I would have been satisfied to spend the remainder of the day there, watching elephants at play, rolling in the mud, marveling at how none of them stepped on the week-old baby frolicking without a care among tree-trunk-size legs. Instead, after forty minutes and a reluctant sigh, I signaled to Patrick that we should continue on upriver.
That was where, not too far inland at a place where gunmetal gray boulders flanked a small winding tributary of the Chobe, we came upon the devouring.
Lions working a fresh carcass are relentless in their single-minded ferocity. Unlike the jovial elephants that we had just left behind, nothing about the big cats’ gritty activity smacked of playtime of any kind. For big cats, feeding is an ancient and bloody business that is pursued with deadly earnestness. A youngster attempting to force its way onto the corpse is liable to receive a punishing blow from a feeding male or mature female powerful enough to crush a human skull. The intimidating, bloodcurdling roars that periodically erupted from the heaving leonine mass contained none of the melancholy of the plaintive nocturnal bellowing my wife and I had heard at Tarangire.
When a lion looks up from a meal in progress, eyes wide, face and muzzle smeared from one side to the other with bright red blood and bits of torn flesh, it puts one in mind of something other than a child’s smiling stuffed toy ready for nighttime cuddling. A feeding lion’s appearance and attitude are as raw and intimidating as anything in nature.
Despite the gruesomeness of the scene, despite the ongoing carnage, I stared. You have no choice but to stare. It is impossible to turn away. A mass lion feed is exactly what one would see at a car accident if the rescue workers, instead of helping the injured victims, began to gnaw at their bodies.
“What are they eating?”
My voice had dropped to just above a whisper. It was an automatic, instinctive response to something sunk deep in my genes, a reaction to a more primeval time when keeping one’s voice down in the presence of large carnivores was a matter not of politeness or custom but of life and death.
Patrick eyed the grand guignol with a professional squint. Though he must have come across similar displays of blood and bodily destruction many times, his expression was solemn. Unlike my voice, his did not change.
“Young elephant. Maybe five years old.” Both hands resting on the top of the wheel, he sat up straighter in the driver’s seat as he strained for a better look. “I don’t think they killed it.”
What? “Then how did it die?”
“Probably anthrax. Lots of anthrax in the park. Lions here don’t have to hunt. They see a sick elephant, they just follow it until it falls over.”
I had read that the lions of Chobe were among the biggest in the world. Now I understood one reason why. There was no shortage of food here, nor did hunting take a toll on their body mass. Feasting on dead elephants, the local cats had grown enormous.
Spine-chilling snarls continued to reverberate in the air as the members of the pride battled for the best spots, swarming the lifeless lumpy corpse like oversize piglets overwhelming a freshly filled trough. Intently seeking the slightest gap, impatient juveniles and cubs circled the impenetrable congregation of feeding adults. Black-tufted tails protruding from the tawny mass thrashed back and forth like the petals of wind-whipped flowers. Still sporting the camouflaging dark blotches of adolescence, one impatient male youngster passed the time until it would be his turn to eat by chasing off the vultures that had begun to gather on the fringes of the feed. The King of the Beasts, I thought as I smiled at his antics, albeit one with a very small “k.”
I was unaware of how much time had passed until Patrick leaned toward me to murmur, “Enough?” I checked my watch and was surprised at the lateness of the hour. We had been watching the feeding lions from morning until well into midday. “What else would you like to see?”
I considered, then asked a question I often pose when traveling in the company of local people. “Where’s your favorite place, Patrick? Not the lodge’s—yours.”
“Ah.” His smile grew wide. “It’s a bit of a drive from here. We may get back late, and no vehicles are supposed to be out in the park after dark.”
I shrugged. “Blame me. Tell them the irritating American insisted, and you didn’t want to be impolite.”
He nodded, grinning, put the jeep in gear, and we continued westward upriver.
Coming upon the solitary lioness was an accident. Patrick had not been looking for her. Lolling on her stomach a few yards from the dirt track, head held high and paws stretched out in front of her, she was as elegant as a sphinx and nearly as motionless. She was lying on an open sandy patch with dense forest behind her and us and the river not far off to our left. For the first time since we had left the lodge, I was acutely conscious of the openness of the jeep, far more so than I had been among the elephants. Apprehensively, I searched the immediate surroundings, but to all intents and purposes she appeared to be alone.
Surprising me, Patrick cut the engine. This left me even more nervous, since engines take time to start. Relaxing in his seat, he put one foot up on the dash and leaned back. As far as I knew, there was no gun in the vehicle. Full-grown and magnificently muscled, the lioness barely acknowledged our presence. She was perhaps twenty feet away. The wonder and sheer magnificence of her proximity notwithstanding, I shamelessly found myself wishing that she had been taking her ease on the other side of the jeep—Patrick’s side. That way, if she turned suddenly irritable, or hungry . . .
I glanced back at my guide. He looked completely at ease. He knows these animals, I reminded myself. He lives among them, observes them daily, is knowledgeable about their habits, familiar with their moods, cognizant of their eccentricities. If he’s not worried, can I be less? I did note that, relaxed as he was, Patrick did not once take his eyes off the lioness. Unperturbed he might have been, but neither was he about to drift off to sleep.
