Safari So Good

You're sitting in an open air Land Rover moving slowly along a wild looking plain.  The morning breeze is cooling, nicely offsetting the growing humidity.  As you lazily gaze around the local scene, you smile thinking it reminds you a bit of something out of Jurassic Park: primeval, promising things out of the ordinary, filling with feelings of anticipation.  Out to the horizon is a suggestion of hills and the beginnings of many miles of sand dunes that hug the coast.  The Indian Ocean lies just beyond.

Just as you're settling in to  this relaxing vibe, you spot some activity up ahead.  There's a group of female lions grouped together.  As you draw closer, the lions pay you no mind because they are so focused on tearing apart the body of a wildebeest they have recently killed.  The meal is being shared by the mother, her not quite fully grown young ones and their Aunt (so we are told).  Your guide slows the Rover and creeps to within a few feet of the ongoing feast.  Now that you are so amazingly close, you can smell the wildebeest meat and hear the lions tearing pieces of it away.  Their subdued growls are oddly similar to those you might hear from a group of Harley Davidsons at a low throttle.  You realize you're holding your breath.

But wait.  As crazily engrossing as this scene is, drama is about to increase.  Approaching on the right is a herd of water buffalo, large beasts not to be trifled with.  The lions look up and carefully watch the approaching horde.  The buffalo slow their pace and stare at the lions.  They are now just a few yards away from the lions and you are sitting in the front row almost uncomfortably a part of what appears to be looming combat.  The younger lions break away from  their meal, and their more sensible adults, and face the buffalo.  Heads lowered, tails slowly and menacingly wagging, they seem interested in exercising their still evolving machismo.  A tense stare down begins.

Welcome to the safari experience here at the And Beyond Phinda Game Park.  Located about a three hour drive northeast of Durban, it provides the epitome of the South African bush environment with terrain that varies from the densest of woodlands to hills that allow fantastic overviews of the game reserve to  seemingly endless miles of open plains that oftentimes provide the stage for the hunt and kill by the large beasts here.

We have a cottage here with a nice front porch that sometimes provides all manner of passing animals and weird but amusing animal and bird cries.  In the bedroom the large windows allow for staring contests with baboons who are sometimes mere inches from you.  We are advised to keep our door firmly hooked since otherwise the baboons pose a real threat to ransack your place looking for food.  To walk to the common area our path is sometimes blocked by large nyalas who lift their heads and stare as if to  ask, "who the hell are you?"  We are under strict orders not to leave our cottages after dark since all of the animals here have access to where we sleep.  This is also a place where everybody knows your name from the guide and tracker to the managers and wait staff.  They've got us labeled it seems almost immediately while we're still struggling to remember just some of their names.  This adds such a pleasing boost to  the already significant hospitality we receive and the warm welcoming feeling we get every day.

(Speaking of names, it is clear we are dealing with an art form, or better yet, a culture that is rich in imagination and daring.  There are no Bobs or Bills, no Anns or Nancys.  Oh no,  no.  Here in Phinda and elsewhere in our travels nearby, the locals' names pop with adventure and emotion.  We meet Wonder, Lucky, Happiness, December (born on Christmas day), Justice and our favorite, Shamiso Sibanda which translates to Amazing Lion.  Appellation-wise, we Americans are so hopelessly boring and simple minded, aren't we?)

Our guide is an amazing fellow named Matt.  He's only 27 but he has the encyclopedic knowledge and game world experience of a David Attenborough or a Jane Goodall.  Or maybe Tarzan.  The guy knows everything and shares it with us in a vibrant, upbeat and humor-filled way.  We receive wonderfully endless tutorials on the animal realm from the idiosyncrasies of the dung beetle to the mating habits of the bull elephant and the hierarchical  geography of everything in between.  From time to time as we are ambling through the bush, Matt pulls our open air Land Rover off the path to show us a leaf, sometimes a lethally poisonous one, other times a most beautifully fragrant one.  He teaches us the tell tale smells that can tip off the presence of a hidden animal.  This can include the popcorn "fragrance" of leopard urine or the nutty urine profile of the genet.

