“Oh! Water buffalo.” “…Run.” (Nov 5)

So our first official task of the Liwonde Game Count was a 12km transect walk through the park, which my dumbass was less than prepared for in my shorts and sandals at 5am. Robert and I were assigned to a guide-slash-rifle-wielder named Nowa. He had a rifle because it’s dangerous to be out in the park on foot. Regular visitors aren’t allowed to leave their vehicles. Also, poachers are abundant, illegal, dangerous, and fair game to shoot at. I was very happy to find that Nowa was entirely competent and a perfectly nice man. Now that I think about it, I really liked that guy! Anyway, he and Rob kept me going at a “good clip,” aka too fast. Where’s the fire, guys!? I thought we were supposed to be counting animals, not going on a run. The first 5km were the worst, as it was through a landscape of vicious thorn-bushes, which had a way of finding their way under your toenails. We saw no animals, probably because nothing really likes walking through vicious thorn-bushes. But it picked up considerably after that. The second half of our little stroll was much more interesting. We saw a herd of running mpala and waterbuck, we saw a bushpig, and some warthogs chasing a bird. We saw a baboon, which told us in his barking language to get-the-f-out-of-his-habitat.

But here’s my favorite: We were 700m away from the end of our walk and I was thinking, “so far, Robert and Nowa have been spotting all the animals. I outta pull my weight.” I look up and see three huge animals about 50m away from us running in the opposite direction. I’ve seen things like these before in India and think mildly outloud, “oh! Water buffalo.” Nowa looks up, freaks out, and (very competently) positions his rifle against his hip and shoots one shot into the air. Then he turns on his heels and very quickly leads us in the opposite direction. “Come on, fast,” he says. Then he changes his mind, “run.” The buffalo (turns out they were just regular buffalo, not water buffalo) are long gone and far away from us by now and we finally stop to catch our breaths. “I do not like buffalo. They are too too dangerous,” Nowa is shaking all over and struggles to release the empty shell from his gun. He explains that he would much rather be that close to elephants or lions than buffalo, who are territorial, aggressive, and apparently, very dangerous. Good to know!