I was very proud of myself for not saying anything. Perhaps he was waiting to see how I might react. If it was a test of some kind, I hope I passed. No doubt I’m overdramatizing the situation. Probably he just wanted me to have an experience I would remember.
On that account, he more than accomplished his goal.
“Is she sick?” On this occasion I felt no compunction about whispering. Once again, Patrick did not whisper, but he did keep his voice down for a change.
“I don’t think so. Sometimes they just like to be by themselves, I think.”
We watched her a while longer. I could have stayed there until night descended. She was so close, I could smell her. But while he was too polite to say so, I remembered Patrick’s admonition that all vehicles had to be back at the lodge by sundown. I said nothing, just nodded that it was OK for us to go. He nodded back and reached for the ignition. As he did so, the lioness yawned.
I had seen lions yawn before and have seen them yawn since, but never so emphatically or at such close quarters. Eyes squeezed shut, she held her mouth open for a long time, revealing enormous canines white as kitchen porcelain, a long and perversely kittenish tongue, and healthy black gums. Her jaws and teeth looked capable of crunching rock, not to mention mere flesh and bone. She did not deign to look in our direction as we drove off.
In my life, I have seen many people and many animals open their mouths wide, but that solitary leonine gape on the south shore of the Chobe remains to this day the most memorable yawn I have ever witnessed up close.
Patrick’s favorite spot turned out to be a place where the Chobe River bends lazily to the north before swinging southeast, narrowing afresh, picking up speed, and resuming its churning rush toward the Zambezi River and Mosi-oa-tunya, the Tswana words for “The-Smoke-That-Thunders” (better known but not better enunciated as Victoria Falls). Below Patrick’s bend, the water spreads out to give birth to numerous shallow sandbars that provide ideal habitat for wading birds and effortless haul-outs for basking crocodiles. Both were much in evidence when we arrived.
Parking as close to
the shifting, car-trapping sands as we dared, we climbed out of the jeep and walked down to the water’s edge. So shallow were the mirrorlike pools and shimmering capillaries of river that there was no place for a croc, much less an idling hippo, to hide. My knowledge of Botswanan ornithology being woefully defunct, I could only stare and marvel at the hundreds of shorebirds and other more infrequent avian visitors that flocked to the shallow plain to hunt and drink. Without having to ask, I immediately understood the reasons for my guide’s affection for the place.
Setting directly behind the Chobe and somewhere over Namibia, the sun was dusting the water with tincture of sulfur and cinnabar. Walking farther out onto the crocodile-visited sands than I was willing to risk, Patrick stood with his hands on his hips silently admiring this small, secret corner of his homeland. For long moments, he forgot about me, and I was pleased to see him privately enjoying what so few others had the opportunity to share. I stood in silence on a slightly higher sandbar, my gaze shifting from the gold-suffused water to the wealth of animal life that was wholly intent on its sunset activity.
On another bank just in front of us, a small herd of impala was inspecting a solitary croc. One at a time, they would approach, sniff the motionless reptile, then apprehensively dart back out of reach. I thought their actions reckless and ignorant. But the cold-blooded croc was far more interested in soaking up the last warming rays of the setting sun than in helping itself to a dim-witted hors d’oeuvre.
Several puku, or Chobe bushbuck, wandered out of the woods to drink, their movements as delicate and coordinated as those of a string quartet playing Mozart. Chobe National Park is the only place in the world to see them, and I was conscious of the privilege. Perhaps it was the overriding tranquillity of the locale, but the animals and birds acted as if we were not present. Had we arrived in a growling dinosaurian Unimog sporting twenty chattering tourists, I suspect the unperturbed wildlife would have acted differently.
As he rejoined me, it was evident that Patrick had thoroughly enjoyed the respite from a day of having to explain to wide-eyed visitors why hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa and that a water monitor is a spectacularly large lizard and not a gruff Afrikaner whose job it is to ensure the working of the lodge’s hydraulic systems.
He glanced speculatively at the descending sun. “We’re already late. We’ll get back after dark.”
I smiled. I had enjoyed every moment of the day, every second. “Like I told you, blame me. It’s all my fault.”
He nodded, smiling anew, as we climbed back into the jeep.
So used are most of us to city life that we have forgotten what real night is like. The all-encompassing darkness is accompanied by a multiplicity of sounds and noises that our ancestors made studious efforts to avoid. As we headed back toward the lodge, Patrick driving as fast as he dared along the dark dirt road, I could hear some of those primeval night noises even over the dogged grinding of the jeep’s engine.
I was not worried about getting lost. Patrick had been a guide in the park for some time and knew all the dirt tracks intimately. Besides, with a major river always on our immediate left, it would be difficult to lose the way. His only real concern, other than the prospect of receiving a mild chewing-out from his supervisor for returning a guest well after dark, was the always-present chance of encountering elephants.
We were fifteen minutes from the lodge when he hung a sharp left at an intersection and followed it with a startled oath. I was thrown forward by the impact but managed to catch myself before my upper body could slam into the jeep’s metal dash. My eyes fought to focus in the darkness.
