By admin Located in east Zambia, South Luangwa National Park is one of the country’s most-visited destinations, well-known for its walking safaris and night game drives. Reuben and I planned a very last minute trip after spending nearly a week in Malawi (more on that here) in April 2021. While we were fully vaccinated the pandemic was still in full-swing globally, so our visit was a bit unusual, but still quite special, especially after a year of being stuck in the U.S.
The park is populated with a diverse range of bird species, many hippos and leopards, as well as other wildlife such as lions, elephants, crocodiles, giraffes, zebras and more. I was particularly excited about the prospect of viewing leopards, as that was the only Big Five animal that I did not have the opportunity to see during my first safari in Kruger National Park.
We were visiting in late April, right in between the park’s wet and dry seasons (July to October is dry season, widely considered the best time to visit). Due to the time of year and the fact that we were still in a pandemic, many lodges were closed, but we were pleased to find that Kafunta River Lodge was open and welcoming guests with minimally-altered service offerings. While not quite the crème de la crème of lodges, Kafunta was a solid upper-four-star property, with all the amenities that one would expect from a high end safari (knowledgeable guides, delicious, locally-sourced meals, stunning views and thoughtfully-designed rooms).
Getting to South Luangwa National Park
The most common way to get to South Luangwa is to fly into Mfuwe Airport from Lusaka, Zambia (70 minutes), followed by a 1.5-2 hour drive to your lodge (many lodges will include a roundtrip airport transfer as part of their offering). You can also drive from Malawi if you are including your South Luangwa trip with a visit to Lake Malawi (as we were) or other Malawi national parks. Transportation is often included at a minimal cost or at no charge if you have a broader southern Africa itinerary booked.
All that being said, Reuben insisted on driving ourselves from Lilongwe, Malawi to Kafunta, approximately a four hour drive not considering delays at the land border. While I was hesitant to go it alone, especially given the ever-changing restrictions on border crossings during COVID, I agreed to give it a shot and embrace the adventure. In “normal” times there would still be a lot of paperwork to have prepared in advance (visas, rental car documentation), but we of course also had to deal with pandemic regulations.
We spent two nights in Lilongwe to ensure that we had plenty of time to get the PCR test required to enter Zambia. Upon entering the rather sketchy and dusty Mchinji border station, we felt pretty confident as we were validated with the thick pile of papers I was carrying around in “The Folder” as Reuben had dubbed it.
Once parking in what seemed to be the appropriate place, we eventually found a local woman we thought would be a trustworthy handler to get us through the multiple checkpoints at the border. Regardless, we still ran into issues when the Malawi immigration officer alerted us that the land border was closed except for essential travel. To be fair I had seen the same information online, but all our discussions with locals in Malawi made us feel like the rule was easy to get around. We figured we’d be able to bribe someone and did our awkward best to make it clear we’d be willing to throw in some extra kwacha to make it worth their while, but nobody seemed to get it.
For about seven minutes I thought we might need to turn around and drive back to Lilongwe. I started proposing options to Reuben: Fly to Lusaka and go to Vic Falls? Check out Liwonde National Park in Malawi? Then our handler gestured for us. The immigration officer had seemingly gotten tired of looking at us and was ready to stamp our passports. No bribe required. Really?! Okay, we’d take it.
We still needed to go through several different offices to get out of Malawi and into Zambia, one of which was particularly complicated because we had a rental car registered in Malawi. After almost two hours watching immigrations and customs officers eating snacks and playing on their smartphones, we were finally cleared to drive into Zambia with multiple official stamps and additional papers for The Folder. WOOHOO!
A couple things I noticed almost immediately upon entering Zambia: the cell service was WAY better (it had been atrocious in Malawi, which is know for having some of the most expensive internet service in the world), and the roads were much more well-maintained. We were still in the developing world, but we had moved up a notch or two.
