Drumbeat Autumn 2025

SOPHIE The adventurous spirit Get in touch: sophie@aardvarksafaris.com Zambia Intensely green, hot, and sometimes wet, South Luangwa in the green season is properly wild Africa, with standing water, filled lagoons, flooded plains, and a river in flood. The wildlife is ever-present, and the birdlife is phenomenal – every bush is alive with a chorus of chatter and song. Take a boat upriver from the park entrance to the Nsefu sector, and I guarantee that the only people you’ll see are your fellow guests and the wonderful Zambian people who guide and look after you. We were lucky enough to see wild dog, elephant, giraffes, zebra, wildebeest, hippo and crocs while on walking safaris, and found an opened dung beetle’s nest which was absolutely fascinating. We also saw lion, leopard, hyena, civet, porcupine, and plenty of antelopes. Nsefu Camp is an oasis of comfort, with wonderfully well-ventilated rooms, “Evening Breeze” over the beds, an open-sided main building under a thatch roof and a gorgeous riverside setting. Nkwali Lodge and Luangwa Safari House are also superb places to stay, and offer excellent service and food, and first class guiding too. Botswana Unlike the dry season, when herbivorous wildlife gets stressed by the lack of food and water and predators run riot around the remaining water sources, the green season in northern Botswana is a joyous time with plenty of youngsters, lots of well-fed and healthy-looking herbivores, and a wealth of migrant birds, which sometimes includes flamingos. They nest on the Makgadikgadi Pans when the water is deep enough to get jackals’ bellies wet… jackals dislike having the intensely alkaline water on their skin. The Kalahari itself blooms, camel thorns produce protein-rich seed pods, and grasses fill the valleys between the dune ridges. Big herds of eland, oryx, springbok, and impala can be seen in the From the thundering Victoria Falls to the watery wilderness of the Okavango Delta, and the woodland, lagoons and floodplains of South Luangwa, a journey through Zambia or Botswana in February to March promises breathtaking encounters and memories to last a lifetime. The glory of the green season FRANCIS he classic safari expert Get in touch: francis@aardvarksafaris.com 12 © Time + Tide northern reaches of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and large numbers of kudu, zebra and giraffe, too. In the Okavango Delta, I especially like Splash, Shinde, Duba Explorers, and Selinda Camps at this time of year, and in the Makgadikgadi Pans, it’s Camp Kalahari and Jack’s Camp for access to flamingo and the incredible sight of thousands of zebra and wildebeest converging on the rich grazing around the Pans. I have extensive first-hand experience of Botswana’s and Zambia’s flood patterns, and I am uniquely qualified to advise on the optimal travel times and lodge pairings.