In Zambia, that is...
August, 2006
A walking safari had sounded like high adventure when we had planned this trip months prior. The thought of brushing past the fragrant mopani, sitting around a campfire at night in the manner of Isak Dinesen, and hearing the night sounds of the bush unfiltered by the safety of a safari lodge had made me yearn for this experience to begin.
But the night before we were to set off for "fly camping", second thoughts were skittering through my mind. The Aussie couple that would be joining us on the trek looked fit, hardy and as if they’d brook no laggards in their midst. They had been running up sand dunes in the Australian dessert in training whereas I had reluctantly been taking a daily stroll for the two weeks before we left home as preparation.
Safari camps are notoriously upbeat and fun places. Everyone is amazed and thrilled with all that is new to them. Stories of sightings, each better than the next, stoke the excitement. This night,however, I couldn't get caught up it the excitement. I was tired from a long travel day and we needed to leave camp at 6am the next morning to cover the most ground in the coolest part of the day. That meant getting up at 5am. I was anxious and doubted my ability to get a good night’s sleep.
My nervousness lingered through dinner as I listened to tales of walking safaris past. Finally, the snorting songs of the hippos in the river below broke through the din of human voices and the night wonders of the African bush overtook my doubts. The desire to get closer to the land and the animals I have come to love won out – I’d be fine, I told myself. Or, I wouldn’t – and wouldn’t that be a story!
The morning dawned cool and we started from camp at a brisk pace. The terrain was much rougher than I anticipated – the ground here was marred by deep fissures in the mud from the prior season's rains now dried to cement like hardness. Elephants were frequent travelers through the area and their footprints had formed mini-craters to traverse.
If I followed in the ellie footsteps, I would have a relatively flat surface on which to walk. However, I needed long, uneven strides to step from ellie footprint to footprint. It reminded me of running through automobile tires on a fitness obstacle course.
Shorter strides took me between the ellie footsteps however, the fissures, narrow though they appeared from the surface, were treacherous to the ankles unless taken “just right.”
Disregarding the terrain and just barreling forward was like being on a Stairmaster with a bad drive train – you were up and down, sometimes on flat ground, but sometimes arms akimbo to keep your balance.
I alternated between approaches, on purpose, I told myself but actually, every method taxed you differently and I could only keep up each method for so long. Each time the words, “
What were you thinking?” crossed my mind, and I thought I couldn’t take another step, some wonder would appear and we would stop in awe.
Our first encounter was with hippos who were quite as surprised as I to be so close.
A steep bank gave us a memorable view and kept us safe from these creatures that garner great respect in the bush.
We stopped for small creatures, too. Just as beautiful and intricate as the big five… this dragonfly and jeweled beetle amused us for a while.
From a jeep, you sometimes miss the little details although this hardly looked small to me at the time...
Many of the animals have become habituated to jeeps. That isn’t to say they don’t respond to the jeep – they do. Some animals are skittish and take off at the sound of the motor. Others, like lions, seem oblivious to these large metal objects barreling through the bush. But whatever the reaction, it is a response to the jeep as an object. The animals don't seem to register the fact that six people -- other animals -- may be contained in the metal box that has chosen to invade their territory.
On foot, you are just another animal. And the animals seemed to show as much wonder and curiosity about us as we did about them.
Waterbuck
Puku
Giraffes have seemed to me very skittish around jeeps and would never wander near the camps where I have stayed. I was delighted with their inquisitiveness when we stopped for a short break near where they were grazing.
Did I mention being treed by a hippo?
Hippos leave the cool waters of the river at night to forage for the vast amounts of vegetation they need to sustain themselves. They were usually back in the river by the time we made our way out of camp in the morning so you can imagine our surprise (and that is an understatement) when we saw this fellow roaming about. He was obviously late returning from the party, a bit confused by the bright sun and generally appeared a bit surly.
We were between him and the river. I was beginning to figure out why the web site said, in describing the fitness level necessary for this trip, “Must be able to run at least 30 meters fast.” Well, I had lied and I was wondering if now was the time to tell Deb, our guide, about my shortcoming although somehow, I think she knew. I kept waiting for her to shout, “Run for it!”
I was weighing the alternatives. Should I try to run, knowing it wouldn’t be fast and it might not be 30 meters? Should I try to explain that I hadn’t run since my kids reached the point that they could outrun me and, if so, how did I do that while everyone else was running and in as few words as possible? Or, should I roll up in a ball and throw myself on the mercy of this hippo? I seem to remember the roll up in a ball trick from being coached on what to do if I ran into a bear while hiking and he hadn’t been frightened away by my bear bell.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to make that decision because our evasion plan called for climbing a tree rather than running. You are asking, at this moment, how I can climb a tree if I can’t run 30 meters. Ha! I was asking myself the same question.
Thus began my great affection for African termites and the huge mounds they build, abandon and which become elevated planters for trees that otherwise might be trampled by elephants. The mounds give shelter to small burrowing animals and the trees offer respite from the sun to impala and other antelope. These mounds can reach surprising heights but as we made our way to the tree about to become our salvation, I could see myself scrambling up its termite mound base much more easily than scaling its trunk.
None too soon we were huddled together at the top of the mound hugging the trunk and low hanging limbs of the tree making its home atop this ancient termite structure.
The hippo clearly spotted us but lost some element of danger when he hid behind his own tree!
Elephants
I have been physically closer to elephants than while walking through the Southern Luangwa Park.
In jeeps, elephants tend to ignore you... You can be relatively close and they know you are there. Sometimes they show some displeasure, sometimes they let you know how insignificant they think you are by their demeanor.
When they have wandered into the camps in which I have stayed, to sleep or to feed, they seem to just tolerate humans. You have invaded their territory but they know there is nothing to be done about it but they’ll be damned if they’ll let you get in the way of their favorite stand of mopani trees.
In Zambia, I felt closer – more significant. Here, I was uninvited in their territory and not part of a metal box that rendered me part of the background. Here, I was another animal – a potential threat, an uncertainty.
There are more Zambia stories to come, like, "Why it is important to know the difference between a centipede and a millipede." (Can you guess that it has something to do with its proximity to you?) and "How quickly I forget my fears...."
K-
