Lions, Leopards, and Warthogs, Oh My

After four relaxing days of Livingstone, we flew to Mfuwe International Airport near the South Luangwa National Park. We spent two nights at a main camp called Kapani Lodge. This place was incredible. We'd get awoken at 5:30 AM, have a light breakfast, then start a four hour morning game drive just after 6:00. I really saw some incredible things on this safari. Impala, puku, lions with cubs, elephants, cape buffalo, vervet monkeys, baboons, hyenas, bush bucks, water bucks, and many more. It's really weird because these companies have been providing game drives for years, so the animals are used to the Land Cruisers and are never caused harm by them, so you get very close. Our first night there we were literally four or five meters from two juvenile male lions. The first encounter that close is a bit creepy because you are in an open air vehicle that the animals could easily jump onto and eat all of the occupants, but they just lay around like you're not there.

After two nights at the main lodge, we made our way to a bush camp located 30 km inside the park. You sleep in a very nice tent (feels more like a house) and have elephants, hippos, and other animals munching on the grass outside your tent while you sleep. During the day animals just slowly walk through the camp grounds while you enjoy a bloody mary or g & t. It's really very cool. Some highlights were coming upon a pride of 14 lions and 3 cubs just hanging out one night. The cubs were just running around playing/annoying the older lions and seemed like little kittens. One of the lions was just sleeping on its back with its feet in the air. Very cute. Another cool thing we saw was a leopard up in a tree with a killed impala during a morning walking safari. Don't worry, we had an armed guard with us the whole time so we were in no danger. The leopard left pretty quickly, but we returned to the same tree that night and got to hang out and watch the leopard for awhile. The whole experience was really great and I highly recommend you to go on a safari sometime in your life.