Cranky, unpredictable and easily enraged. And so are the buffalo.
‘Half a world away and a different year we’re walking after Cape buffalo. And walking and walking. Down in the swampy grasslands and reed beds, up into the lofty sandveld forests, the msassa seed pods bursting like gunshots as you walk through cathedrals of shadow. Its winter in Zimbabwe, with the grasses dried to tawny gold, the great elephant tracks laid in summer’s mud now dried hard in the mopane country.
At first glance the land is tough, spare, baked and thorny. Stand still and the truth will emerge, quietly and softly, from the shadows. A young bushbuck, delicate and tremulous, ears swivelling and walking as though the ground is hot bricks. A blur of brilliant emerald from a pair of parakeets. Crawling through the long grass there’s a tiny quail bursting from cover. It’s all there if you have the patience to look beyond the sunsets and zebras. And so are the buffalo…’
from Hunting Life – Moments of Truth
Peter P. Ryan www.faraway.co