(6 chalets, tree house, camping) Safari Par Excellence, Harare, Zimbabwe; tel: +09 260 3 321629, 320606–9; fax: +09 260 3 326629; email: safpar@zamnet.zm; www.safpar.com
Once one of the main camps in the GMA, Kayila has been through a lean patch, and when visited in 2003 was open only to campers. The rest of the site was under renovation, but the good news is that it was fully operational for 2004, with visitors once more delighting in the dizzy heights of the Tree House, set high up in a sausage tree with a bird's-eye view of the river below. Aside from the ever-popular Tree House, with its own bathroom at the bottom of the tree, there are two family rooms, six twin chalets, and a large, secluded honeymoon suite. This last, with its king-size bed and stone bath, is open to the river on one side, which lends a feeling of space.

Activities include day and night game drives in the area around Kayila, boat trips, fishing (bring your own rods and tackle), canoeing and even hiking in the mountains on the edge of the escarpment.

The lodge's central thatched lounge/dining area is built with open sides, and set in a small group of baobabs on a low rise next to the river. The inside of one of those great trees has been converted into a toilet, complete with washbasin, accessed by a small door in its trunk.

The camp is located in the Chiawa GMA, some 45km from Chirundu and about an hour's drive from the national park. Most overseas visitors arrive by charter plane at the nearby airstrip.