Today’s audio update
LUANGWA WILDERNESS LODGE, LUAMBE NATIONAL PARK, ZAMBIA—Two years ago, a 23-year-old British-born safari guide was trampled and gored to death by an enraged female elephant while leading an American tourist on a walking safari along the Luangwa River. In a last act of valor, the guide distracted the charging animal from his client, an American engineer, who had tripped and fallen into the bush.
Now we are on a similar walking safari, stepping quietly into our own Discovery Channel special, tramping single-file down the Luangwa to its confluence with the Mukamadzi River, the setting sun burnishing our already red faces. A herd of elephant parades across the water; in the river there are so many hippos it looks as though you could step along their backs to the other side. Last year, in a project supported in part by the Cologne Zoo, 754 hippos were counted in a quarter-mile section in front of the Wilderness Lodge, the only camp in this neglected park. We are the only visitors in Luambe Park, a small piece of protection between the much larger South Luangwa and North Luangwa parks. The last group here was a week ago, and the next scheduled party of two is a couple of weeks away. No traffic jams of tourist-stuffed safari vehicles here. We have two local game scouts hired to protect us: Peter Pastor, walking behind with a rusted machete, and 20 yards ahead, Jason Nkhoma, an AK-47 with 10 rounds slung across his shoulder. Because of the small caliber, the Russian-made automatic would have a hard time dropping a charging elephant or hippo, though it is ideal to nab a band of poachers.
Then there are the solar-powered vehicles in the river, the crocodiles, fully charged at the end of the day, ready to go into high hunting gear. Traversing the river, it looks like the path could snap off and pitch us into the currents any second. So, the primary feeling when traveling on foot here is of some sort of exhilaration, a perverse frisson that comes with walking on the edge. In the Toyota, we are gods; walking, we are part of the food chain. This is exercise, but it is also an exercise in humility.
There are few places in Africa where you can walk on safari. It’s considered too dangerous for the great national parks of East Africa and elsewhere: Animals attack, and the more popular parks want the protection of a layer of motorized metal. But walking safaris are Zambia’s signature.
The late Norman Carr is credited with commercializing the walking safari. Norman first came to the Luangwa Valley as an elephant-control officer in 1939, killing more jumbos than he could count. He ended up Zambia’s Grand Old Man of conservation—8,000 people, including former President Kenneth Kaunda, attended his funeral in April 1997, and his tomb in an ebony grove is now something of a place of pilgrimage for his many disciples, including most of the safari guides we’ve bumped into, and even Chriss Weinand, our host.
After serving as an officer with the King’s African Rifles in North Africa during World War II, Carr returned to Northern Rhodesia with a new idea: perhaps it would be possible for villagers to make money out of protecting, rather than killing, elephants and other animals. He realized that, to make such a scheme work, the people on the land would have to benefit directly. He spoke to Paramount Chief Nsefu, who was mystified as to why people would want to pay to watch animals but was willing to try the experiment. In 1950, having built six simple rondevaals (round thatched chalets), Carr brought the first visitors from Chipeta, a town 100 miles away. They shot with cameras instead of rifles, and during the first year they paid the chief and his council about $200 for the privilege. African eco-tourism was born.
Though politics, weather, economics, greed, and corruption have made Carr’s dream less than realized, it did launch an industry of outback walkers, and it inspired Chriss’ Mandevu private farm project. One purpose of this trip is for Chriss to survey how other parks and projects throughout the country are doing.
Continuing our walking safari, we pass what looks like some sort of village shrine, but in fact it is a jungle gym: barbells and weights carved out of the heavy mopane tree, used by Jason and other guides to pump wood and keep in shape, not just for the day job, but also for catching poachers. Jason says he has caught 10-15 poachers in his 10 years as a scout/guide in the area, and he is paid 20,000 Kwacha ($4) for each one he brings back alive. Jason also invites us to hear his village sing for us in the evening, an invitation that comes from the shared experience of self-propelled movement. It’s unlikely it would have come had our guide been segregated in the front of a vehicle while we gawked in clouds of dust from the back.
A bit down the road, Justin Seymour-Smith—our very own David Attenborough, only more knowledgeable—picks up a clod of dirt and scratches it to reveal an ant lion, one of the Little Big Five, others being the rhino beetle, buffalo weaver, elephant shrew, and leopard tortoise. The ant lion waves its mandibles like a miniature Edward Scissorhands, and Justin informs us that it can only walk backward, a shame in these parts. But the detail, the slice of nature’s exquisiteness, reminds us that these are nuances of Africa we would have never seen riding in the back of a safari vehicle. A minute later, a strange sound detaches itself from our footfalls. The leaves begin to rustle like wind before a storm—walking fine-tunes our senses—and Jason crouches, readying his rifle. He waves for us to stop. Then two baby elephants cross the path not 100 feet in front of us. This is not good news, as a mother elephant protecting her young is among the most likely to charge. Glaeser Conradie, the 34-year-old manager of Luangwa Wilderness Lodge, tells us the best thing to do if the cow charges is to run, though “elephants can outrun people.” Suddenly this walking safari is in danger of becoming a running safari. Among the group we exchange glances, each recognizing that it is not so important that we outrun the elephant but that we outrun one another. I regret not having the green mangoes for breakfast, which we were promised would keep us running all day.
Check back tomorrow for the next dispatch from Zambia.
