Lazing on the Zambezi: a stay at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge

There are worse things to do on a Wednesday than to sip a Zambezi on the Zambezi.

I was on a boat on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, about 2km away from the Victoria Falls, drinking the great river’s eponymous beer and wondering what I had done right to land this gig.

As our party sailed along, consuming canapés at dusk, pods of hippos snorted and romped in the shallows, crocodiles basked on the river’s edge in the day’s last rays, and a fish eagle perched in a nearby tree scanned the depths for dinner.

There is much to recommend this sort of lazy Wednesdaying. Nary a sweat is broken as one sails past the game with the ferry’s captain calling out the attractions alongside.

Earlier that morning we had landed at the Victoria Falls airport and, on the 21km drive to the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge estate, I couldn’t fail to notice that the game reserves lining our route appeared to be missing their fences. No-one remembers what happened to the fences, which have long disappeared.

The tourist town is sandwiched between the fence-free Victoria Falls National Park and the Zambezi National Park, and everyone who lives there has an entertaining wildlife story to tell.

Anald Musonza, the manager of the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge estate, tells of how during the Covid-19 lockdown a lioness moved into a shopping centre on the outskirts of town to birth a litter of cubs. The following year, she came again to deliver another litter.

Other residents show off pictures on their cellphones of herds of buffalo clogging the streets outside their homes in the early morning. They have to summon local game rangers to shoo them away before the morning rush hour can begin.

Other locals tell tales of revellers walking home from taverns late at night, frightened out of their wits after run-ins with elephants. Some of those confrontations end in tragedy with the late-night staggerers trampled to death.

During a walk around the Victoria Falls view site and the magnificent Mosi-oa-Tunya ("The Smoke that Thunders” in the local Kololo/Lozi language), guide Phumulani Munyulwa highlights the tensions between the local animals, which attract tourists and so keep the town’s economy going, and the locals who have to put up with them.

“In my village last month, a pride of lionesses killed 15 head of livestock belonging to my neighbour. They killed 14 goats and one cow, but they only ate the cow,” he said. “This human-wildlife conflict is real here in Victoria Falls. But we need the wildlife because otherwise the tourists wouldn’t come.”

And what a magnificent array of wildlife there is for tourists to enjoy.

That lazy Wednesday oozed into an even lazier Thursday on which, from the elevated lounge at the five-star Victoria Falls Safari Club (where I stayed in a room with a mosquito-net-clad, four-poster bed and an unbeatable view of the bush), I looked down on a herd of about 30 elephant, including several babies, drinking at the waterhole.

Gin and tonic in hand, I watched as the youngsters scampered and played while their mothers kept an eye out. There were none of the game-seeking inconveniences I am used to, such as driving around in a boiling car and peering through binoculars at the backside of an elephant hiding in a thicket. The game came to us, five-star style.

The game viewing experience continues throughout the estate, including at its new Safari Spa, which includes a hair salon and beauty treatment facilities and three outbuildings where massages are performed, each with its own outdoor shower.

The spa complex also features a reflexology pool with artfully arranged pebbles, which guests wade across to accelerate healing and aid relaxation. But just before the spa opened in November, staff were far from relaxed, forced to shoo away the vervet monkeys who were availing themselves of the facilities and “doing laps” in the pool, said spa manager Avalon van Leent.

After a thoroughly enjoyable massage, I threw on one of the dressing gowns provided and had a cup of tea on the balcony of one of the huts. I noticed a vervet monkey staring at me from below. I wondered how long he had been there and what he was thinking, perhaps wondering whether I was to blame for the fact that the reflexology pool was now out of bounds for him.

THE FIGHT AGAINST POACHING 

With wild game a big-ticket tourist attraction, the Safari Lodge complex is a significant contributor to the Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit (VFAPU). I sit down with two of the units scouts, Greemph Tshuma and Goodwin Chuma, in the Safari Club lounge before we leave for the airport.

The organisation was established in 1999 by local conservationist Charles Brightman and has grown to 16 full-time scouts, five of whom are paid for by the Victoria Falls Safari estate. Since inception, the organisation has removed about 22,000 wire snares, arrested more than 750 poachers, and has upskilled former poachers to help them earn a living without negatively affecting the wildlife.

