I had a chance to personally investigate this principle during my own exploration of Kruger. Though my visit took place years after the aforementioned incident, for all I know one of the same hulking felines that had exhibited a prior interest in Chinese food could have been the same one that ended up testing my friend and me.
Africa is home to many great national parks, from Ivindo and Loango in Gabon, to Etosha in Namibia, to the glorious but little-visited Ruaha in southwestern Tanzania. Along with the Serengeti, perhaps the most famous is Kruger. Previously the size of Switzerland, through the inclusion of congruent parks on its Zimbabwean and Mozambiquean borders, Kruger has been greatly expanded. Now known as the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, it is possibly the best place in all of Africa to easily see a vast variety of wildlife in a comparatively natural habitat.
I say easily because Kruger’s immense size allows it to offer the visiting wildlife enthusiast a wide variety of inside-the-park accommodations. Good roads permit tourist buses to maintain regular sightseeing schedules. But if you really want to see Kruger, and spend some time listening to and observing wildlife as opposed to chattering primates from other countries, you need to get out on your own. Since for self-evident reasons setting out on a casual stroll through the park is absolutely forbidden (the rationale being one and the same with signs that say DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS), the best way to do this is to rent your own vehicle. While all visitors must be back in the numerous fenced camps by a specified early evening time, during the day you are free to drive where you will along the park’s many miles of roads and linger wherever you wish.
I was traveling with a friend, the late fantasy artist Ron Walotsky. Ron had never been anywhere outside the States save for a brief trip to Europe. Kruger was our first stop after driving east from Johannesburg, and every bird, shrub, and creature we encountered was apt to elicit an excited request from him to stop the car so he could take pictures. I cheerfully obliged, keen to reacquaint myself with the marvels of the African bush.
We began our visit by staying two nights at Skukusa Rest Camp, the largest and most highly developed of the facilities inside the park. I have mentioned that every visitor and vehicle has to be back inside their respective camp boundaries by a designated time. The same strictures apply to departure. No one is allowed out of the camp until five-thirty in the morning. Hoping to be first out, vehicles start lining up in the dark around a quarter to five. We were sixth in line.
Two roads lead out of Skukusa: one that heads due south, where nursing hyenas had earlier been spotted, and the other east. A couple of miles outside the camp gate, a turnoff leads to a crossing of the Sabi River and shortly thereafter, to another that crosses the Sand River. Seeing that everyone else was staying on the main tracks, we opted for the lesser-used twin-river crossing. As soon as we made the necessary northward turn, we lost sight of any other vehicle. There was no car ahead of us and none behind. Nurtured by proximity to the two rivers, trees and brush closed in around us. I was driving.
Ten minutes out of camp, with Ron avidly studying the map of the park and riding copilot, I saw something on the road ahead. Gradually, our car drew a little closer. The dappled early morning light falling through the trees revealed the hind end of an animal and a long tail switching back and forth. Despite my rising sense of excitement, I looked at it for a long time before I felt confident in saying what I was thinking. There was a reason for this: I had been skunked before.
On my first trip to Amazonian Peru, I wanted more than anything else to see an anaconda. Motoring up the Manú River, I thought I spotted one, and excitedly yelled out, “Anaconda, anaconda!” while gesturing vigorously in the slender shape’s direction. The boat driver quickly turned in the direction I was indicating, motoring slowly toward the left bank. It was soon apparent that my anaconda was nothing more than a twisted log bobbing against the riverbank. Thereafter, whenever we passed a suitably serpentine branch, either the guide or boatman would point and chortle loudly, “Anaconda!” It was a useful lesson. From then on, whenever and wherever I thought I had made an interesting animal “spot,” I waited until I was sure of my identification.
So despite my initial disbelief at what I was seeing, this time I was sure.
Not in deep bush, not hiding among riverfront trees, but pacing methodically up the road ahead of us was a black leopard.
Still sleepy from rising early to park in line at the Skukusa gate, I blurted out to Ron, “I think that’s a black leopard!” And then I just stared. Held the wheel and stared. Dimly, a voice at the back of my mind was screaming in a desperate attempt to get my attention. “Camera! Get the camera!”
Eventually, the notion drifted to the forefront of my stunned mind, and I finally began fumbling with my gear. By the time I had the battery mounted and the camera turned on, the leopard had cast a single contemptuous glance in our direction, turned sharply to its left, and disappeared into the undergrowth. We drew up alongside the place where it had entered the brush. There was no sign it had ever existed. One of the rarest sightings I have ever experienced, and I was late with the camera again. This is why professional photographers always have a camera loaded, ready, activated, and at hand, and battery conservation be damned. In my personal litany of missed shots, the black leopard of Kruger ranks right up there with the Kanha tiger looking down at me from atop the dry riverbank.
On our third night, we transferred our base of operations to Olifants Rest Camp. Located much deeper inside the park than Skukusa, Olifants is too far away to be reached by day-trippers. Perched atop a high bluff overlooking the Olifants River (where did you think Tolkien got the name?), the individual bomas (round cabins built in traditional local style) were charming and comfortable. We relaxed, Ron sketching the landscape with his portable artist’s watercolor set, and determined to pursue our routine of being up and about out as early as possible the next morning.
