Loud leopard, mucky mud and a baby boomslang

The night is pitch black and the temperatures pretty darn cold (one morning the weather station we travel with announces 35 degrees!). I open my eyes and see absolutely nothing! I rotate under the weight of several blankets and snuggle up to Paul, who is my own personal heater (my inability to regulate my temperature due to a thyroid issue makes me not well suited for temperatures that swing 50 degrees in a day). Over the evening I hear several creatures just outside our tent. The snap of a branch as lone bull elephant has an evening snack nearby. The whooping dysmelodic call of a hyena, in its singsong way. The honk-wheeze of a hippo in a nearby lagoon, sounding like he’s laughing at an inside joke.  It’s hard to remember the first days of camping in Africa (back in 2007) when I didn’t know who made what noises.

 

For the first couple of nights at our campsite in Savute National Park we hear a leopard making the rounds near our tent. He’s close, but not too close. The call of a leopard is hard to describe. They travel solo and will make a call as they go, identifying their presence (and territory) which approximates rapidly sawing wood with a big handheld saw. It’s an in and out sound that seems to make noise on the inhale and exhale. On our final night, he comes in for a closer inspection. Stealthily he approaches the tent in utter silence. How he manages to get through the carpet of leaves and brush without a rustle of a leaf is beyond me. Just inches from our heads he shouts his call. We freeze! Not a move. All that is separating us is a layer of canvas. We. Don’t. Breathe. For what seems like several minutes. The silence is deafening. We know he is right next to our tent, but we hear nothing. In the morning we find spoor (footprints) practically on the corner stake of the tent. The next time we hear him call, he’s left our immediate vicinity as if he has evaporated and reappeared farther away.

 

Leopard Spoor

Leopard Spoor Right Near the Tent

One of the things Paul struggles most with in the States is the predictability. While some find this comforting, he finds it boring, unchallenging, unstimulating. Being in the bush, you never know what you might encounter on any given day. It might be large herds of giraffe browsing the leaves of tall trees. Or a family of elephants crossing the road – moms, aunts, and a range of young ones. It could be a pride of nine lions up under a shepherd’s tree taking a nap. Their stomachs look empty. They eye our smelly diesel vehicle with curiosity.

 

Some days are more challenging than others. Our task for the week out is to survey the campsites for mobile safaris of HATAB – the Hotel and Tourism Association of Botswana, to see what condition they are in after over a year of pandemic non-use and to check the driving conditions and road accessibility in light of the heavy rainy season. We confirm, for example, the conditions of the bridges in Moremi Game Reserve. First Bridge is passable, Second Bridge you must go around because it needs repair, Third Bridge is completely broken to pieces by rushing waters, and Fourth Bridge we make it across (twice) but some logs are in need of replacing. These bridges are critical to getting around the park. With Third Bridge out, for example, we must backtrack several hours on bumpy sand “roads” to get from one major part of the part to another.

 

Third Bridge

Third Bridge

Third Bridge

Fourth Bridge

Getting around Second Bridge proves particularly challenging (in both directions – we get stuck coming and going!). We make it across several water crossings fairly easily, wheel hubs locked, 4x4 engaged, we splash our way through arriving safely on the other side. But the diversion around Second Bridge is another story. Imagine driving up to a large expanse of mud and water. Several tracks of previous vehicles are evident but it is impossible to know which one to select. If we go to the right, we risk getting stuck in some rather deep mud. If we go left, things look a little better but there is one section of water with no way of determining how deep it goes or what lies beneath the black water. Sometimes Paul will get out of the vehicle and ‘walk the water' to see how high it is and if he sinks but this time there is too much mud  between us and the water to make that trek. So we choose blindly...and badly. We go left and head for the water hoping it’s a quick trip through. We’re grinding our way through the mud and into the water when the nose of the vehicle suddenly submerges and we slam to a stop. Paul is shifting gears, doing his best to see if we can back out of or go farther into and through the water but we are stuck. I mean properly stuck! Water starts to pour in at our feet. The slight tip of the vehicle means Paul’s side of the vehicle is sinking faster than mine. He’s now ankle deep and rising. We spring into action.

