Located on the east of the Shire River, the Liwonde National Park is famous for its diverse species of birds and animals such as antelope, elephants, crocodiles and a huge population of hippos. I had an in depth experience thanks to the game drives and cruises of Mvuu Lodge.

Driving south about an hour and a half from Club Mak, I arrived at Hippo’s Lodge where I would join a group headed for Mvuu Lodge. A park ranger collected our entrance fees before we boarded the long motorized boat.

The hour ride to Mvuu was the equivalent to a safari cruise as we saw many hippos, elephants and crocodiles. These seemed like dangerous waters for a swim…

At Mvuu Lodge, we settled in and met our guide who introduced us to the park as we sipped on welcome drinks. Besides the beautiful lodge, meeting the fellow safari enthusiasts was interesting. There were doctors on humanitarian missions, tourists, and a couple living and working in Malawi.

After lunch we had our evening game drive.

Sunset Game Drive

We split up into two cars and drove around the camp. Though we didn’t go too far from the camp, we still saw waterbuck near the airstrip and a lone elephant foraging in the trees. The driver was not afraid to go off-roading and surpassed some deep bodies of water formed during the recent rain.

The safari concluded with snacks and local beer at a spectacular sunset viewpoint.

In the dark, on the way back we managed to spot a small owl and a bush baby that quickly scampered away. We also saw lots of hippos everywhere, roaming around the grassy areas of the camp.

As we are in the middle of a park with no fences, it is very dangerous to walk around at night when the aggressive hippos come up from the river in search of food.

After a convivial dinner we went back to our rooms and I had a bit of a restless night as I found that a family of warthogs made their home under my cabin. They woke me up several times with their terrorizing squeals, but I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Ah, what joys living in a natural environment!

Morning Game Walk

The next day after a quick coffee we started our walking safari. Our guide from yesterday and a national park guard with an M16 were leading the tour.

The walk was slow and focus on details of the environment such as types of flora and fauna. We saw a couple of antelope, water buck, warthogs, frog eggs, a massive hippo skull and some random bones, and plenty of bird species.

Game Cruise

After breakfast we went on a boat safari. This was going further upstream with the same group. It was interesting to see the park from the water, but the cruise was similar to the ferry to the lodge.

We saw elephants and again more hippos than I could count. They all seem to wonder what we were doing and occasionally one would disappear under water to challenge us. They move very slowly though as we found out that they actually walk underwater instead of swim like elephants do.

Packing up and checking out, we took our last ride back to the starting point and bid farewell to our safari companions.

On to Blantyre!