One other experience that I can’t forget to mention–Reuben had brought along a bunch of pencils and notebooks to hand out to schoolchildren during our trip. We had donated some to the village school next to Safari Beach Lodge on Lake Malawi but still had a lot more remaining. When we passed a school on the road to the border with a mass of kids out front, Reuben decided it was time to pull over and hand out the rest of the goods.
“Here you go,” he said, handing me the pile. “You do the honors.” Well, okay. At first the kids and their teacher looked at us with confusion as we got out of the car and greeted them. What were these foreigners doing on their turf? Once I showed them the school supplies, they immediately got it and I was mobbed by the kids as they screamed unintelligibly. They started aggressively grabbing at me and stepping on me, with a few enterprising children grabbing several notebooks out of my hands at once. I quickly realized that there was no way to equitably hand out the supplies, and I was honestly terrified that I was going to trip and be trampled. The best solution I could come up with was holding the “goods” high above my head and tossing them out around me.
Finally I got rid of everything and the wave of kids subsided once they realized I was out of treats. The greedy kids who had grabbed more than their fair share of supplies gloated while the unlucky empty-handed ones pouted.
“That was hilarious!” Reuben told me as I brushed myself off and made my way back to the car. “You were like Trump, chucking out toilet paper to the crowd in Puerto Rico.” Cool. My attempt at being charitable had clearly backfired. Next time I’d pass on handing out supplies directly to the kids; it would have been much smoother to just offer them to the teacher like we did at the Lake Malawi school.
Our Accommodations at Kafunta River Lodge
With all the rigamarole at the Malawi-Zambia border, it ultimately took us six hours to get to Kafunta. We were beyond thrilled to be welcomed by the pared-back team. There were only five of us (me, Reuben, and three Zambians) visiting during the four days of our stay and we were some of the first travelers returning to the lodge after Kafunta had been closed for all of 2020. It was a quite intimate and relaxed experience, and honestly perfect in my opinion as I was still re-acclimating to adventurous international travel.
The lodge itself was everything I could have wanted. The common area included an expansive, open dining room and bar overlooking the Luangwa River where we could spot numerous animals cruising by for a rest in the sun or a sip of water. In between game drives and meals, we could relax by the infinity pool while still keeping an eye out for game. Down a few stairs sat a platform for a more intimate dining experience underneath the stars, next to a circular lounge surrounding a fire pit for a cozy nightcap.
Our room was a private luxury chalet with a thatched roof and private viewing deck overlooking the river. It was tastefully decorated and felt comfortable but not over-the-top.
My only other safari experience at this point had been at Singita’s Lebombo Lodge, one of the best of the best when it comes to safari accommodations. I knew that Kafunta would be at a different level than Singita, but I was impressed with the quality that the accommodations did offer given that the price point was significantly lower.
Our Game Drives at Kafunta River Lodge
As is standard with most safari lodges, our stay included twice daily game drives–one early in the morning before it got too hot for the animals and one in the evening as the nocturnal species were just awakening. We always had the same guide (John, who was great) and never had a group larger than five visitors in our Land Cruiser since we were the only ones staying in the lodge during COVID times.
Upfront, I will say that the biggest difference for me when comparing Kafunta and Singita Lebombo was the game drives. Yes, the rooms were nicer and the food & drinks were better at Singita. But those things were still high quality at Kafunta and I hadn’t traveled to a remote spot in southern Africa for world-class dining.
There were two big differences to consider:
- Kafunta was located well outside the entrance to the national park, so it was a regular 45 minute drive each way to get in and out of the park. Yes, it was still beautiful and we always saw animals along the way, but four days of doing the same route got quite old. Once in the park we were able to explore different paths, so on a return trip I would probably prefer to stay closer to the park or inside the park itself.
- When visiting South Luangwa, you are limited to visiting the national park, which comes with rules and regulations around off-roading, for good reason. While we fortunately did not run into a lot of people embarking on a self-drive safari, likely due to the season and the pandemic, we still had to be very careful to follow the rules and not drive off road. John was a great sport; he knew how and when to bend the rules for special sightings, which I very much appreciated. Regardless, it still felt like a marked difference from my Singita experience, when we were on a private concession. This meant that not only did we have the land to ourselves, but we were able to go off road without hesitation. Being able to get up close and personal with an elephant herd (including babies!), a pair of rhinos, and an attempted lion kill made my experience with Singita particularly memorable.
