Cameia National Park Voyage Tips and guide

Cameia National Park (Portuguese: Parque Nacional da Cameia) is a national park in Eastern Angola. It is the second largest national park in Angola. The park is a sample of nature not occurring elsewhere in Angola. Two lakes, Lago Cameia and Lago Dilolo (the largest lake in Angola) lie outside the park boundaries and both have extensive reedbeds and grassy swamps that are rich in aquatic birds.

It covers a surface of 14,450 km². It shares its name with the nearby municipality of Cameia. The Cameia–Luacano road forms the northern boundary of the park with the Chifumage River forming the southern portion of the eastern boundary and the Lumege and Luena rivers the south-western boundary.

There is a serious lack of staff, resources and support for the park.

The area now known as Cameia National Park was established as a game reserve in 1938 and as a national park in 1957. The wildlife in the park wad almost completely wiped out after the 1975–2002 civil war wrought devastation to the park, including uncontrolled poaching and the destruction of infrastructure.

Much of the park consists of seasonally inundated plains that form part of the Zambezi river basin, with the northern half of the park draining into the Chifumage river. There are also extensive miombo woodlands, similar to those in the Zambezi basin of western Zambia.

The park’s wildlife population includes wildebeests, tsessebe, Lechwe antelopes and the reedbuck, although populations have declined due to civil war and neglect.

Its rivers and lakes attract water birds and woodland species. The park water birds include the Angola lark, Anchieta barbet, Angoal barbler, Black-tailed cisticola, Brown firefinch, Kurrichane thrush, and the Rufous-bellied tit.

• Parks of Angola website

Cameia National Park 125 km from the region's main municipality, Luena.