We were driving through Queen Elizabeth National Park when the herd appeared — massive, unhurried, watching us with the same curiosity we felt watching them. Buffalo are Big Five for a reason. You feel it when thirty pairs of eyes hold yours and nobody moves first. That evening at Aardvark Lodge in Ishasha, strange sounds carried through the darkness — heavy, rhythmic, close. At dawn, we found the source: a wild elephant, calm and enormous, standing behind the kitchen as though visiting a neighbour. Two days at that lodge, and the animals decided to meet us on their terms. In Uganda, the line between wilderness and human life is not a border. It is a quiet, mutual agreement.
