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SLEEPING WITH HYENAS THE MIGHTY VICTORIA FALLS MAY BE ZAMBIA’S MOst ICONIC TREAsure, BUT OTHER MESMERIZING LANDSCAPES ARE FOUND FAR BEYOND THE FALLS. AUDREY N. CARPIO HEADS TO WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. 114 ESQUIRE • SEPTEMBER 2014 SEPTEMBER 2014 • ESQUIRE 115 SLEEPING WITH HYENAS SOUTH LUANGWA NOTHING BEtwEEN YOU AND A HUNGRY JACKAL BUT A MOSQUITO NET ON A NIGHT OUT UNDER THE STARS. The first night you spend in the African bushwill be relent- lessly noisy, and you will half-dream that the animals are right outside your hut, hippos hustling up the riverbank, lions breath- ing on your windows and elephants shitting in your courtyard. They may have actually passed through during the night; more likely they were safely in the distance, their communiques trav- eling over the plains and amplified in your sleep. Over the next few nights these are the noises that will lull you to bed, and the deep bassoon of the hipporchestra, the bronchiatic purrs of the big cats skanking in the tall grass, and the hoots of the great el- ephants as they tramp through the brush pard, buffalo, elephant; the rhino is now found only in Chinese medicine) in one will be exactly what you’ll miss when you trip but saw nothing but antelope, while get back to the beeps and whirrs of your others were blessed with show after daz- zling show. The bush is not a zoo, and tra- electronic city life. ditional tracking techniques—which rely It was my first time in Africa, the mother we share, and it was my first time on safa- on the senses, reading footprints and yes, ri. I soon learned, after cramming in guidebooks and related literature pre-departure, handling poop—have thankfully not been that “safari” is the Swahili word for a long journey and has nothing intrinsically to do replaced by GPS or drones. I came with- with viewing or hunting game, except that if you did traverse Africa by foot or by ferry, out any preconceptions except knowing bus or buffalo cart, you’re bound to come across a herd of animals mid-migration, wit- that the camps I would be staying in, or- ness the grand jetés of panicked impalas, and the mid-air explosion of birds as they leave ganized by A to A Safaris, were first-rate. I a threatened perch. also wanted to see a leopard up a tree. Zambia, in the safari industry, is touted as wilder and rawer than other African na- At Chongwe River Camp, an enviro- tions, with fewer tourists and lodges encroaching on the national parks. It is also one of chic lodge set along the confluence of the the most politically stable—with despot-led Zimbabwe, war-devastated DR Congo and Zambezi and its tributary, the Chongwe, I the extremely impoverished Malawi as neighbors, Zambia hardly makes the headlines. was given the honeymoon suite, a tented I was to begin my safari in the Lower Zambezi, where I arrived via single-prop Cess- octagonal room with its own private din- na, the smallest aircraft I’ve ever been on and one of the bumpiest rides, coasting across ing area, plunge pool and butler. As a solo, plains and mountains and along the mighty Zambezi, the fourth largest river in Africa. definitely non-honeymooning traveler, I We landed safely, as promised by my pilot Peter, on a 2-km airstrip in the middle of a red had no need for a butler, but the very con- patch Brazilianed into the bushy wilderness of the lower Zambezi valley. “This is the genial staff refused to let me lift a finger. real Africa,” echoed in my head, a phrase that had been fomenting my anticipation, and I “You are on holiday, relax!” They would wondered what that meant and whether I was going to find out. say as I tried to get my own cup of coffee, or paddle the canoe. I was accustomed to THE RIVER WILD: LOWER ZAMBEZI a level of self-service when traveling, so The drive from the airstrip to my first accommodation, the Chongwe River Camp, was the concept of just sitting back was novel. an abbreviated version of the game drives that would follow—sandy ochre roads flanked Eventually I did relax into this colonial- by scraggly winterthorn, shady acacias and fruit-heavy fig, myself and a guide or two reminiscent style of hospitality and accept busting dust on an elevated Land Rover or Land Cruiser. The guide would point out the a week’s worth of luxury glamping, six- various fauna lurking in the grass, he would stop the car, I would take some photos. This meals-a-day and all. was the rhythm of the safari drive, and sometimes you could drive for miles without In the mornings, breakfast would be spotting anything. Guests have come on safari expecting to nail the Big Four (lion, leo- campfire-cooked with chairs arranged in 116 ESQUIRE • SEPTEMBER 2014 SEPTEMBER 2014 • ESQUIRE 117 SLEEPING WITH HYENAS SLEEPING WITH HYENAS for the UN, in and out of