 

While I start lifting anything of value up to the dashboard - cell phones, camera, binoculars and grab the mechanism for the winch from the center metal box between us… Paul wiggles his way out from under the steering wheeling and out the window in to the ever-rising black water. I offer to grab his sandals and suggest he take off his pants and shoes so as not to destroy them but he’s out the window before I can get the sentence out. Winch control cable in hand, thigh deep in water, he connects the controls to the winch passes it back to me and grabs the cable from the winch at the front of the vehicle. My job is to push the OUT button while he pulls the cable to the closest small acacia scrub and ties it around. These acacia scrubs are tough. They’ve provided us with winching assistance before and while a betting man would likely put their money on our rather large safari vehicle guessing it would win in a battle of tug of war with an acacia scrub, they would be wrong. Cable secured around the scrub, Paul slogs his way back through mud and water, back through the vehicle window to try to proceed with winching. Equipped with a snorkel, the whole time the vehicle is running and sounding more and more like a submarine. Glug, glug, glug and it struggles to push air out of the exhaust instead of sucking air in, at which point we’d be in big trouble.

 

Successfully back behind the steering wheel, Paul begins to try to give her gas and steer us while I now press the IN button on the winch control and we are slowly dragged out of the muddy water filled hole we’ve been stuck in, by the sheer strength of the steel cable and a rather tenacious little acacia shrub. When we finally reach dry land and open the doors, water pours out the front cabin area. We let out a little laugh and a sigh of relief. We haven’t said more than two words to each other since we sunk short of, IN or OUT.

 

On the way back through the same area on the return trip, we obviously avoid the water filled pitfall but manage to get ourselves properly stuck in mud (no water) by slipping off one mud track sideways into another created by a larger vehicle. So large it left a hole deeper than our tires and we get stuck on the middle underneath the vehicle like a stranded turtle. Properly stuck. Our wheels spin with no success at movement backwards or forward. Paul leaps out again, this time, unfortunately, there’s no small acacia shrub to save us. Our best hope is to dig with the spade strapped to our roof rack for just such an occasion and jack the vehicle up and try to get logs under the wheels for some traction. Paul begins to jack and dig and I start looking for logs/branches. There’s one nearby (we are obviously not the first person stuck here!) and then I go looking for others. There’s a small tree off in the distance, maybe there’s some downed branches. I start walking. Some movement off in the distance catches my eye. I’ve forgotten my binoculars and call back to Paul who is closer to his to take a look. He grabs them, focuses, “A pack of wild dogs!”, he shouts. I am NOT going all the way out to that tree. Ultimately, we are rescued by a self-drive tourist in a rental vehicle that we attach our winch to and drag ourselves out of the mud using them as the anchor. We advise them which way to drive through, as we are now experts on what NOT to do.

Most our time in the bush is not so eventful. We inspect campsites. Check out road conditions. Find beautiful spots for sundowners. On our last afternoon, with all our “work” done, I set up a hammock between two trees since the heat of the day makes lying down in the tent too unbearably hot. After swinging in the breeze and listening to the birds for a while, I’m packing up the hammock when something catches my attention down near the base of the tree I've just detached my hammock from. I look again and don't see anything. Stepping a little closer, I look again and notice what looks like a moving stick but is actually a snake eating a chameleon. One red dot of blood is visible on the half-consumed body of the poor chameleon while the snake’s unhinged jaw struggles to get the rest of him down. When he’s finished he elegantly makes his way up into the tree. Despite the fact that we know he’s there, we loose sight of him several times because he is camouflaged so well to look like a branch. His cover is blown only by his large emerald green eye. 

We’re not sure what kind he is. When we lose him in the tree top, we consult the app on Paul’s phone but have no luck with identification until we get home and I start looking in our library of books. We conclude that he is a young boomslang. While normally bright green as adults, the juveniles are olive/grey with a bright green eye that changes to black as an adult. He’s hemotoxic and deadly. Really glad he didn’t join me in my hammock!

