It’s a shame that Chichele Presidential Lodge in the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia doesn’t have its original guestbook. There can be few lodges in Africa that have had quite such a mixed bag of high-profile guests, from Idi Amin and Queen Elizabeth II to South African mining magnates and ANC leaders.
But then there aren’t many lodges that were constructed specifically for the country’s president. Dr Kenneth Kaunda, who led Northern Rhodesia’s fight for independence from Britain and became Zambia’s founding president in 1964, loved the bush. South Luangwa, he told a local paper, was where he went to rest, reflect and make decisions.
When he first visited the area, then a reserve, as a young politician there was no airport, no bridge for crossing the Luangwa River (visitors had to use a pontoon) and only one camp, run by the legendary guide Norman Carr. When Carr later became frustrated with the presidential entourage regularly turning up, Kaunda took over the house of the chief game warden, Johnny Uys, a basic square building that Kaunda’s son, Kaweche, tells me he and his siblings nicknamed Mushroom Lodge because of the shape of its roof.
When the president started to call regular official meetings there and, Kaweche tells me on the phone, put his horrified ministers up in rustic huts nearby, those same ministers hatched a plan to build something more comfortable to stay in. In 1972 Chichele Presidential Lodge was born.
Soon the long whitewashed lodge became the place where Kaunda held official meetings. It was a hidden spot where he could host secret discussions between South African businessmen and the ANC, a comfortable place to welcome comrades in the independence movement and suitable accommodation for Elizabeth on safari during her 1979 Commonwealth tour with Prince Philip and Prince Andrew. (Kaweche, he tells me with a laugh, was given Andrew to look after, which was “an experience for a Zambian boy. I was in normal clothes but he was properly dressed, like you see on TV in Downtown Abbey, like he was going out goose hunting or something.”)
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The problem with the hotel was that although the royal party clearly enjoyed their stay, exploring the bush from Kaunda’s open-backed Land Rover, “my father didn’t like the big colonial-style hotel”, Kaweche says. The whitewashed structure not only stuck out atop a rocky, red-earthed hill but its interiors were furnished in chintz, with clawfoot baths and colonial-style dark wood four-posters. African it was not. Despite two private attempts to modernise the government-owned corporate-style lodge, Chichele soon became a big white elephant and fell into ruin.
When I arrive at the lodge, the first guest through its doors after a seven-year closure, there is no sign of its old colonial past. Instead, on the hill, with views of the Luangwa River, escarpment and park, the lauded South African architect Jack Alexander has constructed a terracotta-coloured contemporary bush pad that feels suitably presidential and African. Below a central flat-roofed living space, and either side of an infinity pool and gym, ten spacious villas have been constructed in a wide arc around the hill. Each is clad in earth-coloured plaster and fronted with black steel metalwork and double-height glass doors that open on to a deck and plunge pool.
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Inside, the South African design duo Fox Browne have created fabulous designer spaces in shades of salt, pepper, wood and copper that reference its surroundings and its history. Amid contemporary African-made furniture sit Victorian hatstands (strikingly painted black) and cool oversized strands of glass beads; elegant local modern sculptures rest beside old English leather-bound books; and a pair of black wingback armchairs used by Kaunda, who died in 2021, are near a display of old pith helmets.
Below these handsome spaces stretches the reason that last year more than 27,000 visitors came to visit this part of the world: more than 9,050 sq km of virgin bush.
When the lodge and its neighbouring sister property, Puku Ridge, were taken over in 2018 by the politically connected Yousuf brothers, Zuneid and Irfaan, who were also awarded a coveted concession on the Zambezi River, there were some raised eyebrows. The Dubai-based brothers, who have had substantial mining, fuel and fertiliser contracts with the Zambian government, hadn’t worked in hospitality before. Having hunted on their vast property adjoining the Kafue National Park, they weren’t celebrated in conservation circles either.
What the tourism newcomers clearly know how to do, though, is bring together some of the best architects, interior designers and safari operators in the region to create world-class camps. Like Africa’s other great game parks — among them the Masai Mara in Kenya, the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Kruger in South Africa — the central part of the Luangwa National Park is packed with visitors in the dry season from July to September. They stay in the 50 or so camps in and around it, on the lookout for its renowned wildlife, from leopards to more than 400 bird species.
But from Chichele and Puku Ridge I soon discover that there are no other camps for 7km. That means guests here have the southern region bordering the Luangwa pretty much to themselves — or in my case, in March, before the hotel’s April 20 opening, entirely to myself.
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Other than rhinos, which have been poached out here, I saw pretty much everything a safari-goer could dream of in two days: a sleek leopard and two cubs feasting on a waterbuck up a tree, a pride of 14 lions (asleep as usual under bushes), a hyena (ripping apart a zebra carcass under a bright moon) and the full cast of The Lion King, from Zazu the hornbill to Pumbaa the warthog. In addition, accompanied by Fred Phiri, a charismatic guide turned manager, and Pearson Banda, an armed parks ranger who has protected the park for 34 years, I spent a morning walking through the verdant summer bush.
