Kafue

The National Park of Kafue is the home of the Lufapa Tented camp where we are staying. Our day today started with the game drive at seven.  This camp is new and the animals are still skittish.  There just aren’t many to see and nothing particularly new.  And none of the Big Five.  The staff is nice and the camp is beautiful.  This time we are in the Mid Veld and the plants are greening up as summer will soon be here just as our own fall approaches. 

We had our morning break by the river watching a Pod of Hippos enjoying the cool waters.  A Kingfisher dove repeatedly but failed to have any success.  Crocodiles sunbathed on the gentle bank and Cranes and Egrets dabbled in the flowing waters. 

The best part of this camp is the beautiful river, lovely overviews, and comfortable tents.  The worst part is the Tsetse Flies.  They bite despite staining our clothes with oily 99.8% DEET spray.  Every time our vehicle stops we are swarmed by them even though we are carrying a pot of smoking elephant dung on our front bumper.  No kidding – smoking elephant dung.  Steve and Kay were inhaling deeply since it is said to be good for the curing of bloody noses and they have been suffering some with the very dry climate. Bud and I are kidding about starting a company to import this idea to the U.S.  It doesn’t small bad and would be great around the bar-b-que.  Do you think we can pitch it on Shark Tank?

We had a nice long break after a brunch of freshly made to order omelettes and fruit skewers.  Lia, Iva, Bonnie, Susie and I walked in the limited protected space but were startled by Impala leaping across our pathway.  I wrote awhile and feel more caught up and finished reading my book.  I will have to find one for the rest of my trip.

At tea time an elephant came into camp and shook coconuts out of the tree for his snack!  We enjoyed a talk on the history of Zambia and then set out for our afternoon into night game drive. Again, not very successful but we enjoyed the time together.  During our Sundowner, Vitalis put a spin on an old Aesop fable.  His version included a guest who brought along a Jack Russell who fooled the Leopard!

Dinner was delicious and off to bed we went.  As I write this, Hippos are serenading me right outside my cabin door!

I am trying to upload pictures to be sure I have plenty of card space since I have either misplaced or lost my spare cards as well as my card with pictures of the first part of the trip!  Fingers crossed, I will find the case with all the cards but it doesn’t look promising.