A Green Season Green Safari

* Immerse yourself in the wilderness of one of Africa’s top national parks celebrated for its phenomenal leopards.

* Enjoy low impact safari activities - silent safaris in solar-powered electric vehicles and bush walks in the national park that is considered their birthplace!

* Green season is a photographers dream season - vibrant landscapes, dramatic skies, an abundance of baby animals, and lions who laze on roads because they don’t want to get their feet wet!

* Experience adventure and wonder at Victoria Falls - the worlds’ largest waterfalls

* Get involved in community and conservation experiences and see for yourself the positive change your safari is making. What’s more by choosing off-season travel, you can help provide a more consistent income for local communities throughout the year.

ITINERARY

Months: December/ April or May

Days 1 to 6: Shawa Luangwa Camp, South Luangwa National Park

South Luangwa National Park supports one of the highest concentrations of game anywhere in the world! It covers an impressive 9000km2 of unfenced, unspoilt wilderness. At its heart the meandering Luangwa River forms distinctive oxbow lagoons that are crowded with hippos and crocodiles. Fanning out on either side of the Luangwa are grassy plains dotted with elephants, giraffe and grazing animals. Patches of riverine forest and gullies provide hiding places for predators and there are plenty here… lion, leopard, spotted hyena as well as a thriving African wild dog population.

For many the most exciting aspect of the Luangwa Valley is that it has the world’s highest naturally occurring population of leopard! And because this park is one Africa’s few national parks to offer spotlit night drives, a whole other wildlife realm is opened up with opportunities to spot - genets, civets, porcupines, bush babies, nightjars, grass-mowing hippos and other nocturnal creatures.

Shawa Luangwa Camp overlooks the beautiful Luangwa River in one of the park’s most untouched areas. This small, eco camp is named after the camp’s head guide, Jacob Shawa, who is among Zambia’s top professional guides.

The camp’s design is fun and original with just five tented chalets resembling teepees (a clever design to funnel away hot air) tucked into a shady tree line facing the floodplains where there is always something happening…

This is a camp that is serious about reducing its environmental footprint. It runs completely off-grid thanks to solar energy from a solar farm on-site. It also operates an all-electric vehicle fleet and the silent safari experience is utterly captivating - enabling you to hear all the sounds of the bush as you explore the park.

Days 6 to 9: Livingstone, Tongabezi Lodge

The famous explorer missionary Dr David Livingstone gave his name to this town that sits on the border and Zambia and Zimbabwe, and named the awe-inspiring waterfalls he found there Victoria Falls after the Queen of England.

Locally the Falls are known as mosi-oa-tunya, which loosely translates to mean ‘the smoke that thunders’ and they are a truly spectacular natural phenomenon. The immense curtain of water is nearly twice as wide and high as Niagara Falls, and the enormous volume of water that pours over the edge makes this the largest waterfall in the world.

Upstream of the Falls in a tranquil, almost tropical setting on the banks of the Zambezi River lies Tongabezi Lodge. Such is the romantic nature of its location, that it was described by the New York Times as ‘a place worth getting married for’!

Tongabezi consists of a small collection of luxurious and highly individual Cottages and Houses each with a view of the mighty Zambezi. The hospitality here is very personal with each room being allocated a “valet” to look after them and arrange activities etc. There is also no set itinerary so guests are free to do as much or as little as they wish…

Aside from the lure of the Victoria Falls themselves, there’s a plethora activities from laidback river safaris, to adrenaline adventure - white water rafting, an incredible 111m bungee jump, or a once in a lifetime swim in Devil’s Pool on the edge of the falls, and much more…

SUSTAINABILITY

Shawa Camp and Tongabezi Lodge are run by Green Safaris, one of the first safari operators to be operationally carbon neutral in Zambia.

Green Safaris has calculated the carbon footprint of all its properties and embarks on an annual tree planting programme (>18,000 trees pa) to compensate for its operational footprint.

To reduce their carbon footprint further many of Green Safari’s lodges are entirely run off solar farms, utilise water reticulation and biogas systems, and zero-use plastics are banned. Other initiatives introduced include reducing the amount of red meant on menus, increasing the amount of self-grown organic vegetables and expanding the use of electric vehicles and boats.

In addition, each Green Safari’s property supports at least one conservation initiative and one community project. Guests are very much encouraged to visit, learn or even get stuck in to some of these projects. In Zambia, projects connected to Shawa Camp and Tongabezi include:

• Support for Conservation South Luangwa which conducts anti-poaching patrols; wildlife rescue and de-snaring missions; and addresses human-wildlife conflict issues through community engagement such as providing elephant safe grain stores.

• Support for Project Luangwa which works to improve health and education for young people in the rural Mfuwe area by providing: sponsorship to support students through secondary school; Digital learning opportunities, Menstrual health resources and hygiene lessons, Eco-Stoves and tree planting to help reduce the rate of deforestation.

• The Tongabezi Trust School which helps vulnerable children continue their education to secondary level. Students have gone on to become everything from accountants to engineers, lawyers to clinical officers, pilots to teachers. The school is also trying to teach its students to “think green", which in practice means trying to save, recycle and re-use resources wherever possible.

• Mukuni Community Farm which teaches members about sustainable small-scale farming techniques, including alley cropping, grazing rotation, homemade fertiliser and pesticide development, chicken rearing, food forest and mushroom growing.