The Stockers' Stories

With apologies to our regulars, this is going to sound more like a travel brochure than a normal blog entry. Less than an hour from the road that connects Nyika to Rumphi is Vwaza Marsh Reserve, and we stopped there for one night at Kazuni Camp. There is almost no information at all available about this camp on the internet–all of the normal travel sites say “closed until further notice,” or something similar. And the phone number in the latest printed tour guides is no longer in operation. So for the benefit of those who are searching in vain for information about Kazuni Camp and the Vwaza Eco Lodge, I’m going to include several boring details like prices and phone numbers.We had loaded up on bug spray in preparation for an onslaught of mosquitoes, but amazingly we didn’t encounter any at all while we were there. We did, however, encounter a huge variety of other wildlife. We could have taken guided game drives around the marsh relatively cheaply (MK3000 per adult and MK1500 per child, or MK1050 each for a guided walk), but there was so much to see right there at the camp that we didn’t bother. Kazuni Camp is really an idyllic location, in a clearing on the edge of a lake in Vwaza Marsh.

The first thing that we noticed upon arrival were the grunts and snorts of hippos, a couple dozen of which hung around in the lake near the camp all day. They came out of the water at night, but unfortunately my camera doesn’t take very good low-light pictures.

These are some of the other animals that we encountered at Kazuni Camp:

The most prevalent animal was baboons. They were everywhere, all of the time, so we never left anything laying around the camp for them to steal. Their shrieks kept waking me up at night.

In the pre-dawn light I also saw a small creature scampering around which I think was a mongoose. We were told that there was a herd of elephant that had passed through the camp the day before we arrived, and the guides knew where to take us to find them. We probably would have taken them up on it if we hadn’t just seen an elephant at Nyika the day before. We might have driven ourselves around looking for them, but we were told that only guided drives were allowed at Vwaza. If we had wanted, a guide could have come with us in our private vehicle for MK2500.

We stayed in one of the five chalets along the lake. It consisted of a bamboo-walled room with two double beds connected to a cement block shower/toilet. There are some lights in the chalets, powered by a central solar panel, but only one of ours was working. We also had some plumbing problems while we were there, with a toilet that wouldn’t flush in the morning.

There was a roofed, open-air common dining area for the chalets, and a resident cook, Dickson. He appeared to be quite good, especially at baking, but we didn’t really get to appreciate his skills because we had prepared and frozen our meals ahead of time. We should have brought basic foodstuffs and just handed them all to him when we arrived. There is a stove/oven and a refrigerator in Dickson’s kitchen, but they don’t work. Instead, he prepares everything in an elaborate wood-burning fireplace.

To book a stay at Kazuni Camp, you can call Neli at +265 999 632 786, or contact Arif Mirza, mirzarief@hotmail.com. These are the current rates:

MK 10,000 (US$70) for a chalet
MK 5,000 (US$35) for a hut, which we didn’t see, but we were told can sleep 2
MK 1,500 (US$20) for camping