Part 1: Lions, Zebras, Hippos, Giraffes.. Oh my!

One of my favorite landscape photos of our trip

Heading into Zambia last minute for a 4-day safari in South Luanga National Park turned out to be a very good idea! We heard that the South Luanga was one of the best places to do a safari in Africa and it has yet to be completely over commercialized.  We originally thought we might do this in May but due to visa issues we needed a quick leave the country solution, so we thought why not do it now!   We went with a tour company called "Kiboko Safari Tours" which was recommended by some friends, and I second their recommendation. It was a great experience and our tour guide Moses was amazing.  His knowledge of both the park and the animals was nothing short of amazing.

Our safari vehicle- very sturdy and sitting in the back going
over all the potholes was a ride all its own!

We opted to stay in tents.  But this tenting meant that animals
could come at night.. which they did! The first night a hippo
came right outside our tent.. all i heard was munch munch munch!

Not your 'average' tent- fitted with beds and even electricity!
I highly recommend!

Where we ate as a group every meal.

We spent two full days exploring the park, going on both early morning and late afternoon drives. Unfortunately the best times to see the animals is very early in the morning, so that meant we were up at 5am every morning and on the road by 6am..  that didn't make for a very happy danny.. but I surprisingly did very well! And watching the sun rise was an added bonus. Beautiful!

The view from our camp around 5:30am

Heading into the park at 6am

I didn't really know what to expect on this safari, would we see the Big 5? Josh and I didn't necessarily care about that, we just wanted to see zebras and giraffes. In the South Luanga you can only see 4 of the big 5 (no rhino's), but every drive is different and I wondered what these next days would bring. It turned out that we were soo lucky and saw most everything (including wild dogs which our guide himself hasn't seen in a year) and it was really thrilling to see such gorgeous landscape and animals.

You can only visit 1/10th of the park

Entrance to the park

And it's true, they do- You'll see below in my elephant photos of
a group of them taking over the road!

The roads were natural which I really liked, not paved or tarred

Moses- our amazing tour guide taking us through the north
part of the park

During this safari we visited both the north and south part
of the park, this was also in the north. I love the clouds!

I loved the different tree species that existed in the park. My favorite was the 'sausage' tree named for the fruit it produces that look like sausages and of course the boa trees.

The sausage tree- see the hanging sausages?

Boa tree- so amazing!

Not sure what species of tree this is.. but I loved the contrast
of green and white.

Now Josh and I are definitely not 'birders' nor have we really ever taken an interest in bird-watching, but here they were amazing. So colorful and some had such interesting calls.. I definitely understand now why some people love birds!

Eagles!

Storks

Bee eaters (i think!)

The animals we definitely saw most frequent were Impala's, Monkey's and Baboons. I learned that you can tell the difference between a monkey and baboon by their tails. Monkey's are straight and Baboon's have curved ones.. see, it might have been early but I was paying attention!

Impala's- they reminded me of deer. Such graceful animals

awww baby monkey's

One of my favorite pics

Since I have soo many photos I am going to split this post into two. In the next one I will post photos of elephants, hippos, lions, giraffes, and hyenas :) Stay tuned!