Zambia offers Africa’s best walking safari experiences. During the 2020 end of year festive season, it was both surprising and exciting to see locals come out in large numbers to Itezhi Tezhi rural town to enjoy themselves in the open veld of the Kafue National Park. One of the most popular activity that most visitors undertook was the Kapenta walking safari excursion.

On the apex of Itezhi Tezhi mountain located about 4 kms from the Kafue National Park main entrance is perched a semi-luxurious lodge known as CMS.  It is a perfect place to connect with nature. It is from there that every morning participants set out on a 2 hour walking safari to the bottom of the mountain at Lake Itezhi Tezhi harbor through very narrow bushy Kapenta trail. The Kapenta trail was developed as a short cut footpath by fish traders to reach the fish harbour below.

On the cool morning of 1^st January, 2021 being a special New Year celebration day, I lead our special guest couple, Alex and Joan on this exciting 2 hours walking safari.  I started off by conducting the usual physical fitness check session. It was fun seeing Alex almost failing to do one of the basic “touch your toes” exercise due to his pot belly. Joan did all the exercises with relative ease due to her slim body flexibility. She mocked her husband Alex for his inability to do some of the physical fitness check exercises.

When all the fitness checks were done, we set out walking in a single file along a narrow bush footpath sandwiched between some rough rocks with me leading the team. The idea was to take the walk really slowly, with plenty of breaks and get closer to nature. We walked through the residential complex housing workers for the Itezhi Tezhi Power Corporation (ITPC). We saw the makeshift wooden tables used to dry fresh Kapenta (i.e small fish harvested from lake Itezhi Tezhi). I explained to my guests that many wives of ITPC workers are engaged in fish trading to supplement their home income. Every morning, groups of women walk down to the lake Itezhi Tezhi harbor to buy Kapenta fish, using the same path trail we were using. This is why the path is called Kapenta walking trail, named after these same small Kapenta fishes.

We then ventured into the thick bushes on a steep mountain slope using a well cleared Kapenta trail Stage 2.  This excited Alex and Joan as we encountered an army of noisy Baboons in the thickets. They were eating mangoes which they had harvested from the nearby ITPC housing complex. It was interesting scene watching these Baboons sharing a meal in a humanly orderly manner. The little ones were feed by their protective mothers whilst the biggest male Baboon harassed the other weaker ones.

We then proceeded walking through the huge Itezhi Tezhi side rocks that have withstood a test of time as they are still in good shape without any defects.  Actually Itezhi Tezhi means slippery stones.  We sat on one of the smooth stones for a photo shot. I told them that long time ago, this area used to be a natural sanctuary zone of rock python snakes. At the mention of pythons snakes,  Joan become apprehensive and asked if there any snakes still roaming around in this area. I told them that many rock python snakes where killed by workers who were building the nearby Itezhi Tezhi hydro electricity dam.  Huge Excavator machines were used to extract the big rocks from the mountain, which were blasted to small sizes and used to reinforce the dam wall.  Many rock pythons were killed in the blasting process and none can be seen nowadays.  This explanation seemed to have set Joan at easy. She eventually relaxed knowing now that there was no eminent danger to be attacked by any rock python snake.

Actually Itezhi Tezhi means slippery stones.

We then descended to the Lake Itezhi Itezhi harbor. We saw many abandoned traditionally made canoes used by the locals in the fishing of the Kapenta small fish. As it was off fishing season, we only came across a patrol team from the Zambian department of Fisheries who were on an inspection patrol routine. As we walked closer to the very edge of the Lake and saw what looked like a floating log in the water. We avoided getting any closer to the water to avoid being attacked by a stealth croc! We surveyed the dry bed of the lake as the water was receding due to insufficient water inflow. We came across plenty dead scrub fish and snail shells. Joan collected a lot of these dry snail shells. She said she will use them at home to scrub pot. We then walked to an abandoned massive wall   structure banker. It was built to stop the mountain slope soils from collapsing into the lake. The landscape around the area was green with short lawn grass, a good spot for doing a picnic. We sat on the green lawn as we looked further across the lake to behind the massive Itezhi Tezhi dam. It exciting watching huge volumes of water making its way inside the turbine of the ITPC hydro power plant to generate electricity. 

We then we made our way back to CMS lodge using the same Kapenta trail. Climbing the uphill trail was a moderate physical encounter. Alex had a hard time keeping pace with the rest of us. He was panting heavily for breath and half through to the top of the mountain, we took a short break.  We were all sweating profusely and quenched our thirsts with the mineral water we had carried. We were eventually saved from exhaustion from a mild rain shower downpour which kind of cooled our bodies. After we regained our composure, we  proceeded with the final league of our walking safari to the lodge. When we arrived at the lodge, Alex and Joan were  exhausted and immediately took cold showers. Thereafter, they took a nap for close to an hour before they took their meals. It was such an exciting way of welcoming 2021 in grand style by taking this Kapenta walking safari excursion right outside the beautiful Kafue National Park.