Mvuu Camp Safari (July 8 & 9)

I have so many things to say about the past two days I just had. I don’t even know where to begin. We left early Wednesday morning to head out to Liwonde National Park where the Mvuu (means Hippo) Camp safari place was. We pulled up to a river (after driving on a terrible dirt road through tons of really neat villages) where we split up into two groups to get on boats for our river safari. The guides were really nice and they floated us down the river where we would be able to see hippo’s and other animals on the shore. It was the perfect way to start the trip. It was kind of cold and a little rainy but thankfully it cleared up just in time. At first we didn’t see much other than a crazy amount of birds and impala everywhere, but soon we found Hippos!! And a ton of hippos at that. They were all sooo adorable with only their eyes and ears sticking out of the water at first. Hippos stay with their families and theyre called hippo camps or hippo schools. The babies usually cant reach the bottom so when they’re under water they’re resting on their mom’s back. They’re very shy though so mostly you see the older hippos. We found a ton of them laying out in the sun and pretty much all of my pictures are of these hippos. The boat pulls right up next to them, I wanted to just reach out and touch them so badly but we couldn’t. It was incredible being able to see them in their natural environment, not in captivity. They’re so much more beautiful. Oh, and birds really do sit on them in real life. They just hang out on hippo’s backs like it’s no big deal. And the hippos don’t mind it at all.

So there are a ton of these birds that live in these palm trees at one part of the river and they are absolutely obnoxious. I don’t remember their name but there’s hundreds of them and theyre loud and they poop on everything. No exaggeration, we asked the guide why half of the trees and bushes and everything over there was white, the other half green, and he said the birds had “painted them”. If that’s not a sign of overpopulation then I don’t know what is. Anyway, tons of hippos and birds. But also big crocodiles. We saw them a lot swimming around us in the river, but also some massive ones out on land. It was so creepy. There were also a lot of impala, water buck, warthogs and guinea fowl that we saw running around on land behind the hippos and stuff. It was very cool. So after a two hour river safari we headed to where the lodge was for tea, coffee, and lunch! Which was free! I was starving and the lunch was so good. Oh but first, the lodge. It was all out in the open, extremely beautiful, overlooking the river. The animals here aren’t in captivity, they just roam wild, so apparently it was not uncommon when we saw a huge baboon walk across the grass in front of our lunch table. Amazing, and very frightening at first. Those things get way bigger than the little things I’m used to seeing around Annie’s. For lunch we had Macaroni Bolognaise, Vegetable lasagna, bread and tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives with feta cheese which was great because we normally can’t eat the vegetables.

After lunch we were able to go to our rooms. We were split up into four different groups, so both Rachels, Dr. Kelly, Jess and I were in room 8. Actually, not really room, but Chalet. They were these cute little hut/tent/cabin things that sat right on the river. The bottoms were stone, or wood, can’t remember, but the whole surrounding top wall area was just net, so it felt like we were really outside. It got extremely cold in there at night but the view was so beautiful. And you could hear the hippos all the time!! Dr. Kelly said in the middle of the night they usually come right up by the chalets and sleep. We had about an hour to check out our rooms, and everyone was so thrilled. It’s seriously like the perfect honeymoon spot. All the beds had wooden posts with white draped canopy thing around it, with flowers resting on our pillows and walls made of stone. It was very rustic but romantic, haha. The bathroom was all dark stone, with an open shower, and a beautiful sink, mirror, toilet, etc. I wish I was doing this more justice. So all of us were hanging out by the river hoping to spot some elephants or hippos, but all the monkeys came over and they even chased Beth, which was pretty hilarious. We found an elephant way in the distance laying in the water and with Carolyn and Kelsey’s nice cameras it made for some good pictures.

At 3 we had to be back in the main lodge area for the Afternoon safari. They served us more coffee and tea and this time pound cake which was of course delicious. We split into groups again but this time got onto these safari jeep things. It had 4 different rows of seating at different heights and it was completely open. No doors or windows, nothing except a roof, typical safari style. We paid extra to be taken into the enclosed rhino area, so that’s where we were headed first. This area is fenced in by an electric fence only because rhinos, zebras, buffalo and other animals that live in there are endangered, and they don’t want the elephants getting in and eating all of their food. Just driving to this area was really dry, with not much grass and tons of knocked down trees. Partly because of the dry season but also because elephants eat so much, and they push down trees to eat those as well. Mvuu has about 700 elephants on the property but only about 7 rhinos and a dozen zebras, so you can see why they wanted to keep them in an area to themselves.

