November 2007 Travel Zambia 39 Zambia undiscovered When: There are two trips a year: June offers wonderful light for photography, but is cold in the mountains; October is pleasant in the mountains, but can be very hot in the Luangwa Valley. Bookings: This all-inclusive safari is a joint venture between the Nyika Safari company (www.nyika.com) and Remote Africa Safaris (www.remoteafrica.com). Getting there: Via Lilongwe, Malawi: reached from overseas on BA and KLM (via Johannesburg), and Kenya Airways (via Nairobi); from within Africa on SAA and Ethiopian Airlines. What to bring: The usual safari gear, plus warm clothes and hiking boots for Nyika and the Mafingas. Source safari essentials Our tour did not end in the mountains. David and John, adamant that guests who had seen the source of the river must also see what happens downstream, had tacked a week’s safari in the Luangwa Valley onto the itinerary. And so, returning to Chelinda, we boarded a flight back to Zambia. Needless to say, the valley performed as promised. We stayed at two of John’s Remote Africa hideaways – first at Mwaleshi, one of only two camps in the whole of the remote North Luangwa National Park; then at Tafika, perched on the banks of the Luangwa in the much better known South Park. Over the next few days we tracked lions on foot, followed a hunting leopard at night and made intimate acquaintance with many other Luangwa residents – from baboon spiders to Pel’s fishing owls. But I had gained a new perspective on the river. Over millions of years this awesome force of nature had shaped and defined its landscape, carving a floodplain that stretches from horizon to horizon and depositing its soils across great tracts of Zambia. Yet I felt a certain smugness as I gazed out across its sweeping meanders. You may be big, swaggering and full of hippos now, I thought, .....but don’t forget that I’ve seen you as a gurgling infant. I could almost have stopped you with my boot. Rows of goggle eyes and twitching ears popped up, as though affronted by my impudence. Meanwhile the dark waters rolled onwards, unperturbed, towards the Zambezi. There’s no escaping the hard reality of sleeping on a stony ridge, digging a hole to answer nature’s call and washing in a mountain stream. Luangwa River Mwaleshi River MOZAMBIQUE MALAWI ZAMBIA 2 1 3 4 5 Chipata Mzuzu Source of the Lunagwa Source Safari Lilongwe C D B A Mafingas Mountains Nyika Plateau NP Tafika Camp Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve 2 1 3 0 100 200 300km 0 100 200m 4 5 C D B A South Luangwa NP Chelinda Lodge Kazuni Safari Lodge Mwaleshi Camp Source Safari Route North Luangwa NP The source discovered. The long hike home. T A N Z A N I A Z I M B A B W E

Cyprus in the late 1950s, the family naturally empathised with the Zambian people. After all, the island’s own struggle for independence – following centuries of occupation by the Abyssinians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, British Crusaders, Venetians, Turks and finally British again – made Zambia’s seem like a walk in the park. Cyprus finally gained independence in 1960, only four years before Zambia. But by then Andrew Sardanis had developed a deep commitment to his adopted country and was on hand to help forge the new nation. Within it he built an empire of his own. Today the.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e. 1,000 pieces housed at Chaminuka constitute.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e.e. the largest single collection of modern and traditional African art in Zambia. It is also testimony to the phenomenal success of the Sardanis family. After all, ...........if you ran the industrial development corporation of a young and mineral-rich country, as well as a family business that includes mining companies, mineral brokering and – at one time – a Most tourists, let’s face it, visit Zambia to enjoy the wonders of nature. And there is no denying the allure of Victoria Falls or the great game herds of Luangwa. Yet in rushing headlong to the bush, visitors risk overlooking the nation’s cultural riches – including its fine artistic tradition. Jake da Motta visited a unique lodge near Lusaka, where both nature and culture find custodians in a remarkable family. ‘Most Zambian artists would agree that you haven’t made it unless you have a piece in the Sardanis collection.’ The house on the hill Heritage CHAMINUKA 40 Travel Zambia November 2007 Just one hour from Lusaka’s Manda Hill Mall, where you can drink a skinny latte whilst browsing the internet, or window-shop for the latest international fashions, is yet another facet of Zambia. A place where, with the help of your imagination and the owners’ gentle artifice, you could almost believe you were deep in the African bush. Chaminuka, set among 10,000ha of prime miombo woodland and open vleis, is a lodge with a difference. Your first glimpse of ‘the place on the hill,’ as Chaminuka translates to, sparks immediate curiosity. Statues, both lifelike and abstract, festoon the grassy knoll on which it perches, creating a faintly surreal ambience. The house itself is modelled on a village in northwest Zambia, where Andrew Sardanis, its creator, found warm hospitality after breaking down in his truck one day in the 1950s. In 1998 it opened up as a 19-suite hotel, but to this day remains the family home. The Sardanis story is a fascinating one. Arriving in a colonised African country from