Those beautiful photos of South Luangwa

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In Zambia you enter with a wad of bills in your hand that is thinning until it disappears. Up to five fees and a visa are paid. The culmination was when they asked us, already without a kwacha (local currency) in hand and without the possibility of change, why border would we go out. "Sorry, But what difference does that make?”. And the man replied that this influences the use of the roads and the more distant ones are more expensive than the nearby ones.. "But we have 20 dollars nothing more and here there are no ATMs. Tell us for that money which is the border through which we must go and we go?”, we explain with some reluctance. And the guy looked and I think he was tempted to point out that with 20 dollars the border through which we had to leave the country is the same in which we were. But, others forgave us 20 dollars that we needed and indicated Katima Mulilo, border with Namibia, across the country.

How many times did we think to breathe and charge an oxygen tax?

And once we got into the car and when the only thing left was for the fence to be raised, two guys told us that the entrance fee remained to be paid.. And we started laughing since we didn't have a single penny. Then, a girl who had helped us with the car insurance interceded for us and the agents let us enter Zambia without paying the sixth fee. The feeling is that there was little left for an environmental agent to arrive and tell us how many times we were thinking of breathing and charging us a tax for the use of oxygen. In any case, the people of that border were lovely, nothing to reproach personally.

We then headed to South Luangwa, the only great park in Zambia that I did not know and had heard rave about when I was here in 2010. We passed through the city of Chipata and I was surprised by the good infrastructure, supermarkets and banks that were everywhere. Then I started to check that the GPS was always deceived, that where there was a dirt track, a brand new asphalt road appeared. In these four years, And so it was and I understood later what was happening throughout the country, economic growth and development had been immense. I looked out the window and I was happy to see that what was one of the poorest countries on earth had managed to shed so much of its skin.

We finally reached South Luangwa and camped at the Cocrodile Camp. Next to the great river in one of those unforgettable places. There we spent two fascinating travel days. The park is wild, with a diverse landscape and abundant fauna. On the first safari we came across a leopard and her two cubs in front of us. My emotion was such that I took my whole body out of the car window to photograph them. Actually the feline passed two meters from me and I did not stop taking pictures without caring about its proximity. Victor confessed to me after he put the gear in gear and I confessed to him that at that moment because of adrenaline he would have even touched. Then a certain fear came to me at the thought that the mother might have thought that I was putting her young at risk. So if the feline would attack. It does, we follow, we enjoy them, we live them.

The mother might have thought that I was putting her young at risk

And then came herds of antelope, Zebras, giraffes or elephants. Or that lagoon with dozens of hippos covered by aquatic plants. And then we went back to eat, in that cabin-restaurant of our camp in front of the water in which while I was having a coffee I heard: "Here are lions or leopards nearby". And all the workers began to look for them. Why do you know?, asked. "Because the monkeys have begun to scream and that is a sign of danger", they answered under the roar of the throats of hundreds of macaques. And then after a few seconds we discovered on the other side of the shore a huge male leopard advancing through the vegetation. And in between were hippos and crocodiles. And me, african nature fan, I took photos happy to be lucky enough to be another of the animals in that picture.

And so it was two days of calm sunrises and sunsets, that there the sun would go and return without making a sound. And nights of moonless stars and lonely bonfires. Time had stopped in South Luangwa and we enjoyed it with the serene passion of the journey. And we wrote and we read and we talked. We talked about life and its reverse, the other life, the previous one, ours, that of the others. And we met a Frenchman and his Canadian wife who wore 16 years going around the world. No longer traveling, He simply lived in that home on wheels with which he crossed the world on several occasions and on whose door there was a phrase from the Little Prince. “I would not even die in my country”, assured.

“I would not even die in my country”, assured

And one morning the park was over and we headed to Lusaka. That city that I hated so much years ago and that now without reproach seemed cleaner, more advanced and orderly than all those that I contemplated in the rest of the trip. And there we went to Dani's party, a Lebanese who lives there, a friend of Victor, celebrating his birthday and the end of a rally event (he is a pilot) in his house. And there pilots and friends got together, and we ate an impala and pork meat as I have never tasted in my life. Exactly I repeated six times. And then we slept in a hotel that he generously reserved for us, Lilayi, in which there are antelopes or zebras at the door of your cabin.

And then, after two nights, we left for Namibia and in a short time the beautiful and friendly Zambia. A country that has a lot of my image and my heart on this continent. I hardly ever go and somehow never let me go. Now too, by breakdowns, for commitments and that Zambia will never know where it ends the whole. South Luangwa, as I was the Lower Zambezi Park, Iran always with me, Iran always in my memory Africa.

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Comments (2)

  • Monica

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    Wishing I was there with you

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  • Nacho Melero

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    My belly is tickled when I see those photos

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