All that being said, I still had a great experience on the Kafunta game drives. One of the other guests was a passionate birder, and John did an impressive job identifying unique birds along the way. While Reuben and I know absolutely nothing about birds (especially those that reside in South Luangwa), we enjoyed learning from a couple experts.
As previously mentioned, I was especially keen to see leopards as they were the only member of the big five that I did not get to see in Kruger. In this regard South Luangwa did not disappoint. One of my favorite sightings was at night when we got to watch a leopard stalking an impala only to be foiled by an overly eager hyena.
We also saw plenty of hippos, elephants, zebras and more. The sundowner views were always a highlight of the day for me–it’s hard to beat a G&T overlooking an African sunset! In general, safaris are an unbelievable activity that offer a unique connection with nature as you view animals living in the wild with very little human interaction. For that reason I was ecstatic to experience my second-ever safari.
Returning to Malawi
After our challenging experience crossing the land border from Malawi to Zambia, I was understandably apprehensive about getting back into Malawi. On one hand, we already had our multiple-entry Malawi visas sorted and our rental car was registered in Malawi. We also had proof of our upcoming flights home to the U.S. out of Lilongwe, which gave us an essential reason to cross the border–right?
On the other hand Malawi had recently changed its COVID testing policy from 10 days to 72 hours before entry. This happened quite unceremoniously once we were already in the country and we had a difficult time even verifying the updated policy. There was no way we’d be able to get yet another test in Zambia to re-enter Malawi given that we were staying at a remote safari lodge and testing was still not easy/quick to come by.
While I was the nervous nellie in the relationship, Reuben was pumped about the opportunity to scam the system and produce our own fraudulent test results. After a bit of research and discussion with the locals (and direct observation of the scant procedures in place at the Mchinji border as we departed Malawi), I finally agreed to reproduce a version of the test results we had obtained in NYC before embarking on our trip–with new dates of course. While I felt guilty about lying, I also knew that it was extremely unlikely that we were putting anybody at risk. We had spent the last four days with a total of ten other people, all of whom had been vaccinated and that we only interacted with outdoors.
As we drove toward the border crossing I began to speculate aloud about what could happen if our test results didn’t pass muster. I felt confident that Zambia would let us out, but would Malawi let us in? If not, we’d be stuck in limbo… for how long?! Then we started going down a rabbit hole researching people who got stuck between borders (typically in airports–this is quite a fascinating read).
Long story short, Zambia was super chill about letting us out and Malawi was also pretty easy-going–until it came to our test results. The sweet woman at the health office actually had no problem with the fact that our tests were from NYC, and she didn’t even care to verify our recent travels–otherwise she would’ve realized we hadn’t been in the U.S. in well over a week. Her big concern was that the results were from three days prior by calendar date. We patiently sat down with her to explain that 72 hours was equivalent to three days, and if she actually did the math considering the time that the sample had been collected (according to the doctored documents at least), it would be less than 72 hours. Shame on us for trying to provide a realistic date for test results received in NYC. We would’ve been better off including a date that would’ve been impossible to actually achieve, but would have unquestionably fallen within Malawi’s new 72 hour requirement.
After the woman consulted with her colleague, we assured her that we were going straight to Kamuzu Hospital in Lilongwe to get yet another COVID test so we could return home to the U.S. (not a lie this time). She reluctantly let us go–lo and behold our legitimate PCR test from Kamuzu came back negative yet we still had to argue our way onto the Ethiopian Airlines flight home despite the fact that we were completely legitimate this time around. Needless to say traveling to Malawi and Zambia was quite an adventurous choice for an initial post-vaccine trip, but we managed to make it work without any major snafus. Everything would be easy from here… right?!