It was in the South Luangwa that walking safaris began in the 1960s under Carr and then Robin Pope, another expert guide. They aimed to connect visitors more intimately with the natural world. On my second morning, our senses on high alert, we headed out across the lush plains, glistening with dew drops. In three hours we didn’t get far, primarily because there was so much to see. Violet-coloured luminescent dung beetles busied about. Golden weavers chirruped noisily above a pond, carefully sewing their grass nests. Crimson southern red bishops flitted between feathery grass fronds and lilac-breasted rollers swooped like airborne rollercoasters, trying to impress mates.
The luscious rain-soaked plains were also bustling with wildlife. Amid noisy gaggles of waders and ducks, antelopes strolled, chewing and snorting, while there were also watchful white-bummed waterbucks, pretty redhead pukus in reedbeds and herds of glossy tan and white impalas leading nurseries of babies. As we scanned the plains from behind a fallen tree trunk, a herd of female elephants wandered past, the matriarchs stopping to munch as their calves suckled. And as we strolled back to the car, a huge herd of buffaloes — perhaps 200, Phiri estimated — thundered out of the thickets before stopping suddenly, eyeing us suspiciously and then detouring into the undergrowth.
Rather wonderfully, after each of our sweaty dawn-and-dusk sojourns under the hot summer sun, I’d retreat into the cosseting, cool interiors of the lodge: for a cold glass of wine and delicious Mediterranean mezze for lunch; a deep massage with herb-scented Terres d’Afrique oils; or an afternoon rest by the infinity pool.
The enthusiastic new staff were a joy. After one afternoon game drive we arrived on a riverbank to find lamplit sundowners set up with silver buckets of wine, arrangements of Zambian and South African gins, and platters of local snacks adorned with edible flowers. At night they laid out a presidential-style dinner table sparkling with cut crystal, starched white cloths and silver by a blazing fire. All was overseen by the camp managers Dominique and Julius Schuld, who, having worked for the billionaire Tudor-Jones family at Singita Grumeti in Tanzania, clearly understand the luxuries that wealthy guests expect.
It’s the final piece of a safari jigsaw — what with Puku Ridge just up the road, Lolebezi on the Lower Zambezi and the perennial favourite Tongabezi at Victoria Falls — that now completes a circuit for the sort of upmarket travellers who might previously have only considered Botswana, Tanzania or South Africa for a luxury two-week safari. The respected Grant Cumings is overseeing the Luangwa properties and Beks Ndlovu of African Bush Camps is behind Lolebezi. That, along with direct daily flights from Livingstone and Lusaka, which link with a regular Cape Town flight, will undoubtedly help to open up the country to those who hadn’t thought of Zambia as a smart and safe African safari destination.
The camp won’t be the first stop for traditional conservationists (neither Elizabeth nor Kaunda, I suspect, would have felt at home in its smart designer interiors). But it will undoubtedly deliver five-star comforts, as well as big beasts, for people like the younger royals the Sussexes, not to mention the lodge’s Dubai-residing owners, for whom air con and plunge pools are basics. For them, Chichele will no doubt be bush heaven.
Lisa Grainger was a guest of Chichele Presidential Lodge, which has one night’s all-inclusive from £1,078pp until June, then £1,540 until the end of October (chiawa.com/chichele-presidential). Fly to Mfuwe via Lusaka
Two more camps in Zambia
Nkwali Camp
Located just outside the park, south of the Luangwa River, this thatched rondavel-style camp is a favourite of park regulars and is open all year. Guests travel to the park by boat in wet season and by Land Cruiser across the riverbed when it’s dry. The six open-fronted chalets are spacious and simple, with gorgeous river views and pretty surrounding gardens. Because Nkwali is on private land, night drives can be taken with expert guides, some of whom have worked here for 40 years. The company also offers eight-day walking safaris in areas beloved by the expert guide Robin Pope, staying at three different camps.
Details One night’s all-inclusive from £585pp (robinpopesafaris.com)
Kaingo Camp
Derek Shenton has been a conservationist in this region for decades, creating this camp in 1992 with his zoologist and photographer wife, Jules. Shenton’s father was also a key conservationist and head warden of the Northern Province, so care of Zambia’s wildlife is in his blood. The simple family camp has six thatched chalets, a sleepout bed under the stars and several hides from which to watch game up close. It also specialises in bush campouts, walking safaris, night drives and delicious fresh food (and decadent high tea), many of whose ingredients are grown on its nearby organic plot.
Details One night’s all-inclusive from £964pp (shentonsafaris.com).
For these lodges, fly to Mfuwe via Lusaka
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