Ultimate Guide To Africa June 2015 | Page 30

Travel EXPERIENCE A ride in a tiny Cessna took us farther west, to the virtually unvisited Liuwa Plains National Park, which occupies part of an ancient kingdom, Barotseland, near the Angolan border in the upper Zambezi floodplains. Once the hunting grounds of the Lozi kings, the area has been protected since the late 1800s. Like some uncharted Eden, it remains extremely isolated, difficult to get around, and low on infrastructure. And during the rainy season, the park’s extensive wetlands fill to flooding, turning roads to mud while attracting enormous inbound migrations of 30 water-loving birds. We saw masses of storks, cranes, slaty egrets, and whiskered terns, and when not navigating the muddied tracks, our guide pointed out red-billed teals, woodland kingfishers, whitebellied bustards, secretary birds, sooty chats, pink-throated longclaws, and flocks of blackwinged pratincoles, all the way from Europe and Asia. It certainly helps to have wings if you’re here during the rainy season – we frequently held our breaths as we narrowly avoided getting stuck in roads consumed by puddles. But it was worth braving the mud to witness the world’s second-biggest wildebeest migration. As water levels rise, the park fills up with beasts skipping in from Angola. Apart from the blue wildebeest arriving en masse, there were zebras and tsessebe, and we saw tiny oribi, herds of Lichtenstein's hartebeest, red lechwe, little duikers, and roan antelope. And, of course, predators were having a field day picking off the weak and injured stragglers. Hyenas, wild dogs and lions seemed to make a game of taking turns to hunt, their over-stuffed bellies sagging, their self-satisfied faces permanently drenched in blood. Aside from this profusion of animals, it was wonderful being here for the sheer drama of Liuwa’s skies, thick with bulging clouds and surging with the energy of storms that seemed always on the verge of breaking. And each time they did, it felt like a miracle of creation.