Giant Eagle Owl

 

 

 

Mindful in the Botswana Bush

 

While many people took up new hobbies during the pandemic, making bread or knitting, I decided to cultivate my mindfulness and practice meditation. It started with a daily 10-minute meditation with the Calm app and evolved into an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course over the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year holidays that met weekly for 2.5 hours, required daily hour-long meditations and culminated in a full day silent guided retreat. While it doesn’t sound that difficult to do a 45-minute body scan, just laying/sitting and “doing nothing” can be tricky. My mind is busy. I think about the past and plan for the future and just being here now can be a real challenge.

 

But on a recent Sunday trip into Moremi Game Reserve, it dawned on me that when we go to the bush we are routinely mindful. We are obviously intentionally looking for animals while driving and Moremi did not disappoint. While it was difficult to navigate the road network, because of the high rains many of the main “roads” (and by that I mean dirt tracks) are flooded, we made our way and saw many animals – zebras, elephants, giraffe, etc.

 

But mindfulness is more than just seeing, it is hearing the sounds of the birds and the wind in the trees as we find a quiet spot to have our lunch.

 

It is feeling the temperature changes over the course of a winter day that starts in the 40s and ends in the 80s, peeling off layers of clothing as the day progresses and adding them back on as evening falls.

 

It’s the full body nature of driving in the bush, feet used for clutch, gas pedal and brakes, arms for navigating your way around bushes and forcing the Land Cruiser into 4x4 when we hit heavy sand. It’s the full body experience of bumping down a calcrete road that has not been maintained due to a lack of tourists (every few months they normally drive a grader down the road to smooth out the corrugation but it seems like it hasn’t been done in a VERY long time). There so much jostling and bumping that my Fitbit insisted I did ~27,000+ steps that day despite the fact that I rarely left the passenger seat.

 

It’s the smells I wish I could replicate – the cat pee smelling wild sage, the sweet smell of elephant dung…

 

We can sit quietly for a very long time and watch ellies (what we call elephants) drinking and enjoying a mud bath. We listen to the sloshing and slurping as they make their way through the flood plain.

 

In addition to large things, like elephants and giraffes, we appreciate the small things like a baby sand grouse the size of a silly putty egg.

 

On the way back to Maun we see a stranded vehicle on the side of the road. The rattling roads have worn a hole in a pipe to the radiator and they cannot start their vehicle. We offer to tow the vehicle, guide and two Swiss tourists to the buffalo fence (a fence that divides the wildlife from the cattle). Here Paul performs his best “MacGyver” act and temporarily repairs the pipe using some glue, a thorn from a tree, an abandoned toilet paper roll and some duct tape. We follow them to make sure they arrive at their destination in one piece.

 

The last sighting of the day before the sun sets is a pack of wild dogs emerging from the bushes just off the side of the road. We are especially grateful for this sighting because we know that if we had just continued home without helping the stranded travelers, we would have never seen them. Thanks for that bonus sighting universe, it was much appreciated. It’s always good to be mindful, and grateful, in the bush.

 The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

---- Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

PS: I love to read your comments but please be sure to sign your name so I know who the comment is from. Thanks for sharing this journey with me.

 

A long-awaited return, just in the nick of time.

The trip back was less cumbersome than we feared it might be. The information (and misinformation) overload BEFORE we traveled was very stressful and difficult to navigate. We called Embassies, airlines, airports, etc. trying to get clarification and searching for certainty. For example, the Saturday before we flew, we got an email from KLM saying we needed 3 tests to transit through Amsterdam, the first of which had to be FIVE days BEFORE travel (we were at four days before travel when the email arrived). 

In the end, we had THREE PCR tests. One free at the Department of Health in Greenville, SC on Sunday (to make sure it was back in time to board the plane on Tuesday - a challenge was that no one would guarantee a less than 24-hour turnaround time on the PCR test, most stated a 24-48 hour window). We had a second one at a private lab in Greenville, SC ($185 for two tests) on Monday morning at 8 AM (while they would not guarantee a turnaround of less than 24-48 hours, we had heard their turnaround time was quick and had the first appointment of the day). This one had a date, time, lab, result and was in color (we also had a friend notarize it for good measure but I'm not sure that was necessary).  

