Rob the Gob

As I first began to write this, a big bull Elephant wandered into our camp on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater and drank it’s bellyful of water from the tank that supposedly fed the kitchen. Slightly nervously we crowded around snapping pictures, hoping it didn’t kill us all in a fit of pique or some elephantine equivalent. Presently it rejoined its little group. There were two others, and so I abandoned writing this and went off to watch them. They tolerated our presence for a while until one couple got too close and one of them reared up, raised its trunk and prepared to charge. We fled – I fancy enough adrenaline was in my system so that if there is a record set for the 100m cross-country dishevelled dash, I gave it a fair go. Later that night came the incident with the bush pig, but all in good time…

I am in Africa, and not for the first time this week, part of me had be reminded by that elephant of what I really am – a fragile, little monkey with a disproportionately massive head and fewer natural defences than almost anything I can lay my eyes upon. I am now safely ensconced in a hotel, beer in hand, and have just gone toe-to-something-indescribable with a huge insect. Had I not been armed, I suspect it might have won.

I’d though that on Safari, save for a few close encounters, we’d largely be scanning the horizon with binoculars to patiently watch Africa’s most famous residents, but it wasn’t like that at all. The first few shots I took of distant elephants, barely five minutes after entering the park were essentially rendered pointless less than an hour later as they blocked the road in front of us, as unconcerned by our presence as a powerful six-tonne beast with no natural predators should be. Our week-long safari started in Tarangire National Park, and was no disappointment. This first day alone, the number of elephants we espied amongst the baobab trees must have numbered in the hundreds. The numerous pictures I took are only a tiny catalogue of the many things we encountered there, and there were lots of firsts for me – zebra, wildebeest, elephants, giraffe, ostrich, impala, to name just a few – but three moments really stick in my mind. Firstly when, surrounded by elephants, they started to signal to each other. Two breeding herds were getting a little close to each other, and the tremendous bass rumble and trumpeting that occurred was astonishing. The noise, up close, is felt as well as heard, as a shaking of the air in your chest, rather like the pumping from a bass speaker at an outdoor concert.

Secondly, the sighting of my first lion. Distantly, it lounged on a tree branch. Our driver, a charming, deep-voiced and very knowledgeable man, told us that such was rare in this park. It’s not that there aren’t very many lions, there are, but the grass is long, and so, like the things they hunt, you rarely see them regardless of how close you are.

Thirdly, as we dashed back through the park in our specially prepared Toyota Landcruiser (there are nearly as many of these as there are elephants around these parts), we turned a blind corner and nearly ran into a herd of elephants. A warning rumble and we were face to face with a large bull elephant, its trunk looped protectively over its bared tusks, prepared to charge should its warning message not be understood. It had turned with a speed that belied its size. Just for a moment I thought it might attack. Two tonnes of steel is nothing to one of these. Fortunately, it decided we had been told and turned away without turning us into a sculpture of meat and scrap metal (possibly entitled ‘know your place’).

Lake Manyara, a small, beautiful park with a central soda lake at the edge of the colossal wall of the rift valley (look that up if you don’t know what it is) awaited us the next day, home to a large colony of flamingos, baboons, monkeys, more elephants and huge, hideous Marabu storks (that also populated our campsite) that I found quite appealing in their horridness. Hippos, too. Actually, I saw a lot of hippos over the course of the next few days. I strongly dislike them – they are ugly and fat, like bloated, sunburnt American tourists with no dental plan. But they are not ugly in an honest, appealing way like warthogs or vultures, there’s just something rather revolting about them. And they’re nasty buggers too. And they smell really bad. And they swim and frolic in their own faeces. Anyway, such was the profusion and density of wildlife that we started to make a game of spotting things. Giraffe were the favourite of the day, and my girlfriend won that game by a huge margin. In the evening, I got talking to a South African man, who immediately engaged in a game of competitive tourism (not the card game that, I have to say, is coming along quite well, but the mundane, bragging variety). Of course, we’d come at the wrong time of year and were going to the wrong places, and could have done it so much better and cheaper a different way. He was a nice enough man really, but I couldn’t help but note that, for all his knowledge and expertise, he was also on safari in the same place at the same time I was. I prepared myself for the drive to the Serengeti the next day, and enjoyed the protection of the campsite – something that would be lacking from here on in.

This whole area is defined by the volcanism associated with the rift valley. Kilimanjaro is a volcano, Ngorongoro (which we would pass the following day) is a caldera. The Serengeti is a vast plain defined by the ash-fall that made its surface a concrete plain that trees find hard to penetrate, meaning that only grass and scrub-bushes can cling to its thin soil. This strange environment has enabled the weird species that inhabit it to proliferate and find their huge and numerous forms. It also allowed one type of specialised primate to develop, one that would come to dominate the entire planet. The hominids.

