Reviews of Old Mondoro Bushcamp

"Old Mondoro is a very nice bush camp. The chalets are reed and wood structures with an open frontage on the river. There's plenty of room, but it's a very open plan with the entire front open to the river. There was comfortable furniture on the back porch from which you could watch life on the Zambezi unfold – mostly sleeping hippos. The beds were comfortable, and the bedding sufficient. It was rather cold in June, and I appreciated the hot water bottles they provided in the evening.

The bathroom was fine with the shower and separate tub outdoors. The hot water heater was an on-demand water heater, and a bit tempermental – there was tendency of the water heater to shut off during showers, but was fine. The generator runs all of the time, and there are a couple of electrical outlets from which you could charge your electronics, as well, as electric lights in the room. I was advised not to drink the water, and they provide a carafe of potable water in the room.

A nice bonus is that they give you a water bottle to use during your stay for potable water, and which you can take home with you as a souvenir. They also provided kikoys for use during the drives.

It should be noted that the area is very active with large animals. The hippos come by very close, and can be heard calling almost all day. For two days in a row, guests had to stay in their rooms while elephants ate the foliage nearby and around the chalets. We actually considered this a bonus – it's what you come to Africa for, but guests do have to be cautious around camp.

The main lounge area was very comfortable, and was unique in that it had a loading platform for the vehicles which means you didn't have to climb in and out of the landcruisers.

Food was good. It was rather cold in June, and a nice touch was that they provided braziers of coals underneath the dinner table to keep you warm. Hosting was excellent. The camp managers were very attentive and looked after the guests very well.

Guiding was good. I think the game density is a bit thin this time of year, but I think Morat was fairly diligent in trying to track down game. I did enjoy the forest in this area very much – it's such a different environment from South Luangwa. I also enjoyed the boat tour on the safari – the guide was very good at spotting birdlife.

Game drive vehicles are the standard Landcruisers with 3 rows of seats. However, these vehicles have a roll bar over the front cab, which can be good and bad. It's good since it provides a place to steady your camera, but it's bad in that it can obscure your view. They provided bean bags, and there were pockets in front of each seat.

Of note, they use a red filter on the spotlight during night drives. The justification is that the red filter is less blinding to the animals and allows them to act naturally when observed. I must say that I found this to be true during a leopard sighting, as the leopard seemed very comfortable with the red light on him. Unfortunately, the downside to the red filter is that it makes for very poor photography on the night drives. In addition to the strong red color cast, the light output is much diminished, which makes for very slow shutter speeds. I pretty much gave up on photography on the night drives.

I did ask about the use of flash, and they discourage it for the same reasons that they use the red filter on the spotlight – to keep from blinding the animals. It did seem like this is a trend for the Lower Zambezi as we ran into a vehicle from another camp and they even had red filters on their headlights.

I'm not advocating one way or the other regarding the spotlights, but just noting the pros and cons." See all these reviews: 14n in Zambia; 2n in Zimbabwe

"Old Mondoro proved to be the perfect end to our holiday. This was our first visit to the lower Zambezi National Park. The flight into the Jeki airstrip gave us wonderful views of the magnificent Zambezi valley. Expert Africa had recommended Old Mondoro to us and they were absolutely spot on. We had thought that Sausage Tree camp and Chiawa would be too luxurious/expensive for us. Old Mondoro proved to be the perfect solution.

We were driven to the camp by Reagan and greeted by the charming hosts Beukes and Jacomine. In their first season they are doing a magnificent job. The atmosphere in the camp was terrific and all the staff were extremely friendly, engaging and determined to make sure we had a good time. Our main guide was Levy. He was an exceptional guide and great fun. He made sure we saw all aspects of this beautiful park and was also an excellent walking guide. He was ably supported by Morat and we also much enjoyed the boat trip with Andrew and Peter, incredible bird life as well as game on the river bank and of course crocs and hippos. Although a bush camp, Old Mondoro is not basic, the chalets are extremely comfortable all with views of the beautiful Zambezi.

