2023-08-18: Safari Day 4 (Zungulila)

They wake you up even earlier at Zungulila. The wake up call came at 5:30am. Amanda had a hard time falling asleep last night for some reason. She didn’t really get to sleep until about 1:00am. Darrell woke up with a sore throat. He’s been fighting something the last couple of days. We had a quick rinse and got packed up for the day. At 6:00am we headed to the main area for some breakfast. It’s the same breakfast they served at Chamilandu which consisted of porridge, fruit, and toast.

We said good morning to our Spanish friends and loaded into the safari vehicle. We drove for a while and then parked the vehicle for another walking safari. We learned more about the vegetation in the area. We found some sausage tree flowers on the ground and found some “elephant rattles” which are seed pods that rattle when you shake them. The elephants love them. We saw a bunch of birds including geese, storks, and “Jesus birds” becuase it looks like they walk on water. We also ran into some hippos and elephants along the way.

We returned to the vehicle and went for a bit of a drive. We found th wild dogs again. There were some baboons nearby that weren’t happy about it. They were making all sorts of noises warning the others of the dogs. The dogs were just chilling out undr some bushes. We also came across a male kudu. We started to head back to camp, or so we thought. They pulled another surprise on us and parked beside the river. They had set up a couple of tables under tents in the river. We were getting wet again to have some lunch! They had prepared some wraps for us. We grabbed a tortilla shell of sorts and filled it with cheese, rice, vegetables and chicken and/or beef. Then we sat at the table and enjoyed it. They had a couple of salads on the table as well. We talked about the river while we are our lunch. The river level can rise up to 2 meters in the rainy season. At one point someone dropped a napkin in the river. It floated under the table and wrapped around the Spanish lady’s leg. She jumped thinking it was a crocodile or something but realized it was just a napkin. We all had a good laugh about it. They brought us some waffles with ice cream and chocolate sauce for dessert.

Once were all full, we returned to the vehicle and made our way back to camp. Our Spanish friends were heading to Chamilandu this afternoon so we said goodbye to them before retiring to our tents to relax for the afternoon.

At 3:30pm we met in the main area of camp for our afternoon/evening safari. We met the new guests at the camp. They are an Indian couple from Seattle and the mother of the woman who is from Katmandu. They have their own guide so it was just our family with Alec. After grabbing a quick drink and some cinnamon apple rolls for a snack, we were on our way.

Alec wanted to find us some giraffes since we hadn’t seen any yet. There is a group of four females that wander these parts. We went searching but didn’t have any luck finding them. We saw several birds, some impala, and a group of about 7 crocodiles. We pulled up along the shore of the river for our sundowner break. We watched the sun set and enjoyed the view while having a beverage.

Once the sun had set, we were on our way again with the spotlight. A few minutes into the night safari, we finally found the giraffes! Of course they waited to show themselves until it was dark out so we couldn’t get very good pictures. But at least we saw them. We also found a couple of hyenas and another leopard during the night drive. We returned to camp at 7:30pm.

We dropped off our gear in our tents and were escorted to the dining area for our 8:00pm dinner. We had a table to ourselves. The Indian family had their own table. We don’t know if that was by their request or if the camp just set it up that way. Our dinner consisted of a vegetable samosa for a starter, followed by curried chicken, fish, and vegetables for the main course. It was set up as a buffet so you could select which type(s) you wanted. We’re not big curry fans, except for Patrick, so it wasn’t our favourite meal. Michael was not a fan of the spice. Dessert was something they called a date pudding. It was a cake with dates in it we assume, covered in chocolate sauce. We quite enjoyed the dessert.

The kids were spent by the time dinner was over so we got escorted back to our tents to get some sleep.