Accompanying Matt is Muzi, our Zulu tracker.  Muzi sits in a seat mounted just above the left headlight binoculars in hand (or floodlight at night).  This guy, too, is amazing.  He spots animals magically in an almost zen way.  While he has a devilish sense of humor and a most infectious laugh, Muzi is at heart a very calm person.  From his perch he ever so subtly signals to Matt turns we should make into the dense bush as we continually track the animals here.  And tracking is what this is all about.  Matt and  Muzi might just as well be lions themselves in a constant hunt for prey.  For the lions, of course, tracking is a matter of survival.  But for Matt and Muzi it is a game of passion that they play with a wonderful combination of intensity, grit and glee.  The art of the pursuit relies on so many clues.  Sometimes it's the tracks of the animals and the direction they lead.  Are they so fresh that they make an imprint above the latest Land Rover tracks?  How fresh are the animal droppings we see along the way?  Not just smell, but color can be probative as well.  Urine smells can take us left or right such as the popcorn-filled air of the leopard.  And, of course, the noises coming from the bush are clues that must be minded.  This is not a case of "Where's Waldo."  There's just too much knowledge and awareness being exercised for successful trackings to be considered random or lucky.  I asked Matt if he could foresee a day when chips might be imbedded in animals so that GPS could assure the accuracy of animal pursuits.  He shook his head slowly and said, no, he hopes that day never arrives. And, I soon enough realized why.  It would rob the exercise of its clue-pursuing, puzzle solving element that is at the heart of animal tracking.  The passion would be gone.

Over the next few days our twice daily game rides would allow us close-up viewings of lions, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, baboons, zebras, wildebeests, and a host of birds whose names I will likely never recall.  Matt's tutorials would continue.  Seemingly, with each animal sighting we would learn the proper titling of the groups of each type.  We all know of a herd of cows or a pride of lions.  But, did you know we refer to a "parliament" of owls, or a "dazzle" of zebras, a "coalition" of cheetahs, a "murder" of crows, or an "implausibility" of wildebeests?  No, I didn't know either.

On our last day in Phinda, the day would start dramatically enough with our closing in on two male lions who had eluded us until then.  We were headed in one direction when Muzi casually pointed to the right.  As was often the case, when Muzi pointed one way or another, Matt would chime in with, "let's give it a bash."  Or, as others might say, let's give it a try.  And soon enough, there they were.  Although lions are often referred to as the king of beasts,  they are not that.  The elephant reigns supreme.  No creature of sound mind takes on one of those dudes.  But,  there is an unquestionable majesty to the male lion with his massive size, his almost deadly calm demeanor, and, of course,  that incredible mane that might just as well be a crown.  Once again, we pulled to within about four feet of this guy.  I challenge anyone to say that their minds don't do cartwheels when a lion is that close to you and his head turns so he can stare at you squarely with those calm, or perhaps menacing, eyes.  It is wonderful to think about in the aftermath, but not so much in the moment it's happening.

But, later came the coup de grace.  Once again, Muzi spotted a few female lions off in the distance.  It was clear from their slowed, measured pace and laser-like stares they were tracking something.  Because we were a distance away, Matt got the Rover into high gear and tore through the bush to get closer.  The path was incredibly bumpy as we skirted large rocks and mini-excavations done by aardvarks which surely would have cost us an axle had we landed in one.  We would learn later that this rough ride is often referred to as an African massage.

As we got closer, we could see, amazingly, that one of the adults whisked away the young ones off to a place far from the path of the warthog we now saw.  Matt advised us this was an important move because the young ones, if left to their own devices, would reveal the lions' intentions in a fit of youthful exuberance and thereby tip off the unsuspecting warthog.  The remaining two lions separated, laying out a masterful plan to ensnare the warthog as they closed in on him.

The unevenness of the terrain plus our distance from the looming drama deprived us of being eyewitnesses to the kill.  But, the kill did indeed occur.  As we came over a slight rise, there was the lioness standing calmly with her jaws firmly draped around the warthog's neck.  The warthog was still alive judging from its screeching voice and madly scrambling but airborne legs.  Darkly fascinating but hard to watch as well.  But,  there we were telephoto lenses stretched to the max, binoculars providing more detail than one might want.  One of the lionesses veered off to bring back the young ones who had dutifully remained on the sidelines.

Our time in Phinda was up leaving us with memories that will be etched into us for the rest of our lives.  The immediacy of it all, the vivid reality of it and, yes, the savagery of it are not elements that typically dot our lives.  And, to share it all with Lily, Maggie, Jesse and Laura just heightened its meaning.  If you have not had this experience, I implore you to embrace it.  Get it on your bucket list.  Or, as Matt might say, give it a bash!