November 25, 2007
Rent a cottage for an African safari
So we’re all au fait with renting a cottage in the Lakes or a villa on the costas. How about trying it on a safari? Brian Jackman explains
The lioness came barrelling out of the thorn thicket and launched herself at the vultures that were stealing her kill. One moment they were squabbling and feeding, and the next she was among them, lashing out as they departed in an explosion of flapping wings and falling feathers.
Earlier, she had been lying with her sister and three small cubs that romped in the shade, tumbling over her and biting her tail in play. The two adults had killed a warthog that morning and it was the pig’s half-eaten carcass that had attracted the scavengers.
Such encounters are commonplace when you rent a house in lion country – especially if you choose Luangwa Safari House, on the edge of Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park. The house belongs to Robin Pope, one of Africa’s most respected safari guides, and is set in a private game concession adjoining the Luangwa River. Robin’s home is just down the road and enjoys the same idyllic views of the Chindeni hills, framed by groves of ebony trees.
Designed by Neil Rocher, the architect who created Kenya’s stylish Shompole Lodge, Luangwa Safari House brings penthouse chic to the Zambian bush. From the outside, with its thatched roof propped up on six-ton leadwood trunks, it looks like a medieval tithe barn; but inside all is coolness and elegance, open to the breeze and overhung by high rafters where fruit bats snooze in baronial splendour, suspended among the crossbeams.
The house sleeps eight in four spacious rooms, all with verandas and ensuite bathrooms, and comes with its own chef and housekeeper. Lunch and dinner are usually served outside, either beside the plunge pool or on a raised wooden deck in the shade, which overlooks a seasonal lagoon attracting a procession of thirsty animals.
Here, after lunch, I enjoyed a siesta, stretched out in a hammock, waking to find elephants drinking and wallowing around me. If living among the herd is a novelty, so is the luxury of having your own safari vehicle, with an experienced Zambian guide. In our case, it was the marvellous Jacob Shawa, a big man in every sense, with a baritone voice and beaming smile. His people, the Ngoni, were famous as warriors and his surname, he told us proudly as we crossed the bridge over the Luangwa River, means “spear thrower”.
Enclosed by green walls of riverine forest, the Luangwa is one of the last untamed rivers of Africa. For mile after mile it flows through the park, sinuously unwinding in coils as wide as the Thames at Westminster. In the rainy season it bursts its banks, flooding the plains for miles around. But I’m here in June: no rain has fallen for two months and the waters have receded, exposing sand bars the size of Cornish beaches, where crocodiles bask, yellow mouths agape, and hippos sprawl like polished boulders.
Soon, we are deep in the park. South Luangwa is serious big-game country, and the dirt road ahead is crisscrossed with signs that Jacob translates for us: the cloven hoof prints of kudu and buffalo, and the thrilling sight of fresh lion spoor.
We drive on, past lofty marulas with mottled trunks, tamarinds and strangler figs, grand old winterthorns, indestructible leadwoods, sausage trees with fruit like outsize salamis, and potbellied baobabs reckoned to be older than London.
Under the trees, in the dappled aisles and grassy glades, parties of zebra seek the shade, and after a while you become aware of the horizontal browse line, 18ft above the ground, clipped by generations of giraffes, creating a natural sense of order amid the bewildering chaos of nature.
Wherever we look there are birds: bee-eaters and spoonbills, guinea fowl with polka-dot plumage, metallic-blue starlings, pied kingfishers hovering above the river, and flocks of lovebirds swirling like showers of emeralds through the woodland canopy.
From its perch overlooking the Mfuwe lagoon, a fish eagle flings back its head and yelps at the sky, and its cry echoes on and on. In the silence that follows, a sudden barking of baboons pinpoints the presence of a predator on the move. “Maybe it is the magnificent spotted one,” says Jacob mysteriously.
But I know what he means and eventually we find it. A leafy pattern of light and shadow miraculously rearranges itself to become a leopard sprawled at the water’s edge. It’s a full-grown male, his coat splashed with sooty rosettes. He returns our stare boldly, then treats us to a prodigious yawn that shows off his teeth.
He has a kill hidden in the thicket behind him – I can make out a glint of horns, a splash of blood. But when we try to drive closer, he gets to his feet, picks up what is left of the dead antelope in his jaws and swaggers off. Then, as only leopards can, he vanishes.
Later in the week, we spot something really special: two small leopard cubs playing on a fallen tree. But not all the excitement of being on safari revolves around the big-cat families and their secret lives. One evening, we enjoy sundowners on a pontoon moored in the middle of the river, hippos surfacing all around us with huge watery sighs and the western sky on fire. Suddenly, out of the gathering dusk, a black silhouette appears and goes whipping over our heads on sharp, flickering wings. It’s a bat hawk – a twilight hunter – a species to make any twitcher jump for joy.
Then there’s the yellowbilled stork colony at Chipela lagoon. A thousand pairs nest here every year and in June their woolly, grey chicks are just fledging, making this one of the great wildlife sights of Africa. The noise is deafening, the air reeks like a henhouse, and the islands of trees in whitewashed from top to bottom with guano.
At the end of the day, we drive home in the golden hour when the light deepens to melted honey, transforming the browsing herds of puku into antelopes carved in amber, and on the way we encounter a family group of elephants marching slowly across the plain. Their bodies are still wet and shiny, showing they have just crossed the river, and among them is a baby no more than a few months old, trundling along beside its mother.
Soundlessly they stride past, barely acknowledging our presence: four giant, ebony shadows with swinging trunks and flapping ears, and one small one. There goes the future of Africa, I say to myself and wish the youngster well.
That night, back at the Luangwa Safari House, the local Chindeni lion pride turns up and gives us a full-on serenade that makes the air vibrate. Next morning, their footprints are right outside my door.
Rent the best
Chongwe River House, Zambia. Is there a more extraordinary house than this in Africa? Its cavelike entrance bristles with poles resembling the eyelashes of some mythical beast, and its four ensuite bathrooms incorporate waterfalls that guests use as showers, while the in-house chef conjures up fantastic menus.
