There’s a knock from outside my safari lodge.
‘Hang on a second,’ I call out as I skip wonkily towards the door with one shoe on, the other dangling from my hand. It seems my porter, Gibres, has arrived to walk me to dinner a few minutes early. I pull open my front door. Then I drop my shoe.
Rather than finding Gibres on my patio, I’m greeted by an African elephant staring back at me. Her three infants continue to munch on the saplings in my garden, indifferent to my appearance, but she’s as startled as I am. Protective of her young, she raises her trunk towards me and lets out a trumpet blast.
Although my lodge at Baines River Camp in Zambia opens onto unobstructed views across the crocodile-infested Zambezi River all the way to Zimbabwe, it’s just a two-minute walk from the dining room. Accordingly, I’d been a little resistant to the rather colonial idea of having a porter walk me to dinner each evening.
Our discussion has since been rendered moot, but Zena, the lodge manager had explained at check-in why it’s compulsory: ‘There’s recently been a drought, so — because we water our gardens to keep them lush and green — we do get a lot of nighttime visitors.’
Fortunately, I’m delighted with my impromptu garden party and — satisfied that I mean neither her nor her calves any harm, as I film them on my phone through the crack of the door — Jumbo goes back to decimating the verdant trees beside my patio.
The elephant population in the Lower Zambezi National Park is buoyant. Floating down the titular river in my canoe, I see large groups of them merrily wading across the waterway from Zambia to Zimbabwe and back, blasting fountains of water into the air as if they’ve not a care in the world.
Wonderfully unspoiled, the rewards of exploring this landlocked part of Central Africa are packed with as much astonishing diversity as famous safari spots like Kenya and Namibia.
Indeed, Zambia’s vast wilderness is only growing richer.
‘The positive news is that elephant populations are growing thanks to increased law enforcement,’ says Rachael Murton, Director of Wildlife Rescue at Game Rangers International (GRI), a non-profit organisation that runs an elephant orphanage based in Lusaka National Park.
Located in what was once a charcoal farm just outside Zambia’s capital, and having officially opened in 2015, it’s the country’s smallest and newest national park. Today, 30% of Zambia’s landmass is dedicated to protected areas and hosting conservation initiatives.
‘Originally poaching was the leading cause of orphaned elephants, but now it’s mostly human-elephant conflict,’ Rachael explains.
‘Wild spaces are being compromised, so we’re seeing more and more interface between wildlife and people. There are subsistence farmers who have been living and growing crops in an area for generations, but elephants displaced by population growth will hone in on those crops like kids in a sweetshop.’
Top things to do in Zambia besides going on safari
- Swim at Victoria Falls, one of the world’s largest waterfalls
- Go white water rafting on the Zambezi River
- Eat a five-course meal on the Royal Livingstone express train
- Snorkel in Lake Tanganyika, the world’s largest freshwater lake
- Take the Nsumbu island sunset cruise on a traditional dhow boat
- Visit the Lusaka National Museum
Safari lodges base their business on wildlife sightings, so the ones feasting in my garden are very welcome visitors. But when elephants come to raid crops, which they find more palatable and nutritious than bush vegetation, inevitably, there’s conflict.
‘A herd will go into a community and cause chaos, destroying people’s homes and livelihoods,’ Rachael explains.
‘The farmers will chase them away and that’s when a baby elephant can become separated from its mother. If the herd starts running at full speed — up to 25 miles per hour — the very young can’t keep up.’
Rachael started as a volunteer with GRI in 2008, when she helped to establish the Lusaka Elephant Nursery Project and they rescued their first orphan from the Lower Zambezi region. By working closely with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife to respond to such emergencies, they have since rescued 61 elephants.
The goal is to rehabilitate and release elephants back into the wild so, while the nursery is open to the public, guests view the baby and juvenile elephants at play from an elevated platform, draped in camouflage netting.
On the wall inside, a sound-level meter displays the volume of visitors’ whispers in decibels, reminding us not to make too much noise as we watch the elephants appear from the forest at mealtime.
Nimble trunks corkscrew around the milk bottles being offered by their keepers, Oliver and Wilson. They’re drained in seconds.
Despite there being two large school primary school groups on-site, it’s a couple of middle-aged American tourists whose excitable chatter registers the loudest dB readings as Kasungu — at five months old, the youngest and most playful of the elephants — splashes about in a muddy waterhole and clambers on the backs of his adoptive siblings.
‘At this stage they’re cute and cuddly; of course you want to hug one,’ says Rachael, ‘but when they’re 20 years old and walking into a village to eat someone’s mangoes because they’re not afraid to get close to people — then it becomes a real problem.
‘In order to be released successfully, they need to be wild. If they’re seeing a lot of people every day, they’ll become habituated to humans, and that causes problems later on. We try to minimise interactions from day one.’
Along with their elephant rescue and anti-poaching programs, GRI works with local communities that live alongside elephants to help them maintain sustainable livelihoods. They run empowerment programs for women, educate children about environmental issues, and teach communities how to tackle human-wildlife conflict.
‘We’ve got to find ways to deter elephants from entering villages, so one of our main goals is to work with people on how to do that,’ says Rachael.
Virtual geofences warn farmers about advancing elephants that have been tagged by GRI, but physical methods are required for the rest. Fences built from beehives discourage elephants from entering fields, as can growing chilis as a barrier crop. Farmers spray their plants with a smelly repellent that makes their food unpalatable to elephants, but sometimes villagers need to take direct action. Powerful torches, airhorns, and chilli bombs are distributed to help repel determined elephants.
‘Chilli bombs are condoms filled with chilli powder and a firecracker,’ explains Rachael. I involuntarily wince.
‘They explode, and the cloud of chilli dust irritates the elephants’ delicate nasal passages, making them run in the opposite direction.’
At Royal Zambezi Lodge, just a mile or so along the river from Baines, my room overlooks the river.
The outside space is an elevated deck, however, so I feel comfortable stretching out on a sun lounger beside my plunge pool after a long morning on safari, tracking a pride of lions and a rambunctious pack of wild dogs. Confident I’ll not be disturbed by the elephants below, I close my eyes to the noonday sun and listen to the sounds of the river.
I kick off a boot and it hits the deck with a thud. A strangulated bellow, like an experimental jazz trumpet, sounds in retort, and I open my eyes to see an elephant, flapping its ears and raising its trunk in alarm on the ground below.
He looks at me as if waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I understand that I’m as much in his garden as he is in mine.
To support the conservation of Game Rangers International, click here.
James Draven stayed at Baines River Camp, and Royal Zambezi Lodge in Zambia’s Lower Zambezi region, and in Lilayi Lodge and Ciêla Resort & Spa in Lusaka.
He travelled between Lusaka and the Lower Zambezi with Royal Air Charters; reservations@royalaircharters.com; +26 0969 783 128
For more information, visit Zambia Travel.
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