The
lake itself was beyond belief. One solitary hippo grazed on shore,
surrounded by thousands of brilliant flamingos, a splotch of gray in a
sea of pink. At the slightest sound, those awkward looking birds,
perched on pogo stick legs, suddenly rose up as a group, spreading their
white, red and pink feathered wings and swooped off for distant shores.
“But where are all the rhinos, elephants and wildebeest?” I wondered
aloud, hooked on the adrenaline of discovery. Not wanting to waste
a precious moment, we combined lunchtime pilchards and hippos. John
drove us to an immense, jade pool inhabited by ten giants. At first,
just their beady eyes and flared nostrils protruded from the murky pond.
Then they’d submerge, resurfacing a minute later. Snorting against
the water, they’d toss back overstuffed heads with wide, toothy yawns.
As
we sat enjoying those legendary, tutu-ed stars of Disney’s film Fantasia,
I was reminded of a story we’d heard in Zaire.
A traveler found a lake deep in the
steamy jungle. It was a warm day and he was dusty and tired from his travels.
So, he decided to take a dip. What he didn’t realize was that hippos also
inhabited that lake. He soon discovered his mistake after he was chomped
on the backside. The bite was so severe that he had to be airlifted to
the nearest hospital that could handle such a catastrophe – and that was
in Uganda. Of course, there was a lot of red tape to get clearance to land
because of their civil war. All in all, he was lucky to make it out alive,
as they’ve been known to bite a human in half.
Sometimes remaining dirty means remaining
alive.
That afternoon was even more remarkable.
After leaving the hippo pool, we discovered a herd of nearly eighty wildebeest
by the lakeshore. As we stood on the banks, completely entranced by their
rutting ritual, each male defended his harem of at least ten females. They
trotted around in circles, kicking with wild abandon, locking horns, leaping
into the air and performing a helter-skelter dance.
Rolling
farther down the road, we practically ran over yet another pride of lions.
By the time the Volvo slid to a stop, we were just fifteen feet from ten
full-grown adults: five males with great, shaggy manes and five golden
females. They growled as we approached, but didn’t attempt to move or attack.
The three males kept gnawing the
bloody remains of an antelope that lay pinned beneath paws the size of
baseball mitts. With crimson - stained muzzles, they took turns ripping
and tearing the flesh from its soft belly. Their companions, however, never
took their eyes off us.
We cautiously drove past, trusting
our car wouldn’t pick that exact moment to get mired in the wet grass.
Then, circling back around the lake, we spotted two shadows off on our
right, nearly hidden from view.
“John, take us nearer! Over there,
quick.”
He shook his head and refused. “I
be fined if de ranger see me.”
“But what about the other car over
there?” The rest of our group was already looking at something. Reluctantly,
John inched us a little closer, either afraid of getting ticketed or stuck
in the spongy lakefront.
Soon,
those shadows ninety feet to our right developed into a pair of the most
magnificent creatures we’d ever seen – black rhinos. There were less
than seven hundred remaining in the world, due to man’s reckless poaching.
They were so close that with binoculars I could look right into their heavy
eyes. Understandably, hearing our cacophonous car with the fumes flaming
out the back, they became nervous. So, we only had a brief moment before
they stormed off.
"Come on John, let’s follow ’em,”
Bear urged.
Hesitant, we set-off along the far
edge of the lake toward their watering hole. Fording a small trickle of
a stream that we could easily have walked across, our car hit a hole. Bald
tires spun and we jarred to a stop. “Oh, no,” we sighed in unison. We’d
thought we’d left that routine behind. John rocked the car back and tried
again to make it past the hole and up the three-foot embankment on the
other side.
Our wheels spun and black smoke poured
into the mud, as we only dug deeper. We were stuck fast. A constant stream
of water began seeping in through our doors. Then, to make matters worse,
our engine cut off. It wouldn’t restart. Defeated, we hopped out and suspiciously
eyed the thick surrounding brush. Our other car had disappeared long ago.
Of course, cell phones were an unheard of luxury.
And here we are, deep in lion country.
Within ten nervous minutes, we were
joined by a quartet of other four-wheelers whose drivers hopped out of
their cabs and then stood around eating, as though this was all a regular
occurrence, their afternoon tea break.
Is anyone going to do anything to
get us out?
Eventually, John borrowed a battery
from one of the other cars, and with endless cranking restarted his beast.
After a whole lot of concerted rocking and rolling, pushing and teeth gnashing,
Bear, Clara, Cheryl and I rolled the car free. It had taken almost an hour.
We immediately started our ascent
back up the crater wall to arrive in camp before sunset, because there
were no headlights on the heap either. As we shimmied and shook our way
up the trail, there were real doubts whether we’d make it out of the crater
at all. It was touch and go, as we wheezed between first and third, and
third and first gear for miles, all the way to the top. That heap slid
from side to side, skidding perilously near the edge and deep ravine far
below. Ready to slide over the edge, I flashed back on the wise threat
that my friend Pascal had yelled to an incredibly bad taxi driver in India
years before, and I screamed at John, “Dead men don’t leave tips!” above
the engine’s roar.
The following are Brandon's previous
articles for the magazine:
The
lake itself was beyond belief. One solitary hippo grazed on shore,
surrounded by thousands of brilliant flamingos, a splotch of gray in a
sea of pink. At the slightest sound, those awkward looking birds,
perched on pogo stick legs, suddenly rose up as a group, spreading their
white, red and pink feathered wings and swooped off for distant shores.
“But where are all the rhinos, elephants and wildebeest?” I wondered
aloud, hooked on the adrenaline of discovery. Not wanting to waste
a precious moment, we combined lunchtime pilchards and hippos. John
drove us to an immense, jade pool inhabited by ten giants. At first,
just their beady eyes and flared nostrils protruded from the murky pond.
Then they’d submerge, resurfacing a minute later. Snorting against
the water, they’d toss back overstuffed heads with wide, toothy yawns.
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