On the way to the Serengeti, we pass along the crater rim of Ngorongoro. It is covered in cloud, and we seem to climb forever through the mist, the temperature decreasing from ‘staggeringly hot’ to ‘quite cool’ in proportion to the altitude. Through forest we emerge into a landscape that increasingly reminds me of home – or the Yorkshire Moors at least. Our guide and cook shiver, but I’m beginning to feel more at home. We stop for a toilet break (rough roads – ‘the African Massage’, as my guide puts it – play merry havoc with full bladder), and I comment on this. ‘It’s just like home,’ I say, insightfully, ‘only we have fewer Zebra.’ In that strange way that people have of becoming very rapidly familiar with their surroundings, I confess that I’d ceased to take much notice of them. As we descend through the cloud cover, we catch first sight of the crater – it’s as if someone in the far future has decided to create a huge walled-in wildlife theme park on the Jurassic park model. I can’t see any of the animals, but a youth periodically spent in the tender care of David Attenborough’s documentaries has filled me with the capacity to recognise the environment for what it is. There will be more of it.

‘Quite cool’ rapidly turns back into ‘scorching’ as we approach the Serengeti. We take a much-needed lunch in Olduvai Gorge (or, as it is actually called ‘Oldupai’ Gorge – it is named for the fibrous plant that grows there, and the word was misheard as ‘Olduvai’ by a German who discovered a hominid skull there in the 1930’s). By this point, I am half man, half dust, and I attend a brief lecture and spend some time wondering around the museum that details the work of the Leakeys and their invaluable contribution to the knowledge of the origins of man. Look this up too if you don’t know about it. It will be time well spent, and it is a whopping great nail to bind down the coffin lid upon the mouldering corpse of creationism. There’s a sign that reads ‘welcome home’.

The Serengeti (properly pronounced ‘Seerengeti’, I’m reliably informed) is exactly as billed – apparently endless, plains rolling to the horizon, a vast and easily accessible photosynthesis cell. We have missed the vast herds of wildebeest, they have already migrated north. But along the Seronera river, life remains. The cats, highly territorial, never move, else they must fight for new territory, and it is better to be patient. Some prey does not migrate – too old, or simply disinclined (apparently this is less uncommon than you might think).

We spend the bulk of three days prowling around for wildlife, although the first and last days have something of a mad dash quality to them. In fact, such is the pace of the first day that I sleep like a tranquilised leopard the first night (I pick the leopard because I’d image they give them a big dose, as they are well known for violence, and they sleep a lot anyway), which is probably for the best, because our campsite is right in the middle of the Serengeti – not a fence to be seen anywhere. Wildlife of all kinds can just wander in as and when it feels like it. Midnight dashes for the toilet are something of a risk. We are told that we should check for the reflections of eyes in the dark. Small herbivores and monkeys are alright, as are jackals, but not hyenas, and big herbivores can be a bit grumpy. And, to quote, ‘Don’t go out if you think it’s any kind of cat, and if it’s an elephant, don’t go out, and don’t flash it’s eyes, as they have very poor eyesight and it might get confused and upset and wreck the whole camp’. We have a few nervous moments in the first night, but don’t see or hear much, perhaps due to being largely comatose.

Competitive tourist South African was right, we do see ‘a shitload of lions’. From cubs to lazy, magnificent males and the desperate charge of a huntress (she missed the warthog she chased). All the usual suspects were present – I have particular fondness for the various vultures we saw (they are one of the ‘five uglies’ – wildebeest, vultures, warthogs, Maribu storks and hyenas – I am a big fan of all). We also see six cheetah, five all at once (a chance, on the basis of the survival probabilities to near-adulthood of cheetah kittens according to the park authority figures, of sixteen-thousand-to-one that they were there at all, let alone that we saw them), and one on the final day that we were privileged enough to see hunt (due to a tip-off by a gooseberry giraffe that loomed over the field and stared at the cheetah, the gazelle it was after sauntered off). We also saw the elusive leopard up close (lazing in a tree). Our guide had only see one twice before, and then at a distance. And on the second day, I saw my long-lost crocodile.

Now let’s talk about hyenas. I quite like them from a distance. They romp about with their staggering gait like the hunchback inbred cousins of the animal kingdom, their preposterously powerful jaws making mincemeat of flesh and bone alike; mostly things that have been killed by something else, but also things that are too weak to defend themselves. You know, things that are easy to kill. Like the injured. Or the old. Or the young. You know, relatively defenceless things. Like small lions. Or me.