Tshuma and Chuma admit that fighting poaching is an uphill battle, worsened by a decimated economy, widespread poverty and electricity outages that last up to 18 hours a day so that people chop down protected trees for firewood. They arrest up to 60 tree fellers and one or two mammal poachers a month and haul them to the town council, where the fine of US$50 (about R970) for poaching is steeper than the US$1 (about R20) the national parks board imposes.

This does not earn them popularity points with the locals.

“In the community some people insult us. They call us kume, or scorpions, to demoralise us. They say things like ‘Kume! What are you doing here? There is no firewood here! Go away!’” says Tshuma.

Conservation is a hard sell to people whose children are hungry.

“We tell them we live in a tourism town and if they cut those trees it will hurt the environment and tourists won’t come any more and there will not be any jobs for their children,” Tshuma says.

They have turned some of the poachers into informers and pay them a gratuity for every successful tip-off. Others manage to find jobs at establishments such as the Victoria Falls Safari estate’s Boma restaurant, which features a buffet of local meats and venison, and a drumming and dancing show.

Tshuma and Chuma are proud of what they do.

“This is my proudest achievement, that I managed to remove thousands of snares. I have saved more than a thousand animals and managed to catch many poachers,” says Tshuma.

“We have had over 450 mammals injured by snares. Vets are always on standby; they come and dart the animal and remove the wire snare. We remove lots of wire snares and know the poachers’ favourite areas. This is a passion for us.”

Game scouting is a family business for both Tshuma and Chuma whose father and uncle respectively were also game scouts. And their fight against poaching is not just a local one.

“We get poachers from Zambia coming over in dugout canoes. They come across pretending to be fishermen but they are snare poachers. They come and set snares along the riverbank and we have removed more than 60 of those on a single patrol,” says Tshuma. Covid-19, he adds, “made many poachers”.

“Many working in tourism lost their jobs, so they were forced to become poachers and we lost so many animals. But now it is becoming better and the tourism industry is picking up,” he says.

Asked what he would like to tell potential international visitors, Tshuma says: “Come and see the precious animals we have and our tree species. Come and enjoy. That is why we are protecting them, for us and for people overseas.”

When you do come, ensure that you get to sip a Zambezi on the Zambezi. There are few things better to do.

GETAWAY AT A GLANCE

ABOUT THE ESTATE: On a plateau just 4km from the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, the estate offers the flagship Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, the premium Victoria Falls Safari Club and the spacious Victoria Falls Safari Suites.

The sunset-facing, 72-room, four-star Victoria Falls Safari Lodge boasts endless views of pristine wilderness stretching to the horizon, including a waterhole frequented by elephant, buffalo, kudu and more, has been voted the best safari lodge/resort hotel in Zimbabwe for 24 years by the Association of Zimbabwe Travel Agents.

The 20-room, five-star Victoria Falls Safari Club features a modern, fine-dining restaurant, open-plan lounge and viewing deck overlooking the Zambezi National Park, a two-tiered swimming pool and a personalised butler-style concierge service.

The six spacious double-storey two and three-bedroom Victoria Falls Safari Suites are ideal for families and small groups seeking stylish comfort, privacy and space.

Things to do: Wild Horizons offers airport transfers and many tours and activities including sunset river cruises, white-water rafting, tours of Victoria Falls and elephant-back safaris.

CONTACT: See victoria-falls-safari-lodge.com.

SPECIAL OFFER:

Sadc residents can enjoy the Victoria Falls Safari Club at R5,715 pppn. Includes all meals, return airport transfers from Victoria Falls Airport, a complimentary bottle of wine, boma dinner, sundowner luxury cruise  (including drinks and snacks) and a guided tour of the falls. (Excludes national park fees).

Ts&Cs: The offer is subject to availability and valid for new bookings only from now until June 30 2023. Book and pay in advance to qualify. Single supplements will not apply from now to 30 June 2023. No children under 10. Children aged 10 and 11 pay 50% of the adult rate.

To book, contact saflodge@saflodge.co.zw or resman@saflodge.co.zw

• Gules was a guest of Africa Albida Tourism.