Description

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” –Mark Jenkins

Friday 23 November 2018

A simple safari vehicle swap....


I had arrived mid-morning for the last stint of the season at our Fig Tree bush camp, hosting 3 elderly Roman Catholic sisters, missionaries from the USA, who were staying for 2 nights in our tree tents. One of the ladies walks with a stick so we knew it was going to be a challenging couple of days… getting in and out of a game viewer is tricky enough for the fully-mobile, let alone climbing up and down treehouse steps 3 or 4 times a day.

Anyway, they set off on their first sunset game drive around 430pm and shortly before sunset we got a radio call from David, their guide, saying they were at the hippo pool and the vehicle was pumping smoke from under the bonnet, could I go with the second vehicle to swap cars. No problem I said, I wasn't entirely sure which pool he meant as there are several in the area and all are imaginatively referred to as hippo pools, so I set off for the closest and found no-one. I was now on the wrong side of the water, so when I found them at the next pool, I had to take a short journey around the pool to reach them. Their vehicle was no longer smoking, but we switched anyway in case it was something serious. I set off back for camp, leaving them to enjoy their sundowners. I hadn't got more than a mile when I found myself half way up the far side of Savannah crossing with what felt like a snapped accelerator cable. The last place I wanted to be stuck was back down in the bottom of the gully, so, with no handbrake, I stuck it in gear and switched off the engine. The vehicle held half way up the steep side, the roof was almost level with the top of the gully, but sadly not high enough to be seen by any passing vehicle.

The replacement vehicle I had swapped with David had no radio in it, so there was precious little I could do except run back across the gully and see if I could catch his attention across the grassland - so I jumped from the vehicle, quickly flashed my torch up and down the river bed for Leopards, and ran… in my haste to leave camp, I had only brought my flip flops, which broke on the rocks after the first two steps, leaving me bare foot clambering up the far side of the gully - but it was all to no avail; David had already set off using a different road. Bugger.  I called the camp, and waited for David to return with the guests and receive the news that it was his turn to rescue me.

It was getting dark fast, the Tsetse's were swapping shifts with the mosquitoes and the nightjars were starting their evensong. Despite the slightly serious situation I was in, I was treated to a spectacular lightening show both in front and behind which lit up the gully and surrounding trees.  The puku started an alarm whistle in front of me and I swung the torch back and forth a couple more times, desperate not to waste the battery, but keen to see what they might be concerned about. I could only run the engine and vehicle lights if I held the foot brake down at the same time and since I was not entirely sure how long they would take to find me I didn't want to risk it unless absolutely necessary.

Not sure how much time passed, but there came the sound of a distant vehicle behind me and I turned to see lights bouncing in all directions through the trees… it could only be David heading back to camp with the guests. I thanked the gods that he'd chosen this direction to return. I turned my torch on once more so that he could see me and my stranded vehicle now blocking his way through the crossing and climbed out into the darkness to meet him on the other side.
After some fiddling around with the cable under the accelerator pedal I was off again and gingerly picked my way back to camp, stopping only to watch a genet foraging by the roadside and listen to the lions roaring in the woodland. Where else in the world could a near disaster end in pure Magic?