Mvuu

For Antonio’s 30th birthday treat, and because we were feeling flush after getting our allowances, we treated ourselves to a night at Mvuu which is a camp in Liwonde National Park. It was brilliant - we packed ourselves into Baby Beast and set off for some real Africa… We had some time to spare before our activities so we went to see the amazing Baobab tree – its huge and very, very old and people shelter in it as they wait to go across the river. We then made our way back to Mvuu to find the tents and dump our stuff before our game drive…We were nearly trampled on the way though the camp though, not by a rogue elephant or hippo, but by 54 giggling school girls from Leeds in very short shorts and inappropriate footwear! We sighed with relief as they left on their game drive soon after and feeling awfully like our parents, we commented how nice it was to have peace and quiet!

Samuel, our guide, came to introduce himself and ask if we’d mind doing our river safari instead of game drive because his truck was broken – being the ever so adaptable and flexible VSOs that we are, we soon were out on the water, binoculars and cameras at the ready…It was so lovely, completely calming, there were trailing V shapes of birds going home to roost, hippos snorting and sending up little puffs of spray and waggling their ears as we cruised by and I was only half conscious of the enormous crocs that would have had my arm off had I lazily trailed my fingers in the water…

Just before sunset, Sam switched off the engine and we quietly floated about as we had our sundowner drinks – what could be more perfect?

Next morning, bright and early we piled into the safari truck and set off to hunt down some game…we saw lots of impalas, warthogs, beautiful sable and hartebeest antelopes, some kudu, duikers, mongooses (mongeese?), sadly no rhinos or elephants though. Lots of birds too, I used think they were boring as anything when we used to stop for them when I was a kid but in my old age and armed with my fantastic new binoculars I’ve become a bit of a twitcher!

I can’t wait to go back - I’m hoping they might need a permanent on-site nurse?