We flew on Tuesday, May 11 (Greenville to Atlanta to Amsterdam to Johannesburg) - a LONG two days but the plane from Amsterdam was ~20% full so we both got to lie down to sleep for a few hours. It was physically tough to be in a mask for ~30 hours and mentally tough to think about getting back onto another 11-hour flight after getting off a 9-hour one. Ugh! We arrived around 9:30 PM on Tuesday night and overnighted in Johannesburg (we always stay at the Aviator Hotel and we needed to call for the shuttle to come get us because it was not running as it typically does every 30 minutes). On Thursday, we boarded our SAA Airlink flight to Maun (using the now outdated Sunday free PCR test just to see if they would accept it, and they did - the check-in desk clerk even counted to 3 on her fingers, despite the fact we were on day 4, go figure). 

 

Maun was another story. When we got off the plane, we were escorted to an area outside the newly renovated airport and seated in an area where staff took our (very long and completed) health forms and collected our Monday PCR test. While we didn't try to use the one from Sunday, she did look at it thoroughly, so I think the date/time mattered here. We were then ushered to our THIRD and final PCR rapid test where a man, whom I hoped had been properly trained, administered the most painful PCR test to date going WAY too far up my nose until I shouted in pain (which made him stop, my advice...shout sooner!). From here we were moved to another outside, yet not socially distanced, holding area to wait for the results. When our number was called, we were allowed to proceed to passport control/customs with our negative results. All told, that process was ~45 minutes.  

We completed more forms in advance of flying than needed. We filled out one online form for the Atlanta airport in case we needed a rapid test there for Amsterdam. There was an additional health screening before boarding to Amsterdam (maybe they check the online form then??). We also filled out a health from for Amsterdam, but they didn't ask for it at their screening. We submitted an online form for South Africa but then filled out the same paper form on the plane and handed it to officials (thinking it would take longer to look it up online). 

So, the long and the short of it is, it took longer but went smoothly. And it was just in the nick of time. On May 17 the Botswana government announced that the Indian variant has been detected in country and therefore they issued NEW mandatory quarantine for people traveling from high risk areas. That’s right, had we waited four days longer, we would have been quarantined in a government designated facility at our cost for 10 days (or at least that’s what the government document seems to suggest, who knows for sure). 

Fortunately, we have been happily reunited with Spike (the “dog that’s not our dog”) and Lee (the stray that showed up a few years back and now lives here, so is probably “our dog”). Our days begin with the sounds of African birds – grey lorries, mourning doves, horn bills, all beckoning us from outside to start our day. We enjoy our coffee alongside the ostriches which come for breakfast just on the other side of the fence. We’ve been doing twice daily walks around the farm with the dogs on a ~1.5-mile loop kept clear by Joe, the Zimbabwean farm manager who watched over our property in our absence. On these walks we often see impala in bachelor herds (all male groups) or a harem (one male with all his “lady friends”}. We make our way down to the river which is currently full of rain water. Apparently, the flood that comes down from Angola is expected to be small (typically fills the dry river bed in June). Our days are filled with cleaning and organizing our house that has been largely abandoned for the last 14 months. We are grateful to the village of Paul’s friends that have been checking in on things and making sure termites don’t eat the house entirely in our absence.

It is quiet. Few planes fly overhead because few tourists are coming to lodges in the Okavango Delta. The drying leaves on the trees rustle as winter approaches. Occasionally I hear boat traffic on the river. There aren’t as many ringing bells on the necks of cows and donkeys. Did they end up someone’s dinner in the pandemic when resources got tight? A full grown, rather scrawny looking tree squirrel (compared to American grey squirrels), jumps from a tree to our metal roof and scampers into the attic space where I think he and his extended family now live.  A fish eagle calls, a sound that always reminds me of Africa. I catch a glimpse of a gecko sneaking behind a framed picture on the wall out of the corner of my eye. My husband’s soul smiles. It is good to be back after such a long-awaited return, just in the nick of time.