BULL ELEPHANT CHARGE
It was definatly one of those African Nights where the day was so hot your sill feeling the after-affects, loooong after the sun goes down. Squished in a haphazard gathering of chairs, couches, stools, Standing people and wall perches, many of us sat and talked with beer in hand, too tired to move. The lobby/lounge of Liwonde Game Reserve lodge is nice, roof of thick reed thatch, all around those typical touches of African Art and Decor. Personally, I was too tired from the trek across the wildlife (on foot), counting herds of animals that I ws content to perch on the wall and watch the others drink their beers. We all swatted half-heartedly at mosquitos that were savoring our sticky sweat-soaked bodies.
Afte a while I left with Adam, both too tired to drink, to hot to be comfortable. Everyone else thought sleep was a good idea and followed our lead. A good ten feet in front of everyone, Adam and I shone our headlamps at the ground in front of us, the only lights in the darkness. We headed down the path towards the park grounds, we were camping outside of the lodge area, in the actual park itself, at a discount price.
Suddenly the loud trumpeting of a Bull elephant breaks the silence, stopping us dead in our tracks. Less than twenty feet away, a bull elephant thrusts its head from the scrub bushes and trees directly ahead. They tell you not to run, you know not to run. Call it instinct or stupidity but I automatically turn tail to run. Adam, a few steps behind me, catches me by the arms and whisperes hoarsly,
"Don't run!"
My heart is beating like a scared rabbit's. The others, now noticing the elephant, begin to freak out. A night watchmen appears and shines his torch(spotlight) in the elephants eyes. (Which everyoen knows is the worst thing to do, becuase it scares them and makes them angry.) We all beging yelling at his not to do it. Were scared he is going to provoke it into charging. Adam is shouting at the night watchman, telling him not to shine it in his eyes, becuase he doesn't want the elephant to leave. Priorities. The watchman continues to shout and shine the light in the elephants eyes as he leans over, scoops up a clod of hippo dung and hurls it at the elephant.
There is a shocked moment where we all think to ourselves, "Did that man just hurl a pile of hippo dung, a pile of poop, at a full grown Bull Elephant??"
Yes, yes he did. And he just keeps doing it. He continues to shout, shine his light, and hurl hippo dung which looks like elephant dung but in a convientient pellet shape. Slowly, the trumpeting and huffing elephant backs back into the scrub, melting into the dark before us. Danger mainly averted. Except he is not in the outside of the park...where we are going. So what do we do? Well, we keep walking out into the park of course. Its where our tents are, under the trees so they don't get stepped on.
Of course we sit up to the crash of brush, the rattle of the tree branches above us, the crunching of leaves by large elephant molars. Occasionally I wonder if we will get stepped on, if the elephant would even notcie and stop, freak our and kill us all or completley not notice. I'm sure Adam found the crashing and trumpeting and hippo lowing quite satisfying...even though he was still pissed off about the watchman chasing away the elephant.
SCOUTS FUMBLE
Trekking up the widest river in Malawi, Adam, our scout and I are trudging through the hot sun, attempting to stick to the scrub to prevent scaring off the herds before we can get close enough to count them. (YOU try counting a herd of running impala over two kilometers away...we managed to get around 120) The herd of impala, mixed with some Greater Kudu and waterbuck, graze in the open fields beside the riverbank. Startled Duiker, bush buck and Buku crash off through the scrub. Hippos watch us with their barely open eyes, bobbing in the water. The river is lazy, the herds are thinning and were continue moving forward. Adam, me and the scout, all in a line, wordlessly walk. Our scout looks tough, he's tall, youngish, with his camo uniform, hat and riffle slung carelessly over his shoulder. Without warning, three feet to the scout's right bursts a snorting, bewildred warthog from the stand of tall grass.
Later, we were to discover such grassy, sparsly treed knolls and grass beds are a favorite of the warthogs...
Snorting and feigning dodges left and right, the warthog shows its displeasure at being disturbed. You would not think a warthog so intimidating, but when the German shepherd sized, snorting, clearly angry, tusked creature suddenly POPS out at you, its scary. Magically I have managed to dive to the other side of Adam, putting both of them between me and the warthog. Our scout is fumbling with his gun, dodging left towards us, practically falling. Very reassuring. I think he may have jumped 4 feet into the air. Before scout can aim and fire his gun, the warthog runs off.
During the weekend we were there, we also took down at least 100 poacher's snares. They are metal loops hung from trees. We identified poacher tracks and stalked around trying to find them. My legs became torn up when we had to trek through several kilometers of brambles.
Some days we had two scouts, one always had his nose in a GPS, taking us on a wild trek from point A to B.
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