Retracing our route along Kruger’s main north-south road the following day, we encountered a quartet of trotting rhinos, a second (normal-hued) leopard, and the usual cornucopia of wildlife for which Kruger is justly famous. Parked before a small pond, we watched as zebras and giraffes arrived to drink their morning fill.
It was south of the Ngotso Weir waterhole that we were forced to slow when we unexpectedly found the road ahead blocked by half a dozen parked cars. None of them were tour buses or park vehicles. All were private transport like our own. Seeing that everyone was looking in the same direction, we turned our attention toward the source of all the interest. It didn’t take much searching to locate it.
A pride had made an impala kill close to the road and was tearing into the morning meal with typical predatory gusto. Deep-throated roars and domineering growls filled the air. One by one, too soon jaded by the sight or too locked into a predetermined travel schedule, the other vehicles moved off and continued on their way. Eventually, only ours and one other car were left.
A male lion attempted to approach the carcass, on which a pair of cubs was now feeding. Their mother drove him off with a furious charge, ferocious snarl, and flurry of flailing paws that set the male up on his hind legs and would have had any professional wildlife documentarian’s camera running full-out. I managed to record a little of the explosive action, albeit while having to shoot over Ron’s shoulder. When things settled down again, the other remaining car started up and came toward us. Stopping on my side, the driver rolled his window down halfway, nodded toward the front of our vehicle, and spoke with some concern in his voice.
“Say, did you know that your front left tire is completely flat?”
My mind still reeling from the image of charging female lion and towering male, I digested this information blankly. While commendably pithy, I’m afraid my polite response to our fellow traveler’s query fell somewhat short of memorable.
“Really?” I mumbled.
The man nodded, his expression somber. “Completely flat.”
I looked at Ron. Ron looked a
t me. I looked back at the helpful visitor in the other car. The nearest help was at Timbavati Camp, ten miles away. Our concerned fellow travelers were not going that direction. They were headed due south and had a schedule to keep. What to do?
“Listen,” I told him, “when you get to Satara, would you tell them that they’ve got a vehicle stuck up here?”
“Sure.” The man hesitated. “Are you going to be OK?”
I nodded, secure in knowledge I didn’t possess. “We’ve got plenty of water and food. We’ll be all right.”
The visitor and his friends drove off, heading south. I could only hope that they would be as good as their word to report our situation.
We did have ample water, and snacks. Something else we had in plenty, and what I had not considered when assuring the other visitors that we would be fine, was the heat. As the day wore on, the tropical sun rose steadily higher in the sky. The hours passed and our car’s interior periodically grew unbearably hot. I say periodically because from time to time we would fire up the engine so we could run the air-conditioning. Of course, as soon as we turned it off, it took about two minutes for the interior to become stifling all over again, whereupon we had the choice of opening the windows or suffocating.
Meanwhile, off in the tawny high grass to the right and just in front of us, the remaining lions were quietly polishing off the last of the impala carcass.
Maybe, I thought, the man had been hasty in his appraisal of our condition. He had spoken with an accent. Perhaps where he came from even a slightly flat tire counted as completely flat. Could he have been mistaken? Were we sitting there baking in the African sun for no good reason? There was just one problem with this encouraging possibility.
How to find out.
I turned to Ron. “Watch the lions.”
He looked back at me. “I am watching the lions.”
“No,” I corrected him, “I mean keep an eye on them. I’m going to check the tire.”
He stared. “O-o-o-o-h . . . k-a-a-a-y,” he said finally.
The road offered a certain amount of open space. At least, out on the pavement, nothing could sneak up on me. The remnants of the pride were a good thirty yards away and busily occupied. I tried to tell myself they would stay that way. Opening the door as quietly as I could, I gingerly put first one foot on the asphalt, then the other, careful to make no noise. Emerging from the car and straightening, my eyes were in constant motion as I tried to inspect the front end while simultaneously keeping watch on the tall grass on the other side of the vehicle. Needless to say, my inspection was a quick one.
Sliding as quickly as possible back into the car, I looked at Ron.
“Well?” he asked me.
“You never saw such a flat tire.”
“Then we’re still stuck.”
My reply was uncharitable. “Unless you want to get out and change the tire,” I said helpfully. “I’m sure there’s a spare and a jack in the back.”
He had turned back in the direction of the feeding pride. “Umm . . . no, I don’t think so.”
Another hour passed without any sign of an approaching vehicle, much less a tow truck or repair van. We were alone. The sun continued to rise. By my casual estimation, it was now at least 150 degrees outside the car and 200 or 300 within. The road in front of us stayed empty, as did the road behind us. How long would it take for our fellow travelers to reach Satara, inform someone in a position of responsibility of our predicament, have someone in authority authorize a tow truck or other service vehicle to start our way, and actually get here? Assuming any of that transpired, of course, and that the other travelers had not forgotten about us completely.
