Part VI: The Walk

I signed the sketchiest liability release form of my life, virtually absolving anyone and anything from blame for my death or injury. Even if that death or injury was due to being shot directly in the head by a guard (which it explicitly stated).  It wasn’t exactly your 20+ page skydiving contract though; it was a mere 2 pages.  The benefit of travelling alone is that you have no one to persuade you out of things.  I chuckled and signed.

Eight of us met and packed into a game vehicle, our baggage piled into a trailer, and off we were down a restricted dirt road, far away from any other camp or car and tourist.  We drove for two hours, west towards Mozambique.

In the late afternoon, our walking camp came into view.  Several small thatched huts sat above the banks of the narrow and winding Sweni river.  All of it circled by fence. 

Each hut had two beds and just enough room between them to walk.  I found that of the seven other people doing this wilderness trail (5 of them German) I was to be bunking with a Pastor from Saskatchewan – a quiet reserved man.

Below is the hut we shared.  Through the second set of doors was a small porch overlooking the Sweni river.  After lunch the Pastor and I would enjoy some whisky and watch finches building elaborate nests that looked and hung like water droplets over the river.

And every night we gathered around the fire after dinner, to talk and listen to stories.  The last of us to turn in always obligated to cover the fire before we left.

And then there was the boss, our guide, a strong and scarred man named Julius who carried his rifle like a baseball bat.  He is a man who knows his job better than most people know their own.  Any flower or grass, spider or bird, he knew them all, and not just their names, but how they worked their environment, how they were linked to the animals and plants around them. 

He told us calmly of these facts and links, but also of horror stories, of guides being jumped by lions, of missing limbs and the unfortunate ends of oblivious tourists.

For all I would see and do in Africa, this was the humble highlight of my trip.  When each morning, even before breakfast we would go for our first walk, starting before sunrise, when the groan moan of lions was still loud around and we all followed Julius’ rifle in silence.

It was this silence in the park, that looking back, I most treasured.  Silence was a safety precaution in the bush, but it did more than this.  It sheared off all the dull chit-chat and useless jabber that would normal accompany a walking line and distract one from what was around.  What is left is the other senses, and restricted of one they become more important, more aware, compensating for the missing link. 

Because of this, the best part of the trip required no pictures.  It was simply walking through Africa, almost alone with the open land and my thoughts.

We would stop periodically for questions and little treasures that Julius came across, such as this Golden Orb spider.  If you are looking at this picture on a normally sized display, the actual spider is just about the same exact size as the one on your screen.  This is the female and she builds an elaborate orb-shaped web to help trap prey.  Half a dozen males clung to the outskirts of her web.  They are all only a fraction of her size, most of them not larger than her head.  The males in this species have it tough.  Their only goal and function is to mate with her.  But this can only be accomplished quickly and while she’s not looking.  Often she is busy confining a new live prey in web when a male will make his move and dare to get close enough to mate with her.  Almost always she catches him just after they have mated and she wraps him up in web to save as food for later.

Nervous zebra, watching us.  Zebra are far more accustomed to vehicles than humans, therefore it was much easier to get my earlier zebra photos.  The next two photos show just how much these zebras kept their distance.  We weren’t able to get much closer without rousing their alarm.

Blurry Zebra seen over Julius’ bolt-action.

Later, on the evening of this second day, we went for a game drive far from the camp which eventually brought us back to one of the main roads.  We saw these two young zebra on the way.

And then more lions.  This affectionate male could not use one of his hind legs and limped his way around the females, licking both of them on the backs of their necks.

Naturally, I took this photo above with a telephoto lens, however, in reality, this lion was not any more than six or seven feet away from me.  I sat in the raised game truck and leaned far over the edge.  Several people were interested in the chances of a lion coming up to the truck and taking a swipe at us with a paw.   Julius said that with the car, they won’t try it, but if someone were to put one foot on the ground, there’d almost certainly be very serious consequences.  The three photos below were taken with a normal zoom and give you a better idea of how close, or far these cats were.

Julius recounted, reluctantly a couple horror stories involving the cats.  A friend of his down south had been jumped by a cat and now has extensive nerve damage all throughout his hands and arms.  Perhaps the most incredible story I heard, however, came from a couple of English tourists that I had spoken to on the second game drive I went on when I first spotted lions.  They recounted a certain park outside of Johannesburg called ‘Lion Park’.  Once every two weeks, a live cow is chained to a stake in Lion Park and fed to the lions.  This English couple had gone to see one of the feedings, along with many other people.  Now, while this feeding was happening, they witnessed something truly horrific and stupid –

Pardon this self-interjection:  On youtube, you can find a wonderful video about a baby lion cub that was nursed back to life by two gentlemen and then released back into the wild.  The video centers on the reuniting of the lion (now fully grown and living in the wild and king of a pride) and his rescuers.  The video is very touching.  The fully grown lion runs up to them, rears to his hind legs and bear hugs the two gentlemen, clearly remembering who they are and feeling a great deal of affection.  It is quite an incredible thing to see.  But, to go back to the story I just interrupted… it’s fair to say that nothing of this sort happened.

This English couple watched  in horror as a Chinese couple got out of their car to get closer for better pictures.  Naturally, the lions attacked and mauled them to death.  And here’s a pretty African sunset.