the worst conflict zones and areas of hu- The main purpose of my new job was to organize a system to con- manitarian disasters. “I didn’t think I could change anything, but trol these marauding elephants in the Eastern Province of North- I wanted to help,” he said of his former job. He left because things ern Rhodesia (now Zambia)…The technique is to track down were getting too harrowing for his soul to bear, though I won- raiders as soon as possible after they have fed in the gardens and dered if jetting rich vacationers around on private aircraft was to shoot one or two from the group. This will deter the remainder any better for it. Is that real Africa, where people are dying from from returning and drive them off to a more remote part of the AIDS, genocide, famine, where people constantly depended on range. (The White Impala: The Story of a Game Ranger, 1969) aid and charity and intervention, where slum-like cities were rife with crime and desperation? Or was the real Africa this pristine The reality however was that hunters with permits would in- patch of woodland, unravaged by human greed and tribal war- variably shoot the biggest bulls, regardless of whether they were fare? I don’t think a single visit could answer that question. actually seen pilfering vegetables from the village patch. Accord- Elephants were said to wander in and out while guests were ing to the guides, the reason why the elephants we see now are having their meals, although I never had the pleasure of meeting small to medium-sized at best are because the great ones had one. Boet becomes impassioned when talking about the gray gi- been unnaturally selected out as prize game. Culling and poach- ants, and misty-eyed when remembering Big Boy, one very spe- ing has, over the decades, decimated the elephant population cial elephant who frequented the camp and became good friends from 90,000 to 5,000. To this day, elephants are still considered with the Liebenbergs. He lived alongside them until the day he destructive pests by villagers. was gunned down by ivory poachers. Boet had arrived at the After service in the Second World War, Norman Carr came scene shortly after; there was a shootout. I asked if the killer was back to Zambia and introduced the practice we now call eco- caught. He looked at me and gravely replied, “I cannot answer tourism, where the locals are involved in managing the natural that question.” resources they traditionally own. He encouraged Chief Nsefu to The elephant’s life and times were documented in an award- portion off an area of tribal land as a game reserve. The people winning film by journalist Sharon Van Wyk, who happened to were able to make a living out of protecting, rather than killing, be sitting next to me at dinner. The incident sparked a pioneer- the animals that tourists pay to see. ing conservation project to protect the elephant population of In the decades since rifles have been replaced with unwieldy the Lower Zambezi National Park at a time when the ivory trade telephoto lens, Norman Carr Safaris established a number of still continues to bring in the filthy lucre. Zambian and Chinese camps across the Luangwa Valley. In recent years the company, diplomats, who are exempt from customs searches, are often in- with new partners and co-owners, took the experience of bush volved in high-level smuggling. I remembered the Filipino priest camping up several notches with the Chinzombo property, an who was featured in National Geographic for his large collection ultra-luxe safari lodge that Norman himself would never have of religious ivory, and the subsequent crushing-and-burning of imagined. But first, a stay at the Nsolo Bush Camp, which was sit- five tons of confiscated tusks by the Philippine government. In ed by Norman in 1987, making it one of the more historic camps this remote corner of the world, with home ten thousand kilome- in Zambia. ters away, our presence is still felt. The four spacious chalets at Nsolo were essentially nipa huts, Filipinos have actually touched the heart of Zambians in ways with raised legs, reed walls and a thatched roof, all run on so- LOWER we would never have fathomed. As I was taking photos of a ba- lar power. The bathroom was completely open to the air, which ZAMBEZI by elephant poking around the reedy riverbanks, Sam, my boat was glorious on a winter’s day but not so when you had to pee in AN ARMED SCOUT guide, said, “I love Filipino television shows! They have such the middle of the night; also you could shower halfway exposed LEADS A BUSH WALK a semi-circle facing the river as the sun ALONG THE CHONGWE long siesta during the hottest part of the day, and then high tea great stories and the actors, they are very very good.” I was al- to the dry Luwi riverbed.

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