In turning the corner, the jeep had not caught the couple in the twin beams of its headlights until it was too late. More than a little nonplussed, the female trotted hurriedly off to the right while her outraged mate nearly fell as he stumbled off in the opposite direction. I will never forget the look on that lion’s face, so closely did his confusion, uncertainty, distress, and annoyance mimic that of a human male surprised in the same circumstance. Plainly, he was at that moment torn between a desire to slink off into the bush with his tail and everything else slunk between his legs and one that would see him leaping for the jeep with an eye toward ripping both of us to shreds.
To this day, I am not sure who was the more startled by the inadvertent collision, but I do know who was the most disappointed.
Giving the pair no time to decide what to do next, Patrick floored the accelerator and the jeep leaped forward, careening down the dirt road. Looking back, I could see only faint signs of the couple we had so rudely interrupted in the midst of their business. In another moment, they had been swallowed up by the African night.
I looked at Patrick. He looked at me. Then, despite ourselves, we both began to laugh. The jokes lasted all the way back to the lodge. Partly because such an encounter could not avoid engendering a certain amount of humor and partly because had any number of things gone wrong at the critical moment (the jeep overturning in the brush, or stalling out, or the lions reacting more quickly and antagonistically to our interruption) what had turned out to be merely amusing could have become deadly serious.
Back at the lodge, the two of us examined the front of the jeep. The glass over the left front headlight was cracked, and there was a small dent in the metal. Nothing major. I wondered if the lodge’s insurance would cover it. Had the lions been humans, I have no doubt they would have filed suit. After bidding Patrick good night with a heartfelt “Ke a leboga or “thank you” (the only words I knew in Tswana), I retired to my room having acquired another bit of animal lore not generally to be found in the available handbooks.
Lions are especially aggressive at night, but if you happen to (literally) run into them when they are mating, I can say that their embarrassment seems equal to that of any human couple surprised under similar circumstances.
That’s one day in the African bush. Travel agents will tell you that in order to see animals and experience a place you have to spend days there, or weeks. I have to disagree. As with anything else in life, quality trumps quantity. If you really want to experience the herd, blend with the herd, you have to find a way to get away from your own herd. The species people on a package tour end up seeing and hearing more than any other are the other people on the same package tour.
On that one day in Botswana, I saw common animals and rare animals, cooperation in drinking and bathing and cooperation in feeding. Life ending and life beginning. The circle of life is not a neat, perfect circle, but one that’s cracked and distorted; frequently beautiful, sometimes ugly. But no matter what you’re fortunate enough to see, whether the Dante-esque bacchanalia of a recent kill or the placid birdsong-scored tranquillity of an African sunset, it sure beats sitting in an office—or watching the same thing on TV.
XII
AIR JAWS
South Africa, June 2002
THE SKY OVER WESTERN CAPE had opened, and it was pouring down rain enough to sink a galleon. Except my friend Ron and I were not at sea. It only felt that way. Having left Augrabies Falls National Park in the province of Northern Cape, we had been driving all day in hopes of reaching Cape Town before dark. Heralded by mountainous dark clouds rolling up from Antarctica that concealed much of the region from sight, we had been driving through torrential rain for nearly an hour.
While I struggled to negotiate the alien streets in the dark and the rain, Ron poured over the map of the city and the instructions we had been sent. Either the hotel we had been told to stay at was not where it was supposed to be, we had been given inadequate directions, or the rain had swept us halfway to Durban. Nearly overcome by darkness and fatigue, we were ready to credit any of these possibilities.
“This is crazy,” I finally muttered. “Forget the reservation. We know the boat leaves from Simon’s Town. Lets go there and find a room.”
Ron eyed me uncertainly. “Are you sure? You look pretty tired.”
“I’m not tired; I’m exhausted. But I ca
n find Simon’s Town.” As I was talking, I was trying to follow the highway signs. “We angle east around the main part of the city and then follow the roads south. If we reach the end of the continent, we’ve gone too far.”
We eventually did arrive in Simon’s Town, a quaint historical suburb of Cape Town that occupies part of a spaghettilike strip of land squeezed tightly between False Bay and the great hulking monolith that is Table Mountain. We also found, as we tried motel after motel, that there were no rooms to be had at the height of the storm. When we eventually did find a vacancy, it turned out to be nicer as well as more reasonably priced than any from which we had earlier been turned away. The fact that the South African Rand was about eleven to the U.S. dollar at that time boosted our spirits as well. Oblivious to hunger, the storm raging around us, and with poor prospects of seeing much of anything else that night, we collapsed gratefully onto our beds.
A cloud-streaked morning brought breakfast, conversation with the hotel’s amiable and informative owner, gorgeous views out over the harbor and the bay, and the ironic news that by sheer fortuitous coincidence the boat on which we were to go out that morning just happened to leave from the dock at the base of the hotel. If we had found and stayed at the hotel back in Cape Town where a room had been reserved for us, we would have had to get back in our car and drive clear across town in order to embark on the next part of our journey. Having crapped out all the previous night, we had at the last moment and wholly through good luck inadvertently rolled a winner.