The camp was full of game, and sneaking tree to tree with our guide to gain entrance to our chalet and avoid 3 huge bull elephants was terrific. We then sat on our veranda and watched them swim across the river in front of the chalet. One point to note, the Lower Zambezi was very cold in the morning and evening in late June/July and much colder than South Luangwa, so go prepared. The camp was perfect but we would have fancied a cup of coffee on the morning game drive rather than a cold drink! Lower Zambezi and Old Mondoro combined perfectly with the South Luangwa camps and we would love to return." See all these reviews: 10n in Zambia; 4n in Malawi

"First (and sole for our stay) guests of the season. Lovely location looking over Zambezi with a feeling of remoteness within the Park. Rooms well spaced out and of a simple but by no means basic design. Elephants wandering through the camp and wonderful dusk/dawn sounds of the bush.

Guides and camp staff excellent. New management couple from SA for 2011 season who are very welcoming and enthusiastic. Nice surprise of a birthday cake and songs from some of the staff. Game drives and walk very enjoyable but wildlife not prolific in May as the bush hasn't dried up sufficiently to force animals towards the permanent water sources.

Excellent leopard sighthing though and best ever of civet and white-tailed mongoose - largely since red-filters are used at all times on the night-drive spotlights which the animals are comfortable with and don't avoid as with the unfiltered spotlights. Not much good for photos perhaps but we really liked the policy as it gives a much more rewarding sighting when you are able to observe the animals for longer.

Our sort of camp: simple, relaxed and with a primary focus on wildlife. Would return in a heartbeat." See all these reviews: 9n in Zambia

"Good, on time flight connections

Friendly, efficient staff at the camp.

Knowledgable guides" See all these reviews: 3n in Zambia

"Old Mondoro was a new experience for us and one that we hope will be repeated again – the managers there [Etienne and Leana] were so enthusiastic it was infectious and they run a very good safe camp with just enough excitement.

Everybody was keen for us to see the very best game. The canoeing a was new and great experience." See all these reviews: 9n in Zambia

"Old Mondoro had the best table arrangement of our trip." See all these reviews: 10n in Zambia

"We were told this is the only bushcamp now in the Lower Zambezi NP and this explains its popularity. We could only get two nights (and wanted to stay longer) and we met several who couldn't get in at all. It's a small camp, feels intimate and remote, yet is of a very good standard. We hope they don't follow the trend and upgrade it too much!

The terrain is much more open than at Chiawa so the camp offers good land and water activities (with fishing stated to be secondary). It's this wide variety that makes this camp special. We particularly enjoyed the night drives - we shall never forget the leopard leaping over a 7m stream - twice! Well tracked, Livvy.

However, we also had a most enjoyable river trip (thank you, Andrew) and constant interaction with animals (elephant in particular) in the camp." See all these reviews: 19n in Zambia

"We loved Old Mondoro!

The camp has a lovely, intimate atmosphere and is very well run by Etienne and Leana and their team. Our guide Levy must be one of the top guides in the country - superbly knowledgeable and very personable. We had frequent and excellent sightings of lions and leopards, but also of rarer animals e.g. porcupines, Scharpes Grysbok and grey mongoose. We enjoyed particularly the walks - the open woodland and the adjacent open plain are ideal for this.

The camp should really be called 'old Elephant' as they were a constant presence, 'joining' the guests for tea, for a shower etc." See all these reviews: 14n in Zambia

"What an absolutely delightful camp. Sarah's number one place scoring 10/10. [Ed: 'Sarah' is half of this couple, travelling together!]

The situation is wonderful right on the Zambezi. The room was very comfortable with great facilities. The staff were extremely attentive without invading personal privacy. We loved the boat trip combined with the night safari. The guide Morat, was superb and we had our best daylight sighting of leopard here.

Unlike some smaller camps this one has two vehicles which gave more flexibility. Liana and Etienne could not have done more to make us comfortable and the view from room 3 straight onto the river was superb.

The only one downside was that we wish we could have stayed longer!" See all these reviews: 12n in Zambia

"We had a super time here and Leona and Etienne were very helpful, enthusiastic, professional and went out of their way to ensure that we had and did everything that we wanted. Their help with watching and photographing the swimming elephants and the nesting bee eaters was over and above what might have been expected.

Levi, our guide, was excellent and also went out of his way to ensure that we saw loads of animals.

Ann is not very comfortable with "bugs" and does feel that the chalets could be upgraded to something similar to Kakuli where there is a mosquito net surrounding the inside of the tent. Otherwise we had a grand time." See all these reviews: 14n in Zambia