I pictured our erstwhile saviors sitting in the café at Satara discussing their day’s adventures and sipping cold drinks. I pictured the little streams of condensation running down the sides of their ice-cold bottles of beer or soda. I pictured . . .
Ron was suddenly sitting forward and gesturing excitedly. “The lion, the lion!”
What lion? I thought. Oh, he must mean the one that’s walking straight toward us. That lion.
Expressive of mane, mouth open, tongue lolling, and weighing between 400 and 500 pounds, the pride’s dominant male had come out of the grass and was ambling coolly across the road toward our stranded vehicle. I hastily recalled everything I had ever read about lions regarding people inside cars as being part of the car. I strove mightily to generate around myself a dense air of inedibility. I also remembered that my window was completely rolled down. Our rental had power windows.
I stared at the oncoming big cat the way one does at other awe-inspiring natural phenomena like tornados or tidal waves: momentarily too paralyzed by the overwhelming sight to move. Beside me, Ron was hissing tersely.
“Get the picture. Get the picture!”
That moved me to action. “Get the picture? The hell with the picture! You get the picture!” The lion was very close now. Much too close, approaching the front bumper on my side of the car. As I reached for the button to raise my window, I remembered that the engine was off. The window stayed down. Frantically, I began fumbling with the key in the ignition. I couldn’t find the position on the rented car’s steering column that would allow me to activate its accessories. I pushed the key hard over. The engine refused to start.
I began to panic. I was part of the car, I told myself. There was nothing to worry about. Unless this particular lion was unaware of that bit of information. Spread wide, his paw would be large enough to cover my entire face. Or remove it. I struggled with the key, trying to watch it and the lion at once. If I put too much pressure on the key and broke it, or jammed it in the ignition . . .
I looked again to my right. The lion’s mouth, which at the now greatly reduced distance between us was as big as the mouth of a trash can and just as commodious, had drawn parallel to the car’s radio antenna. Something inside the steering column clicked softly. Whirling, I jabbed a finger at the button mounted on the armrest. Much too slowly, the window started up. As it was rising, the lion, attracted either by the noise or by the movement inside the car, turned his head in my direction. His eyes passed over me and for just an instant, met mine. I froze. All he had to do was reach up, stick a paw inside the car, and fish out the paralyzed food trapped inside. Dropping his eyes, he turned back to the pavement in front of him and continued on without pausing next to the car. I was just another component of the peculiar unchewable object on wheels and therefore of no interest. Or maybe he was not interested because he had just eaten.
Since I was already sweating about as profusely as possible from the heat, I can’t say that I noticed much difference in the amount of perspiration trickling down my body. But it would have been interesting at that moment to have taken my pulse. Had the window remained wide open and the lion been disinclined to conform to standard lion practice, I would not be recalling the close confrontation now. I would have joined the unfortunate impala on the afternoon’s buffet. My breathing eased as I watched the big cat recede behind the car.
“Did you get the picture?” I finally asked Ron.
“Picture?” He looked at me sheepishly. “No, I was too busy watching.”
I stared at Ron for a long moment. My fingers may have twitched. Then I turned the key fully in the ignition. I’d had enough of baking in the sun and playing potentially fatal peekaboo with hungry apex predators.
Driving at a consistent speed of precisely three miles per hour, we eventually succeeded in limping into Timbavati. There, a curious mechanic contemplated our completely flat front tire, eyed me disapprovingly, and asked, “Why didn’t you just change it?”
I don’t remember my exact reply, but I do recall that I managed to respond in words of more than four letters.
* * *
Tanzania, August 1984
AS TANZANIA’S FIRST PRESIDENT, JULIUS Nyerere was admired by many, both inside Africa and out. Opinions regarding the rest of his government and many of his policies tended to be c
onsiderably less complimentary. Under the communist-socialist system he imposed, the usual inescapable afflictions of state-run commerce affected every aspect of Tanzanian society. Shortages of basics became even more commonplace than elsewhere in East Africa, industry stumbled along deprived of raw materials, and traditional African subsistence agriculture found itself subsumed into the familiar dreary people’s communes where no one is inspired to work one iota harder than they absolutely must to avoid the approbation of their fellows.
For years, a reader of mine named Bill Smythe had been imploring my wife and me to visit him and his wife, Sally, in Tanzania. Bill was a rodent control expert who had worked for various international aid programs everywhere from Fiji to Pakistan to Somalia and was, at that time, posted to Morogoro, a medium-size city about three hours’ drive inland from Tanzania’s capital of Dar es Salaam.
“Come on over,” he kept writing. “I’ll save up our gas ration coupons, and we’ll take a couple of drives around the country.”
This invitation finally being too tempting to ignore, JoAnn and I eventually found ourselves on a British Airways flight from London to Dar, with brief layovers in Cairo and Khartoum. As a harbinger of interesting developments to come, even these two brief stops proved themselves of interest.
Assigned to the forward section of the plane, we turned in our seats as in Cairo group after group of white-clad men and women boarded the aircraft. A number of the men sported ritual scars on their cheeks. Noting our curious stares, one of the crew proceeded to enlighten us.