And
so ends another safari season in the
Lower Zambezi – and what a season it
has been - Chiawa’s busiest ever! A
HUGE thank you to you all. The dust,
proverbial and otherwise, has now
settled with the arrival of the wet
season and it is all systems go with
our working-holiday travels and
maintenance on our fleet of vehicles
& boats.
Lynsey & I have just returned
from a busy World Travel Market and
we’d like to thank all of you who
took the time out to stop at our
table and catch up. It is always
great to see familiar faces and
exchange news. Should any of you who
we missed require Chiawa & Old
Mondoro 2004 rates/information, or
Chiawa’s Zambia FlightMap which has
been so well received, please drop
us a line so we can email them to
you immediately. Important –Comair
will no longer be flying the daily
Lusaka-Johannesburg flights,
effective December 01, however SAA
continues to fly this route at least
once every day.
The last few weeks of the season
at Chiawa were most interesting –
with some great sightings that
included two separate aardvark
sightings, one at the waterhole
right next to camp. The other which
Andy found, was particularly
noteworthy – whilst he & his blessed
guests were watching the aardvark
busy snuffling about and seemingly
oblivious to the vehicle, an
inquisitive lioness heard the
potentially tasty meal and started
moving cautiously in for a closer
look. At this point the aardvark
realised what was going on and it
dug an unbelievably quick burrow and
disappeared completely from view in
a matter of seconds. Has anyone else
out there heard of aardvarks digging
a burrow to escape in such a manner?
Another
spectacular evening drive turned up
4 leopards in close proximity to
each other. However it was the
manner in which the leopards were
discovered which is even more
unusual. Having seen a pair of
mating leopards a few km’s back, one
of our drives was perplexed to find
a 6 month old lion cub totally on
its own, mewing for the rest of the
pride which were nowhere to be seen.
It was this mewing which attracted a
large female leopard which then
commenced a "leopard crawl" stalk
towards the cub. Of course everyone
in the vehicle was tempted to
intervene and rescue the cub
however, as is standard practice at
Chiawa, the vehicle kept its
distance and waited for nature to
run its course without any
interference. The cub must have
smelt or sensed it was in danger as
it suddenly charged at full tilt
across the lagoon with the leopard
in hot pursuit. For a few moments it
looked like the cub was done for but
it ran into a large stand of
adrenalin grass which was hiding its
rescuers – the missing 12 lions! So
the leopardess turned around and led
us to another male leopard which she
promptly started flirting with.
Would it be boring if all night
drives were like that?
Whilst on the subject of game
viewing, the resident wild dog
population had a somewhat traumatic
season, losing the first litter or
pups and subsequently the Alpha
female to disease. Fortunately
another female took on the Alpha
role and shortly thereafter was
heavily pregnant and denning. She
gave birth to about 8 pups in July
however as a first time mother, lost
most of them once they got mobile.
At the time of writing only three of
this season’s pups have survived,
about the same number from last
year’s litter. The good news is that
the population is still healthy and
viable – indeed – we had about 27
wild dog sightings this season which
is a large increase from the
phenomenal doggie year of 2002.
Unfortunately Kellie Leigh is
staying in Australia for most of
2004 to complete her thesis however
it is hoped that Conservation Lower
Zambezi will be able to continue
monitoring the wild dog population
for
the benefit of the species, and for
you!
For the anglers, the heaviest
tiger (a portly 19lbs) was caught by
Barney from England, who was also
treated to a spectacular
lions-feeding-on-buffalo scene, on
the last day that Chiawa was open!
Quite a few were also caught in the
14-17lb range however higher than
usual water levels this year
prevented the fishing from being as
frantic as we are used to.
Interestingly
the ladies fared very well, usually
out-fishing the men, and indeed the
largest fish caught at Chiawa this
year was a 50lb vundu – well done
Anna from Austria! For those of you
who don’t know, the best fishing
months are September-November and
all fish are released unharmed!
James and Isaac, our ever-smiling
and ever-patient fishing guides know
all the spots and all the tricks,
for expert and novice alike.
I’ve just received an email from
one of our guests, Alex Barrett, who
is a generous donor through his
Afrikeye organisation to
Conservation Lower Zambezi and who
was also at Chiawa this month whilst
Lyns & I were at WTM. He reports
that not long after having a
midnight cigarette break disturbed
by an overly-inquisitive hyena, he
watched a large male lion marking
its territory on the bushes in front
of his tent, and then "dozed off" to
its roars reverberating across camp.
Magic!
We
are also pleased to announce that
Chiawa, working with a Swiss guest
(Christine) who runs a charity in
Geneva called School against Aids,
will be providing School PTA fees,
uniforms, bags, and stationary for
90 Aids
orphans at Mugurameno
Primary School, some 50km from
Chiawa Camp. It is our long-term aim
to be able to help educate the
orphans at the 8 other schools in
the area and we hope to be able to
take on an extra school each year.
Should you wish to learn more about
this program, and wish to help in
some way, please contact us. The
project starts for the new school
year in January 2004. So there you
have it – although after 15 years
Chiawa Camp is as active as ever in
conservation activities, we are now
getting more involved with community
improvement in support of our belief
that the children of today are
tomorrow’s conservationists and
decision makers.
That’s it for now – have a great
holiday season, and we hope to see
you in the New Year.
Grant & the Chiawa Team!
