one month in...

Exactly one month ago, I stood at the baggage belt in Lusaka airport waiting for my rucksack, pondering what lay ahead… all I knew was that a girl with facial piercings would be waiting for me the other side of the gate - she would drive me 4 hours to the lodge, predominantly in the dark; No views to talk about, few animals to spot, no shared knowledge and no idea of where we were heading. I was nervous.

I'm often nervous, but my previous boss always told me that I was good at hiding it - I faced the world and whatever it threw at me with passion and purpose; it didn’t really feel like it. This was different. I was to spend 6 months in an alien country, with new colleagues, a whole different career and a long way from home.
But here I am, a whole month done and I can't quite believe it. Thankfully it feels like I've been here much longer. The people are amazing… resourceful, calm, generous and understanding. I have landed in yet another small slice of Eden.

Mukambi Safari Lodge sits on the banks of the Kafue River which borders the Kafue National Park, one of the world's biggest wildlife sanctuaries; at 22,400 square kilometres, it is the size of Wales and home to some of the greatest wetland antelopes on earth. This week I received my official guiding licence to take tourists on game drives around the park and interpret the flora and fauna we see here. I can't wait. Another nerve-wracking chapter has started… we have timid and aggressive elephants (as a result of a long history of poaching), un-graded roads which take the "African massage" to a whole new level, Tsetse flies and exceedingly long grass making visibility tricky at best. But the challenges are worth enduring because we also have the cutest Leopard cubs, almost 500 bird species and some of the rarest sightings like Pangolins and Sitatunga. It's a lesser-known pocket of paradise and once again I am awed by the sheer magnitude of mother nature's designs. Now that I truly understand what the Lion King was on about all those years ago, I am excited to share with others the real "circle of life".