Zambia/Barotseland: Sioma Ngwezi National Park & Night Drives
Sioma Ngwezi National Park occupies the southwestern corner of Zambia. By the looks of it, it could be a spectacular national park, just above the Okavango Delta and Caprivi Strip and below the Liuwa Plain National Park in the north. Unfortunately, Sioma Ngwezi is undeveloped with very few roads and zero facilities, the wildlife scattered to hard to reach corners and very difficult to spot. Lying right on the Angolan border, the park is also heavily poached. The park is home to several thousands of elephants, sable and roam antelopes – none of which we saw. Having driven for over half a day on sandy soils, we spotted a couple of reedbucks, impalas, and a common duiker. The highlight however was a leopard tortoise. The park is being supposedly repopulated with wildlife, but it’s clearly far from prime time. The short night drives were much more interesting – we spotted a hard-to-see lesser galago aka bushbaby, dozens of massive bullfrogs that hardly fit in your hand, giant beetles and stick insects and loud cicadas, poisonous centipedes and spiders.
