For me, the highlight of Zambia is the two days we spend at South Luangwa National Park.

Over the next few posts I’ll detail our early morning and nighttime game drives into the park, but today is all about our sunset arrival and accommodation at Wildlife Camp. This is a unique campground because, similar to where we stayed in the Serengeti, there are no barriers around camp. Wildlife can come and go at any hour of the day — hippos might brush past our tents at midnight or elephants might graze on our path to the bathroom. So long as we exercise caution and pay attention to avoid close animal encounters, we’ll be fine.

But let me back up to our arrival at camp — it’s about a half-hour before sunset and our driver kindly stops often so we can photograph animals along the way. First we find these hippos chowing down dinner.

It’s a baby giraffe! Its parents graze nearby, too.

A herd of elephants crosses by our safari vehicle.

From the looks of it, they’ve recently waded through the river.

More elephants in the distance, including some little ones.

We arrive at camp minutes before sunset and rush to the banks of the Luangwa River just in time to catch the show.

With the sun almost down, this hippo gets out of the water to look for food. They have sensitive skin so they spend most of the daylight hours submerged in water.

These three elephants mosey on down to the river, taking their sweet time to roll around in the dirt.

Play time…

Those same elephants cross the river, coming closer to our campsite. Our group is thrilled to be in close proximity to wildlife.

Now for a spectacular Zambian sunset…

Following a hearty meal and lively conversation, we turn in for the night. We are reminded again to be very careful should we need to use the bathroom — check the area carefully before leaving the tent, and don’t go out if there’s wildlife in the way. Fortunately the evening unfolds incident-free, though at breakfast the next morning we report the various noises we heard during the night.

A crocodile basks in sunlight on the banks of the Luangwa River.

There are numerous monkeys just waiting to stir up trouble by sneaking food off of plates or grabbing expensive digital devices.

In between game drives we get a whole afternoon to relax by the pool. It’s marvelous.

The grounds are lovely — everything is open to nature, with unspoiled views of the surrounding landscape.

Here’s a glimpse of our tents:

And for those who have upgraded to the accommodated tour package, these permanent tents (with toilets and showers inside) have lovely views of the river.

The wildlife featured in this post is just the tip of the iceberg — more from our game drives inside South Luangwa National Park tomorrow and Friday!

I visited Zambia on a 30-day Nairobi to Joburg tour with Nomad Tours. They discounted my tour in exchange for blogging and photography; opinions are my own.