Reviews of Bilimungwe Bushcamp
Wildlife sightings and reviews
13 independent comments and wildlife information from our travellers who have visited Bilimungwe Bushcamp and kindly agreed to share their thoughts. They do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa
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"Bilimungwe Bushcamp review"
Another highlight of camp is the breakfast boma overlooking the Luangwa River and Chindeni Hills to the east.
The chalets are quite large and comfortable. The staff couldn't be nicer." See all these reviews: 19n in Zambia; 1n in South Africa
"Wonderful Bilimungwe"
The room was lovely and the setting on the lagoon was wonderful, with lots of animals coming to drink.
Our last sundowner in the river was an unforgettable memory, thank you." See all these reviews: 14n in Zambia
"interesting stories at Bilimungwe"
Too bad we had to share the car with 6 people for the nightdrive." See all these reviews: 16n in Zambia
"Bilimungwe Bushcamp review"
The camp itself is big enough to give you space, but small enough to be very personal. There was also a lot of wildlife in and around camp day and night (we were woken one night by a very loud noise outside our room - most likely a hyena - and another night by Harry the hippo scratching himself on one of the stilts supporting the room!). Finding lion footprints in the sand of the breakfast boma on two mornings left us in no doubt we were in the wild!
Manda is a guide who comes with a high reputation and it is well earned. His knowledge and understanding of Wild Dogs in particular is fantastic. It is as though he has a sixth sense. He really understands their behaviour and was able to describe and explain what the dogs were going to do and how they were going to interact before they did exactly as he had described!
The ability to do walking safaris is one of the treats of Bili. Walking in the bush gives you a chance to look much more closely at some of the small stuff, as well as keeping you very alert! We were amazed one morning to find that a wood-fired pizza oven had been set up in the bush for brunch, along with fresh dough and all the ingredients to make our own pizzas! It might be wild, but there's a definite air of being well looked after around Bili!" See all these reviews: 8n in Zambia
"Bilimungwe Bushcamp review"
"Brilliant Bili"
Bilimungwe, the camp itself is very small with only 4 chalets. The guide Manda was excellent. Katie, the manager on site is in this job only for 3 months, but she was quite good at it and made me feel welcome at the camp. The waterhole in front of my chalet and the one in front of the deck was a magnet for wildlife especially elephants. Elephants were practically everywhere and one had to be a little careful while moving about the camp. From my chalet itself, I had good sightings of elephants, a magnificent male Kudu, Impalas, Bushbucks and even a gang of banded mongoose. At night I was woken by a antics of large hippo in the visiting the waterhole in front of my chalet....
Fortunately for me the camp was not full and there were only 4 more guests. Next morning we had a drive followed by a walk which was a practical demo of tracking a leopard on foot. Although we did not manage to find the leopard, it was great fun all the same. Evening was a spotlit night drive yielding good sightings of genets, civets, white tailed mongoose. Next day was even better with me as the only guest in the camp. Manda took me for long game drive. We tried to track down 2 male lions which are dominant in that area but failed to locate them. Instead we found 2 leopards, one male and one female, spending almost an hour with them. Most important during these 2 days we hardly came across any other vehicle and all sightings were practically private! This is in stark contrast to many parks in Kenya and even Tanzania...
All in all it's a great camp with an able guide. The slight negative point is that the chalets do not have electricity so the only light available is that comes from solar powered portable "Luci lights". This makes is a little difficult to move around in the chalet after dark and a torch is quite handy. But then again it's all part of experience of a "Bushcamp" ." See all these reviews: 7n in Zambia
"Bilimungwe - what a location!"
There was a similar regime - wake up at 5.30am for breakfast and a walk, returning at about 10.30am for brunch at 11.00am. Then siesta until game drive at 4.00pm, sundowners, then return for dinner and early night! The evening drives tended to last somewhat longer than at other camps, mainly due we think to Manda (our guide) wanting to find absolutely everything possible for us to see.
There was a temporary manager Ian, as Katie was having a well deserved break, so it probably was not reasonable to expect everything to run as efficiently as normal. Whilst everyone looked after us perfectly well, there were a couple of small glitches (like laundry not being done one day) that probably wouldn't usually happen. Having said that, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and would not hesitate to return to this fabulous camp.
As well as being visited quite often by a variety of wildlife, the camp enjoys (?) the very close attention of a group of 3 elephants, who regularly get very close to feed on 'biscuits' from the winterthorn tree. At brunch one day, they were so close that they were picking up 'biscuits' from no more than 1 metre away from one of the guests (Roland) whilst he was sitting at the table! Consequently, walking around camp during the day can be challenging, interesting and exhilarating at the same time!
Unlike the other camps we visited, Bilimungwe actually took chairs on the game drive after tea so that we could sip our gin and tonics in total comfort at sundown - a very nice touch we thought even though we don't expect that level of pampering.
One of the highlights of our stay was enjoying our sundowner drinks (in the chairs!) whilst watching 31 elephants, ncluding one very tiny baby, crossing the river.
When we left camp for the last time, all the staff came out to say goodbye and they treated us to a wonderful song about Bili - fantastic!
All in all, a fabulous camp with fabulous game viewing that we will remember for a long time." See all these reviews: 10n in Zambia
"Bilimungwe Bushcamp review"
This was another one of our favorite camps and we'd have liked to have stayed longer. Good drives and morning walks." See all these reviews: 22n in Zambia
"elephant heaven at bili"
the walks with the guide manda are excellent a rearly interesting man with a great knowledge and passion for his countrys history and culture finding ancient sites with bits of pottery and iron from early smelting plus learning how plants are used for medicines and sometimes witchcraft make you almost forget your here to see the wildlife .but the game veiwing here was fantastic cats every day plus everything else and the sight of a troop of baboons chaseing a male leopard in broard daylight just as we were setting off for a walk is one we will never forget
there was a slight problem with the food one night due to a spillage of fuel during transportation some things tasted of parrafin but this was soon sorted out by the very able manager mike and did not detract from our stay in any way. we had a great time at billi and would recommend it to anyone." See all these reviews: 12n in Zambia
"Good location and huts"
Mike was managing the camp well and was good with the guests and with the other staff.
Our guide, Peter, was also excellent." See all these reviews: 12n in Zambia
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