North Luangwa | safari's in Afrika
You accommodation in North Luangwa National Park will consist of grass huts with thatched roofs situated alongside the Mwaleshi River. This is the Africa of times gone by: wild and unspoilt. After not having met anyone for days on end, you will start to feel as though you've got this 4,500 km2 expanse of nature all to yourself. The lack of roads means that the region lends itself excellently to walking safaris.
The roads are almost non-existent and you are highly unlikely to meet any other visitors during your stay in North Luangwa National Park. There are no luxury lodges - only tented camps and wooden huts that are reminiscent of the camps held in Hemmingway's day. You won't get any closer to nature than this. The game population in North Luangwa is equally as impressive as that found in South Luangwa National Park. The many poachers meant that for years North Luangwa was viewed as one of the more inferior parks in the Luangwa Valley. Fortunately, an increasing number of visitors are seeing the riches that the many habitats in this park yield. Today, large herds of buffaloes and lion prides populate the park, as well as Cookson's wildebeest, Crawshay's zebra, various species of antelope and bird, and - of course - elephants. Regrettably however, black rhinos have died out here as a result of bloodbaths launched by ruthless poachers. Nevertheless, five black rhinos from South Africa were re-introduced to the park in 2003.
North Luangwa National Park lies along the west bank of Luangwa River. On the far side of the river, the Muchinga escarpment rises up more than a thousand metres above the valley. Various different rivers run through the park, including the Mwaleshi River. This is largely dried up during the dry season, with the exception of a few small pools, but in the rainy season, the Mwaleshi River is a deep series of surging rapids and waterfalls. The final freefall the river takes before flowing into the valley is over Chomba Falls. The freezing cold, crystal clear waters attract large herds of antelope.