So, the second night comes around, and I’m excited from the day’s activities, and well-rested from the night before. So I don’t really feel all that sleepy. And, eventually, both of us are going to need a piss. And I can hear them, the hyenas. Their whooping cries are close, either side of the camp. We are also aware of some kind of large animal roaming the camp (turns out that a herd of buffalo wandered through, and had it just been them, I might not have been as terrified as I was…), and the sounds of the rest of the camp’s human residents diminishes to frightened whispers fairly rapidly. Myself and my girlfriend, bladders fit to explode, cower in our tent for a while. The sounds of the hyenas have briefly abated, and we nervously poke our heads out of the tent. Nothing is immediately evident to torchlight nor moonlight, and we dash to the toilet. There is an eerie quiet about, and something is wrong, but we tell ourselves we’re being paranoid. Non-the-less, some odd terror grips us on the mad dash back to the tent – interrupted by me tripping over a guy rope and colliding with a tent and the floor – is informed by something horrible on the edge of our senses. Though only a graze, I’m bleeding – tiny drops of liquid, but also, more frighteningly, scent. I feel like I am being watched, judged, and very quietly pursued. In the dark of the tent, our breathing is quick and shallow. We hear the whooping of the hyenas moments later, closer now, and think that must be it, and that, after all, we were being paranoid and foolish. Then I hear the growl.

It is low and deep, and phenomenally loud in that choking darkness, and horribly close; just a few feet from the tent. It was completely, definingly predatory. Whether it was hyena, leopard or lion I will probably never know, but it was there, and it was utterly terrifying. Sleep was no longer a possibility, but I have to say that I have rarely felt more desperately, vulnerably alive than I did that night.

We wandered once again into the dark for an early-morning game drive, all our movements nervous dashes between symbolically protected areas. To ward off the fear we made up a song, to the tune of ‘by the rivers of Babylon’:

By the Seronera river,

Where we laid down,

Yeah, we wept,

When we were eaten by lions.

Although I strongly suspect hyenas. We also heard their ‘laughing’ at a range too close to share their apparent amusement. There were several other verses to the song equally dripping with gallows humour. Our guide, normally pretty blasé about the wildlife, was also fairly spooked. He didn’t seem at all surprised by our tale, and it was a chill while in Landcruiser before our collective mood lifted. The cheetah helped.

We set out that evening for the Ngorongoro crater. By night the camp is so cold we must sleep in jumpers and hats. In the morning we descend into the glorious crater. Clouds have simply rolled in and sit, boiling at the mountainous limits of the crater, pouring through the forests that cling to the improbable slopes. A huge soda lake occupies the centre, bone-white. It is unearthly, vast, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. Huge herds of wildebeest and other herbivores roam the basin, stalked by packs of lions and the odd cheetah. We, however, are in pursuit of a rhino.

We scan the horizon for rhino, but it’s chilly and windy, and they tend to hide amidst the grass (as implausible as that sounds) in such weather. We watch wildebeest flee lions, and watch lions pad in slow pursuit, or laze the day away. The highlight of the day comes when we see a more successful group devour a zebra they’ve brought down. Though their blood-splattered faces rooting about in the corpse of another creature might seem grotesque to some, I found it rather beautiful. Alas, no rhino. We rescale the crater rim, however, thoroughly satisfied with our week, and I sit down to write my account. An elephant invades the camp, and we return to the beginning of this entry. Another visited again later, testing the foolhardiness of some drunken Americans, one of whose life was probably saved by the shouted warnings of a guide. And so we come to the bush pig.

I’m afraid that it’s another midnight piss-run story. Much of Africa’s life takes place after dark. After the elephant invasion, we’re pretty sure that there’s wildlife about. We can hear it moving about, but it’s unlikely to be anything particularly nasty at this altitude. My girlfriend nips out for a piss, and spots an aardvark and a few bush pigs raiding the bins (at the time we think they’re warthogs, but it turns out that, though physically very similar, they differ in habitat and habit). Some time later, it’s my turn, and I can hear them snuffling about the camp, searching for leftovers. I know they’re close. As I open the tent flap, I startle one right outside the tent. It hurtles across the camp. It’s big, and it has tusks, but seems suitably wary of me, so I nip off to perform the duties of necessity and return, chasing the big, plump, betusked shadow about the camp with my torch. Seemingly it follows me back.. I dose off, and the rest of this was related to me in the morning.

Evidently bored for a while with the pursuit of edible human detritus, the bush pig lays down. On the side of our tent – we have a large windbreaking flysheet that it seems to find amenable. In her half, conscious state, my girlfriend feels it’s warmth through the tent wall, and moves up against it to ease off the chill, dragging me with her so that she is warmed between two plump, hairy beasts. Happily we abide for a while, divided by canvass until the bush pig regains its enthusiasm for foraging and heads out of the lee of our tent. And so our journey, bar another jittery passage by Landcruiser came to a close. Our guide seemed amused by the bush pig story. Apparently they can be quite nasty.

From this bar we can see Kilimanjaro. It is suitably huge and imposing. I’m excited by the prospect of climbing it, but I am also fearful that I won’t make it. To try and fail would be a shame, but not to try at all would be shameful. I wish I was fitter, and that I didn’t drink so much. I wish I hadn’t injured my foot descending into an earthwork in Uganda for a piss a few weeks ago. I wish I wasn’t a smoker – I’ll need the lung capacity. I wish recent cooking hadn’t given me some weird bowel disorder. Again. If I get to the top, it will be a triumph of shear bloody-mindedness over the limits of my flesh. Here’s to that, and one of the most exciting weeks of my life. Cheers.