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Hi all,
A long
overdue newsletter coming at you
but I beg forgiveness having
been to'ing and fro'ing between
camps and settling in our two
new fabulous management couples
into Chiawa Camp and Old Mondoro.
 So
without further ado let me
introduce Steve and Lynn Boyd
who are already well settled
into life at Chiawa and being
kept busy with getting our new
Honeymoon Tent ready in time for
our first safari - a fabulous
wedding party. Steve and Lynn
hail from Australia and come to
us with varied and relevant
experience having worked
together at two high end safari
camps in Tanzania before joining
us here - Zambia's gain is
Tanzania's loss. We are certain
that they will help Chiawa Camp
continue to maintain its
position at the very top of the
heap and keep improving
standards and setting new
benchmarks of service at one of
Africa's finest safari camps.
Chiawa's guiding team for 2010
is its strongest yet, headed up
by the now ubiquitous Paul
Grobler supported by Boaz
Chizuwa, Daniel Susiku,
Dispenser Chizuwa, Sebastian
Sakala and joining us from Old
Mondoro is John Pereira. A
formidable team and yet again
almost certainly Africa's
finest. That's 6 pro guides for
16 guests!
 Moving
downstream to Old Mondoro I
would like to introduce Etienne
and Leana Oosthuizen, he from
Zimbabwe and she from South
Africa but both having spent the
last 6 years working and
managing at some of South
Africa's best safari lodges.
They have settled into being in
the "real" bush with gusto and
their immediate task is to
ensure that the new rooms at Old
Mondoro are ready with their new
tweaks as promised for May.
After which guests will also get
to enjoy fabulous service and
hospitality in this finest of
bush camps.
Of course
Levy Farao and Morat Madzwanya
have made their return and who
together with Etienne will make
up yet another fabulous team of
guides. That's 3 pro guides for
just 8 guests.
 For those of you
who don't know, Old Mondoro for
2010 will be offering catch &
release fishing along with the
full range of safari activities
- here's to a fabulous year at
Old Mondoro. Indeed bookings are
very much on the up and up for
Old Mondoro with a 25% increase
in bookings so far compared to
last year!
Some
of you may know that due to all
the flooding this year, despite
a bone dry January it then
decided to rain incessantly for
6 weeks, the authorities have
had to open 3 flood gates on
Kariba Dam.
 Fortunately each
gate is only half way open so
the river has not come up as
high as we expected, but enough
to cover our dock, creep up onto Chiawa's front lawn and up to
the fire place. That's about as
high as we would want, take a
look at the temporary harbour we
have had to build!
You can
imagine the look on my face
though as we headed down the
Zambezi in our boat, loaded to
the hilt with supplies, when I
got a message that they had
opened 5 flood gates completely
- luckily that was just a bad
rumour but it didn't stop me
parking the boat close to a
large hill until we got good
info!!
 The
good news is that the channels
are all being flushed out so we
look forward to seeing some
waterholes this year instead of
weed filled depressions and
which should be great for the
water fowl.
At Chiawa Camp the
Zambezi has backed up along the
dry riverbed which has attracted
some nice bream which I am
thinking of throwing a fly line
at when I am back in camp.
Speaking of which we have had
lions calling most nights just
behind camp, competing with the
lions singing from across the
Zambezi and some spectacular old ele bulls in camp, checking up
on our progress and helping with
the pruning of errant bushes.
I
hope you enjoy the photos of
camp as it is this time of year,
complete with high water,
including this beauty of a huge
bull ele with his reflection in
the water.
 Thanks
to Anne Sophie from Switzerland
who has sent us this great photo
of a Chiawa Camp water bottle,
seemingly misplaced in the snow
but NO, it's doing its good work
even overseas - saving Africa
and everywhere else too from
plastic in its landfills. A
seemingly small gesture in the
middle of Africa has saved on
about 3,000 water bottles in
Zambia alone yet reaches out
globally and saves on plastic
bottles everywhere - can anyone
top this photo with their
"misplaced" water bottles?
The next
time I write both camps should
be open and I hope to have
photos of the new rooms at Old
Mondoro as well as the new
honeymoon tent at Chiawa. But
before I go I am proud to say
that Chiawa Camp has again been
nominated for some fabulous
awards this year; Best Safari
Camp in Africa, Best Guiding
Team in Africa, Best Eco Camp in
Africa, Best for Cuisine in
Africa - all under the Good
Safari Guide Banner - click here
if you would like to learn more
but note voting closes end of
this month, on the 31st. http://www.goodsafariguide.com/new/homepage.ph
Chiawa Camp
has also been nominated in the
World Travel Awards for the
third year running as Africa's
Leading Safari Lodge - maybe
third time lucky - click here
for more details. http://www.worldtravelawards.com/vot
Finally,
especially for our US guests, if
you would like to nominate
Chiawa Camp for the coveted
Travel & Leisure World's Best
annual awards please click
here: http://tlworldsbest.roiresearch.com/home.aspx
I shall
leave you with that, the
knowledge that I am very much
hoping for no more rain and of
course for great results in this
year's awards.
Til next
time,
Grant
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