Lower Zambezi River

Camping at the Lower Zambezi

From Lusaka we headed south east to the Lower Zambezi region. There is a national park with bad roads and high fees further east, but between Chirundu and the park are many nice camps, where you see a lot of animals, especially on a river cruise. On the other side of the river is already Zimbabwe with the Mana Pools National Park, famous for its abundance of wildlife. We went to Mukuyu Camp, where you can park your camper directly at the edge of the river.

Readying the cruise boat
Mukuyu Camp @ Zambezi River

In front of our camp were some reed islands, where a group of elephants was grazing the whole day. On our sunset cruise we got closer and could watch them enjoying the green grass of the island.

Black-winged Stilt

Hippos were everywhere along the river, for sure not an endangered species. They watched us approaching before they submerged in the river. We always hoped that they wouldn’t bob up again, before we had passed the area with our small boat.

Also the number and size of crocs was fascinating. 4-5 metres was a usual length. They seem to find enough to eat, hopefully no tourists on tiny cruise boats.

Jurassic Park!

Just where a huge croc slid into the water, the engine stopped. Giusep was quite worried, but our captain managed to start it again.

Kudu
Bring me my beer, wife!
Great Egret
Our first hippo out of the water!
Giusep & Albin

When we came back to our camper after taking a shower, we noticed a yellow spot just in front of our camper. It turned out, a little croc was lying there, less than 2 metres away! We decided to leave it alone and went to bed. The next morning it was luckily gone again.

We had enjoyed our time at Mukuyu Camp, as we had met nice people there and the location on the river was perfect. But the ablutions were very basic and the owner tried to charge too much. We negotiated a better price, which was still very high.

We drove back to Chirundu from here, but stopped at another camp for 2 nights, where we had such great experiences, that we highly recommend that place – more on the following post!

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