Termites, Elephant Poo and Curious Giraffes – My first Walking Safari in South Luangwa

However, as Moses explained, the animals in the park are all very relaxed and friendly to its visitors. During his ten years of Walking Safari experience Moses never had any hazardous situations where a scout has to make use of his weapon for protecting the guests.

Within the approximately two hours walking expedition I learned so much about South Luangwa’s wildlife and vegetation! Moses explained so many interesting facts and synergies of nature to us and I was really impressed how incredibly efficient and sustainable nature is.

Did you know that, for example termitecolonies can consist of a couple of million individuals and their nests can reach up to 20 metres? Termites, who are strict vegetarians (yes they really are!)live in very impressive cast systems together and do an extremely well-organized job! The queen (who can live up to around 30 years) and the king are responsible forreproduction; workers do most of the labour like foraging, feeding and nest maintenance and soldiers protect the colony from their enemies.

Another interesting and quite funny part was identifying footprints and droppings of different species and knowing exactly which animal was crossing our path before us. I now know for example how hippo poo and elephant poo differentiate from each other in shape and colour :D.

While walking through the bushwe didn’t only see antelopes and various kinds of beautiful birds, we also spotted elephants and three curious giraffes! We slowly approached them and it was such a good feeling being so close to them, but, still far away from being at eye level!

On the walking safari we were surrounded by nothing but pure & wild nature. No loud and disturbing sounds of the vehicle you usually have on game drives, only birds’ and crickets’ happy twittering surrounded us.

Differentiating from the ‘normal’ safari tours in cars you might not want to come too close to some wildlife species like lions, leopards or elephants. However, the big advantage of the Walking Safaris is, that you can look at the little things and details you would be never able to see while driving around in a safari Jeep. There is also much more time for giving explanations about wildlife species, their lives and habits and simply how amazing nature works.

I hope I will be able to join another Walking Safari in the next weeks and learn more about wildlife and hear some of Moses’ interesting stories!