Breathtaking Victoria Falls & Hwange Safari: Luxury Lodges and Intimate Experiences

Within an hour of landing at Victoria Falls International Airport, you will be greeted at the airport for the 45-minute transfer to your accommodation. Check-in and then the rest of the day is at your leisure, with your choice of activities along the water. Victoria Falls is an hour away, accessed via an easy cruise along the Zambezi. Guides take you to the lip of the falls, where the water gushes past at phenomenal speed. They then lead you to the Mosi-au-Tunya park gate, where a walking trail leads you to a number of sublime lookout points. It will be your first day in Zimbabwe, and you will already appreciate the scale of the country’s nature and wilderness. Standing before Victoria Falls makes anyone feels humbled, such is the ferocious power and diaphanous beauty of the spectacle.

Nature will enchant you every morning as tropical birds flutter past, the odd hippo returns to its wading space, and monkeys and baboons provide entertainment as you sip your coffee. Relax, take your time, and allow the gentle rhythm to take over. There will be nothing artificial to break the scene, and the wilderness imbues endearing escapism. Zimbabwean hospitality is famous, and the staff will bring your meals and drinks to your private deck, or you can lounge in the main lodge area, sipping on beer, cocktails, soft drinks, or wines. It will feel like a boutique five-star hotel, but you are hidden away in a national park with wild animals as your neighbors.

Like the rest of this safari, these two days are flexible, and you can tailor a program to your interests. It can be as active or as relaxed as you would like. Cruise down the river and spot hippos and elephants amongst other wildlife. Cruise at sunset and discover completely different scenes. Go canoeing on the river, be guided to a local village, return to Victoria Falls, try fishing along sheltered banks, and explore the park on game drives and on foot. Guides also present you with little extras--perhaps a private picnic on a remote riverbank, with brilliant views over a hippo pod, or maybe a sunset canoe trip which is great for watching animals along the riverbank. Safaris in Zimbabwe are always flexible and these two days can include any of your dreamy ideas.

Hwange National Park covers some 15,000 square kilometers, although the ecosystem is even larger than that, with unfenced borders that connect Hwange with parks and reserves in Botswana. To the north, you will find thick woodland, rolling granite hills, and dense savanna, a landscape that’s adored by lion pride, elephants, and giraffe, amongst many others. Check into your safari lodge and take lunch on the veranda to enjoy your first impressions of the waterhole beneath the lodge. You will see wildlife here at all times of the day, mostly zebra and antelope throughout the morning and early afternoon, and then large herds of elephants throughout the evening and into the night. Just sit back, sip on a drink, and enjoy the show. Game viewing is intimate in this northern part of the park, and you will wind through the trees to find a magnificent sable antelope, explore rocky hills to find large lion prides, and be surrounded by giraffes on the edge of the woodland.  You will soon spot close to 40 or 50 different mammal species, and when you are back at the lodge, you will only need to sit on the veranda to watch the wildlife at the waterhole.

Open your curtains, and there may be a zebra herd taking a drink with their black and white stripes juxtaposed with colors of sunrise. Admire the horns of roan antelope as you eat breakfast, and soon your guide will come to meet you and discuss your day’s program. Nehimba is hidden in a private concession, so only you and a maximum of 12 other guests can access a large area of game-filled wilderness. Of course, you can also explore beyond the concession and the rest of the national park, which is on such a scale that it still feels like a private safari playground. Perhaps you will choose a morning walk for one hour spent around the lodge that will bring beautiful moments with wildebeest, red lechwe, springbok, and giraffe. Or maybe you will set out on a game drive to seek out cheetahs and leopards as they prowl in the morning light. Special photography hides are dotted across the concession to create some of Africa’s most intimate wildlife moments. You can spend the whole day exploring and take a picnic to come across tens of thousands of animals. Or you could drive for two hours, return to the camp, relax, then head out on another shorter activity.

Wake up and embrace your immersion in the bush. The surroundings are what make Zimbabwe such a captivating safari destination as packs of wild dogs scamper through the trees, their majestic fur coats coming in all manner of shades. Young elephants flap their ears in shows of aggression, building their strength for battles to come. Hundreds of wildebeest gallop past the safari vehicle, watched by lionesses perched on a rock. Soon you will realize that safari is not about catching sight of a few animals as much as it is an opportunity to understand a wild world and marvel at all the subtle interactions between species.

As you traverse Hwange, you will watch habitats merge as woodland becomes thinner, the landscape grows and gives way to open plains that continue beyond the horizon. Rather than a game vehicle, you will travel on the Elephant Express, an exclusive, boutique railcar that trundles slowly through the park. Through the windows, you can watch buffalo herds, giraffe towers, migratory elephants and more. After two hours, you will be surrounded by open plains and extraordinary vistas that extend many miles in every direction. Such openness will make the game viewing incredibly easy and is ideal for finding the predators on a hunt, even at a distance. Your next lodge is tucked amongst light woodland to bring views over your small water baths that are favored by unusual creatures like mongoose and bushbuck. This is one of Zimbabwe’s flagship lodges, and there is an endearing level of intimacy.

There will be tension at sunrise as five lionesses are prowling, their yellow coats blending into the scorched colors of the plains. They will creep slowly and silently, merging themselves into the landscape as they attempt to approach a buffalo herd. The large male buffalo will spot the pride and make a show of defiance.  You will be close enough to hear him huffing aggressively, yet the lionesses will continue unperturbed, splitting up until they slowly encircle the herd. There is no longer any stealth, just continual shows of aggression, the lions attacking the herd then retreating as horns charge their way. It is a deadly game, the predator seeking to isolate a predetermined calf, the buffalo aiming to stay as one strong unit. You will watch it all unfold for an hour, and there is no predicting who will win the day’s battle. These Ngamo Plains are excellent for predatory encounters.

The Ngamo Plains are a place for some very unique elephant experiences. The open landscape makes it safe to track elephants and giraffes on foot and there is also a great hide for watching elephants loom over you from eight meters away. Cheetahs are easily found on the open plains, their camouflage easily uncovered from the raised vantage point of the safari vehicle. Wild dogs continue to impress while nighttime drives explore a whole new world, where strange animals are illuminated by a spotlight. There are over 100 mammal species in Hwange, and by exploring both sides of the park, you will keep finding new and exotic animals. Spend three days, and you will see a lot, but spend six days, and you will come to understand how this mystical world works.

The last nine days will have been all about the details; the look in a leopard’s eye, a zebra calf protected by the herd, roan antelope gracefully skipping past the lodge. An aerial safari on this last day will help you to appreciate the scale. You will fly by light aircraft from southern Hwange to Victoria Falls, soaring over the landscapes that you have come to love over the last nine days and admire the habitats as they collide 3,000 meters below. At Victoria Falls, you will transfer onto your international departure and leave the wilderness of Zimbabwe behind as you travel home.