My season in the bush started with an unexpected first: a leadwood thorn almost all the way through my foot. Thank goodness for adrenaline because there was no time to stop and pull it out for the next kilometre: avoiding a hippo’s escape route and narrowly sneaking past an elephant was of more “pressing” concern. According to the colourful humour of the Mwaleshi staff I had a “puncture” and was in for repairs for the next two weeks.
Heavy February rains meant overhead oceans of grasses and surface water still spread across outlying pans. The in-between season saw many animals (including an abundance of elephants) making their way from drying pans towards the river… but still with long grass to disappear into.
One walk, with special guests, became what felt like a game of chess… with, and very nearly against, particularly large pieces. Trying to manoeuvre downwind and remain undetected by a herd of around 400 buffalo, we had to round an unhappy hippo (that the buffalo had displaced) and avoid an elephant in long grass, then two, three… we soon found ourselves bouncing from one close elephant encounter to the next within a larger herd of hidden heffalumps. In the wild North Luangwa, the elephant is not an animal to be taken lightly nor the hippo. They can be very reactive to even the faintest whiff of the human being.
When it felt like there was nowhere left to turn, we stopped and listened, with every sense on high alert. It was at that particularly tense moment, with nowhere left to move, that a go away bird, broke the silence by telling us in no uncertain terms to “go’waaay”. As if that was not exactly what we were trying to do!! As one of the guests told us later, he had much stronger language silently in his head for what the bird should go and do.
The trouble with elephants is their slow rhythm and the unfortunate fact of them being the quietest large mammal in the bush, let alone a very neutral and uniform grey. But this is the beautify of walking safari, it teaches you to become attuned to the subtleties, like every other animal out here. The wild North Luangwa epitomises that privilege, the need to wake up, behold your surroundings and, as a human, be respectful with one’s presence.
We did eventually make it out of the elephant predicament, exiting the long grass onto the open plane, only to be picked up by the buffalo who did then flee into the long grass after all! With yet more elephants blocking our easiest route home, our best way out was directly behind the stampeding buffalo. At least we knew that our path was cleared. When we got back to our crossing point at sunset, it was the first moment on the walk that we knew that we could finally relax in safety… or so we thought. There, on the other side of the river, holding our vehicle to ransom, was a mother hippo and her two-day old baby!!
There is nothing quite like the feeling of remaining undetected by wild animals, viewing and leaving undisturbed. Had we known in advance what predicament that intention would lead us into, on this occasion, we may have taken the hard choice to allow the buffalo to detect us. But that is wisdom in retrospect and these precarious moments, after the fact, often become our most treasured memories of awareness and close encounters.