Land of the Leopard

 The South Luangwa river valley is rightly famed for its Leopard sightings.

But nothing on a safari Holiday can be guaranteed - the animals are wild and come and go as they please. Spotting elusive creatures like this Leopard is down to the skill and experience of the guides. Trust them and let them do their jobs and your chances of seeing sights like this goes up considerably.

Guides will often start a trip by asking "What would you like to see?" our response now is "Whatever you can find for us". This frees up the Guide from chasing around trying to find a particular species and allows them to read their surroundings. In our experience this pays off far more than going with a "shopping list".

This year we had the rather weird experience of seeing another guest, a rather objectionable Swiss lady, at one of the camps we stayed at, throw a full on hissy fit because we said we had seen a Leopard whilst they had not. 

The fact their private tour guide had been constantly over-riding the local guide, telling him where to go in their search for Leopard, (which he had promised his rich punters) did not seem to compute.

In fact by the end of our trip we had seen Leopard every day except two and our sightings included a first - Leopard whilst on walking safari! 

It's rare to encounter people on safari so out of tune with the nature of the experience - so every time we subsequently saw a Leopard I found myself muttering "William Tell, Toblerone, Cuckoo Clocks , Alpen Horn and Secret Bankers - your boys took one hell of a beating!"