewering green peppers to try to cook over the fire, and drinking some wine under the
stars. The best part was showering after
arriving back in Mongu (we were pretty disgusting) and then watching the sunset
over the plains and getting to see old friends who I miss terribly. It was a good weekend. I feel lucky that I get to continue to have
these adventures in Africa.
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