The most amazing thing happened during the afternoon safari. All of us were told to keep a look out for animals so that George (our guide) could stop, get us closer and tell us about it. James thought he saw an elephant. George said it’s not common to find them in the rhino area but it was possible. This was about 10 minutes into our drive, so we backed up and started looking. We drove into this little area, and out of nowhere, there was a mother elephant with a baby. We were about 10 feet from this thing.. and it was gigantic.. and I was scared. It’s not at all like being at the zoo. African elephants are impossible to tame, the one’s everyone usually sees and the ones that people can ride are always Indian elephants, and those are smaller. This thing was huge and it was staring right at us. George told us to be really quiet. All of a sudden it started mock charging us! It would flap it’s ears, make noise, back up, run towards us and then suddenly stop. George said they usually do this to see what we will do, to see if we’re scared, they do this a lot if another animal, or something, is threatening to them. I think it was because there was a baby elephant close by. She did this a few times and it scared the crap out of me. Although it was incredible, I was convinced she would actually charge at the jeep, which was parked, and had nothing to protect us, especially me, beth and james, who were all sitting along the edge closest to the elephant. Our driver radioed the other jeep so the rest of the group could come and see it, but once they got there the elephant was leaving. It was by far the most amazing thing I’ve seen on this rip. My heart was pounding even like 15 minutes after we had drove on.
I could sit here and tell you about every animal we saw on the safari, but it would take me all night long. We did see a water buffalo, it was huge, very close to us and even crossed the road in front of us while we were driving. Dr. Liz said she had never once seen that in all the safari’s she’d come on here. It’s very endangered, so that was really cool to have seen, especially so close! George and Byson (the driver) got us so close to some of these animals it was amazing. We saw lots of impala and antelope, and some other cool horned thing I don’t remember the name of. Impala are everywhere though and we saw them most times of the day in most areas. The warthogs were so fun. They look just like Pumba! They’re very skiddish though so we never got terribly close to them because they always ran away. It was kind of disappointing because we never did see a rhino or a zebra and I really wanted to. But given the fact that there are sooo few of them, and the park is sooo big, it’s very rare that people get to see them. Dr. Kelly still hasn’t seen them. The jeeps typically drive around the perimeter of the enclosure and those animals are probably way on the inside where there aren’t many roads. It’s okay though because that one elephant charging at us was enough to satisfy my wild animal need for a good while.

Around 5:30 we were finishing up our afternoon safari and drove down to the river. Here we got off the jeeps and they gave us our drinks we had ordered after lunch. I had a beer, and we all got to watch our first African sunset! Well, our first one that set over the river and mountains, surrounded by Impala, warthogs, hippos, waterbucks and crocodiles. It reminded me so much of the Lion King. The sunset was such a deep red color, and there were animals all around us. I loved it. They provided blankets too because it gets so cold and night and especially on the jeep when the wind is always blowing. Once we finished up our drinks after the sun went down, we loaded back up and it was time for our night safari before dinner.


George had a huge flashlight that he shone while we drove to catch the eyes of the night animals. We eventually found an entire family of elephants, all different sizes, even a little tiny baby that George said was less than a year old. They were so cute, and much more calm than the charging elephant we found before. We couldn’t take pictures with flash because it makes them angry, so I tried my best to get them in the dark and they didn’t come out so great. It was such a cool thing to see though. We also found a mom and a baby hippo at one of the watering holes. They were cute too, but we had seen enough hippos. I was really hoping to see some hyenas but none really came out.

Dinner was incredible. They had it set up in a different area outside in a sandy area with a huge bonfire in the middle. It was our group plus a few others that were staying there. They served everyone tomato soup first and it was sooo good, and I hate tomato soup but I wanted more. There was traditional dancing and music around the fire as well, it was insane. I wish my camera hadn’t died because I would have gotten a nice video of it. For dinner there was chicken, beef, pork, goat, vegetables, cheese potatoes, bread, rice, vegetable kabobs and coleslaw. It was so good. We were all exhausted and we had to get up the next morning at 4:45 so everyone pretty much called it an early night.


Day 19
July 9

We got up and it was raining but they were still having the morning guided walk that started around 5:30 I think. This was so you could actually walk around on the park grounds and see different animals that would just be waking, etc. George led my group, and Lawrence was behind us with a gun, just in case. I learned a lot about different types of trees that they had which was really cool. The yellow river tree cures malaria if the branches are boiled in water. There is also wild jasmine and basil and lemon grass that grows out there, its so neat. I learned a lot about elephant crap which was gross but pretty interesting, same with impalas. We saw a ton of guinea fowl, impalas, warthogs and monkeys. Sadly, no elephants were walking around. I was really hoping to see more of them. The walk lasted about an hour and then we went back for breakfast. Of course, it was just as good as the other meals. Muffins, French toast, omelets, bacon, sausage, fruit, cereal, etc.

During breakfast we met Jillian. She is the executive director and founder of H.E.L.P (hope, education, love, protection) Malawi. It’s a non-profit organization that is pretty well known and that I had actually done research on during my senior research proposal. Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled that we actually got to meet her. She came up to our table because she noticed we were a bunch of Americans, and shes from New York. She told us about her school, Nanthomba, that is just across the river that she started under HELP Malawi. It provides schooling for mostly orphans and the children of the workers at Mvuu Camp and surrounding areas. Dr. Kelly agreed to let us stop there on the way home, and I was so excited. Jillian also has a medical clinic and maternity ward that focuses on trying to lower the maternal and infant mortality rates, which was what my entire paper was based on. I was so grateful she took the time to tell me all about it, and I got her contact information.

We left breakfast for another river safari and it was pretty much the same as the first one. The other boat saw two herds of elephants, and we didn’t see anything but a bunch of hippos and crocs so I was kinda upset. But it’s okay. So we got on the bus and headed towards the school and it was phenomenal. I feel bad saying it, but it was definitely my favorite school I’ve visited this entire trip. They are working on being able to sustain themselves as a school so that they no longer need support from donors and other foundations. It was kind of like a combination between a primary school and Freedom Gardens. The kids were so smart, and the staff was amazing. Matt gave us the tour. He is a graduate from University of Wisconsin – Madison and is the HELP Malawi International Project Coordinator. He studied International Relations and is planning on going back to the states next year to pursue a masters. I got his information too and he was so helpful. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’d love to get involved in. After visiting the school he took us to see the clinic, and it was well under construction. It’s coming along very nicely.

Once we headed home, we stopped at Liwonde, the authentic wood carving place. I bought a few things but it was pretty much like every other place we had been to. Finally, we were home, and so tired. I pretty much just showered, got ready for Friday’s lesson and went to bed. It was such a good past few days though. Much more than I ever expected it to be.