Part 7 of my diaries from 1996 about my trip to Malawi and Zambia. And, by the way, the title of these posts was explained in Part 5.
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We had entered the camp after dark so that we had little or no chance to assess it. In the pale early morning I took a stroll around. Mvuu Camp is managed by Central African Wilderness Safaris and even if all of their staff look to be in their teens it is nevertheless an attractive and professional operation. The main building which houses the bar and restaurant looks out dramatically over the river where hippo, crocodile and elephant can be watched while you sit and eat your meals or sip long cold drinks. Lizards and small mammals wander right up to the walls or climb the trees to watch you. The enclosed part of the camp has ten luxurious twin bedded tents each surrounded by sturdily constructed bamboo screens and roofs. There is a clean and modern shower and toilet block which serves both these tents and the adjacent camping site.
A map provided in the tent detailed every tree in the enclosure, describing their Latin and English names and main characteristics. The one standing immediately in front of our tent was a 'Toad Tree', presumably so named because of its warty and scabrous bark. Scraping against the trunk I discovered that it had a sticky white, unpleasant smelling sap.
I had spent much of yesterday coughing and sniffling and today it had developed into a nasty head cold with streaming eyes and a sore throat. All the same after a good breakfast I joined the others for a bush walk. Our guide was Sean who looked about seventeen and put you in mind of an Australian Lifeguard. He was accompanied by a uniformed and armed guard without whom we would not have been allowed out of the enclosure.
"Remember," said Sean, "This is not a zoo. The animals here are wild and that means that they can be dangerous. If we come across any lion or elephant there will be no danger to anyone providing you do as I tell you."
We set off. Although it was still early morning the sun was already very hot. I soon wished that I hadn't forgotten to bring my hat from the tent. At first all we found were tracks and droppings - impala, bushbuck, hippopotamus, elephant, baboon - but soon we entered a clearing to see a group of baboon running off into the trees. The ground was littered with broken shells and destroyed fruit. Sean indicated a number of holes which the baboons had clearly been digging at.
"These holes were where crocodile had laid their eggs," he told us. "The interesting thing about crocodile eggs is that the sex of the hatchling depends entirely on the temperature at which the egg was incubated. The deeper, colder eggs hatch into females and the shallower warmer ones into males. These won't be hatching into anything, the baboon have destroyed them all."
We went on. Everywhere there were brightly coloured birds, from tiny bee eaters to massive majestic fish eagles. There were also antelope of every type that we had seen so far. A fenced off enclosure had warning notices explaining that the fence carried lethal voltages and the park rangers operated a shoot to kill policy on poachers. This marked the boundary of a large area set aside for a pair of breeding black rhino which the park is keen to keep safe. They were nowhere to be seen and naturally we could not go in to look for them.
Poaching is one of the most serious problems in Malawi. Some of the reserves have been poached to the point where they no longer contain any large game at all. Liwonde has not yet reached such a sorry state but poaching is still thought of as the largest single threat to the animals. And it isn't just the animals. Around the country young trees are illegally felled by poachers who sell the wood which often ends up in the carvings sold to tourists. Technically a permit is required but few have them.
Arriving back at camp we were almost run over by a large armoured vehicle, a Unimog. This is a four wheel drive vehicle with a vengeance. It looked like it should be part of a military invasion force and was driven by two bullet headed, khaki clad men with army style crew cuts. The looked like Nazi storm troopers. The reality was more mundane. They were a South African father and son who had decided that this mode of transport was the best way to see more of Africa. At that moment they were driving round to the far side of the river, where we were parked, to allow them and early start tomorrow.
In the afternoon we took a boat ride down the river. This gave us a chance to observe more closely the hippopotamus and crocodile. Osman, our new guide, proved to be exceptional at identifying birds from a single glimpse of their plumage or a few seconds of their song. As we moved down the river he told us an African folk tale of 'Why The hippo Yawns'.
We continued downstream until the sun started to set and then Osman killed the engine and let us drift there in silence watching as the sky turned first red then a glorious gold as the afterglow lit up the clouds from below the horizon. Now that it was dark we sailed back up river with Osman picking out details on the banks with a powerful spotlight
hippo lumbered up the muddy shores, ungainly certainly but with an air of massive unstopability.
crocodile slithered from the beam as soon as it touched them to glide silently across the water, just below the surface.
A tree full of heron remained motionless while the light was upon them and took to the air as one when he flicked it away for a moment.
A malachite kingfisher with its spectacular plumage was pinned to a branch by the lamp, so hypnotised that we could get within feet of it for close up photographs.
The bright tunnel of the beam was filled with a million flying insects, their motion forming strange stroboscopic geometries as their wings flickered in the light.
All too soon it was over and we were back at camp. After another of Peter's excellent meals I decided that rather than go to the bar I would take an early night and try to sleep off the remainder of my cold.
