Robin Pope Safaris Lodges - Nkwali and Nsefu
Written: Oct 14 '03 (Updated Oct 18 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Top notch service, food, and knowledgeable staff. Excellent game viewing.
Cons: Expensive.
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended for excellent game viewing. The lodging and staff were top notch.
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| Prim8Pal's Full Review: South Luangwa National Park |
South Luangwa National Park has many safari lodges to choose from. In October 2003 we spent 2 days at Nkwali Lodge and 3 days at Nsefu lodge and experienced some terrific service and great wildlife viewing. Although these lodges are expensive, I felt it was worth the cost given the experinces as described below. You can see some animals in South Luangwa that are not found elsewhere in Africa such as Thornicroft's giraffe (I think they're have a more beautiful pattern than others) and Cookson's wildebeest. Night game drives are a specialty of the park which increases your chance of seeing leopard.
The staff at both lodges are very professional, well trained, and aim to please. To me it's critical to have guides who know the natural history and animal behaviors well. Besides giving you a better understanding of the flora and fauna, the guides know how to approach an animal to get as close as possible without scaring them off, and also to properly position the vehicles for best photography. I found the guides to be quite good at this and better than most I've experienced in other safaris. They use Landcruisers instead of Land Rovers which I prefer since they're much quieter vehicles. These vehicles don't have roofs (like most vehicles at Luangwa safari lodges), so be sure to bring a good had and sunscreen protection.
Food is first class, and it's incredible what variety of tasty cuisine they are able to prepare out in the wilderness. For example, we had dinners with themes of Moroccan, Mongolian barbecue, Indian, and Italian, as well as the usual continental fare. All beverages are included in the price of your stay, including alcoholic beverages and wine. This is helpful if you go during the hot months as you'll find yourself guzzling a lot of cold beverages. The only complaint was the the coffee was pretty poor at one of the camps (Nsefu).
Of the two lodges, Nkwali had much better facilities. The chalets were spacious and beautiful, and the lodge area is much better shaded. The lodge overlooks a wide river, and there is also a pond behind the lodge. The river contains many hippos, crocs, etc, while the pond attracts game such as elephant, bushbuck, and huge troops of yellow baboons. The lodge is on Robin Pope's private land, so game drives to the national park are made by transferring the landcruiser across the river to the park on a very interesting pontoon system. We saw quite a large amount of game on both sides of the river, and the nocturnal game drives were especially interesting since it allows you to see many animals that would be hard to see during the day. This includes elephant shrews, porcupines, white tailed and bushy tailed mongooses, civets, and large spotted genets. Many of these creatures are very adorable to watch. Wild dog is present in the park, but we didn't see them. They are more likely to be viewed in the wet season (e.g. November to May, although Nkwali is not open in some of these months).
Nsefu Lodge is a much older lodge that has been refurbished. However, the basic structure (a rondavel) is much smaller than the chalets at Nsefu, and they were less attractive even after the modernizations. Nsefu also overlooks a wide river, and they have an adjoining area that has water that attracts a lot of wildlife, including elephant, various antelope species, warthogs, and even leopard. We had great luck with the game viewing here, including seeing a couple of lion prides (including a kill of an impala), and also a leopard dragging a freshly made impala kill. The game viewing here was somewhat better than at Nkwali, which made up for the lower quality of accomodations. We saw a herd of about 1000 buffalo, the largest we'd seen anywhere in Africa. Birders note that there are some natural hot springs about a 2 hour drive fron Nsefu that attract a lot of cranes and storks. When we were there we saw about 100 beautiful crowned cranes, mixed with various stork and antelope species.
On our trip to both camps, we were surprised to meet a number of couples who have returned to these lodges many times over the last few years. They seemed satisfied enough with the service of RPS safaris to keep coming back (some of them also split time with Tafika lodge which is mentioned in another epinions review.)
Overall we were very satisfied with the experience and would highly recommend this company. Note that for U.S. citizens, RPS will issue a letter which you can show on entry to Zambia that is supposed to allow you to enter without paying the $40 visa fee. Unfortunately for us we had already gotten our visas when we found out about this.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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Epinions.com ID:
Prim8Pal
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Member: Glenn Hori
Location: Pleasant Hill, California
Reviews written: 41
Trusted by: 6 members
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