I’m starting to believe that breakfast is a big deal in the bush. The buffet at our new camp was much like the breakfast at the last with an assortment of fruits, pancake-like stuff, and my favorite, oatmeal/hot cereal. I’m a sucker for a stick-to-the-ribs kind of brekkie. The interesting part about being so close to the river is that it seems like everything wakes up a little earlier. You could hear the hippos and elephants, as well as storks and other creatures all beginning their day as we were starting ours.
We were again headed back out on a game drive that would take us out into the vast expanses of the flood plains of the park. It is still striking how hard and cracked the earth could be even though in just a few months it would be covered with a few feet of water. I’d really like to see what that looks like some time.
The game drives at this point were almost routine, by which I mean routinely incredible. We had come up with increasingly creative ways to split up the trucks among our group. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but we don’t all fit in (or is it on?) one vehicle, so we had to break up into two teams. One day it would be by age, another by side of the bed, and so on. And as far as other bits of routine-ness, I will try to focus on what is unique about any given drive in what I write.
One of the most ubiquitous features on the savannah, and even in much of the forested areas are the termite mounds. I won’t spend a lot of time on the ones that build small mounds but on the Macroterminea termites. These termites build enormous mounds. Not like a pitcher’s mound or even like a small construction dirt pile. No, we are talking house to small hill size with full-sized trees growing out of them. Some of the colonies are hundreds of years old. The kicker is that many, many creatures, including humans, use termites in some way. Humans and other animals eat them. Predators and prey use the elevated positions of the mounds as lookout positions for each other. Trees and other plants find that the soil and saliva composition of the mound itself is rich in nutrients and when birds and other herbivores “deposit” seeds on the mounds while they are looking out the seeds find the soil a great place to germinate and flourish. Last fun fact on termites; their total biomass weighs more than all of the herbivores. For more https://fascinatingafrica.com/species/termites/
From the very small to the enormous, let’s continue our fact-finding mission shall we? By the way, while we are doing this, imagine that you are driving across a lake-sized field of golden-yellow grass that varies from six inches to 3 feet high on dusty roads that snake through like boat wakes but are as hard as pavement. The lake is broken up by islands of trees and bordered by scrub and such. Frankly, it’s a little surreal. But let’s talk about elephants (“ellies”) for a moment. First, they are as big as they seem, second, they move extremely quietly. It’s shocking. Males have a more rounded, sloping forehead while a female will have a more blocky, squared-off forehead. The best way I can describe is to try to simulate it with your knuckles. Or Google it. That will work as well. Generally, the females will hang with the juveniles and the males will hang with each other until it’s breeding time. Incidentally, the breeding time is not a great time to be around the males. They tend to be a little ornery and aggressive. INSERT JOKE HERE. The gestation duration is 22 months, which, in my mind makes some sense just given the cubic volume of the creatures.
Our trip will take us back along the river and we will see something called a fish trap. This is basically a ten-foot-high fence built out of branches that looks like a comb with gaps wide enough to allow for water and small fish to pass but narrow enough to trap larger fish. Voila, a fish trap. There is something else to note here that I’m not sure that I mentioned earlier. The guides are pretty highly skilled drivers. We crossed over a fairly steep and deep ditch like it was nothing. They angled the trucks, dipped in, and dipped out. I probably could have continued to drink my coffee, if I still had it. I’ve seen drivers in the US have more difficulty negotiating a speed bump.
We were headed to a place called the Garden of Eden for our morning tea, which was a pretty lofty name for a place and one that sets a pretty high bar. It is a natural watering hole part of a river that seems to have the perfect profile for wildlife to come grab a drink and settle in for a moment. It did not disappoint. HIPPOS! There was a raft of them in the water and a young male on the shore who was doing his best to show us his teeth and explain why we needed to keep our distance. We had every plan to do so. Hippos have one baby at a time and I can tell you that to me, the baby hippos are the cutest babies in Southern Africa. I could list all of the animals that were here but it would take up a bit of the page so I will let the pictures do that. I’m really enjoying this tea business.
So, a couple of tips on the road. If Neddy asks if you “want to pick a flower behind the vehicle,” he is asking if you need to have a pee. If he says he is “checking for snakes,” he is having a pee. While you are behind the vehicle, you may notice a bucket filled with dried elephant dung hanging from the frame. This can be lighted and will keep the tse tse flies away. The flies come out in the evenings, predominantly, and due to the low temperatures we were experiencing, we hadn’t been bothered by them to this point, and really wouldn’t be for the whole trip. Our trip back took a slightly different path; it’s fascinating how changing the perspective just a little gives such a completely different view. We saw a few more warthogs on the return, doing their prayerful kneeling routine to eat. Their lower mandible is somewhat shorter than their maxilla, so they need to improve their angle of attack for food on the ground so they kneel. It’s pretty clever. And a little bit funny, as Elton John would say. We looked forward to our brunch and our afternoon period when we would have a choice.
Choice one: Fishing
Choice two: Chill
Choice three: Nature walk with Frazer
The Younger Four minus Maya decided that fishing might be for them. Perhaps it was the Call of the Hippo. Perhaps they didn’t want to walk. We will never know. The Experienced Ziacs thought that chilling might work for them. Put up the feet and enjoy the porch. I’m not sure that is what they did as I wasn’t there as the Gen 2 Ziacs plus Maya decided to take a walk.
One of our challenges was to look for the Big Five. The Big Five are the special animals of Southern Africa and are the lion, the leopard, the rhino, the buffalo, and the elephant. This was not the challenge of this particular walking outing. In fact, we were more focused on seeing the Small Five. The Small Five are the junior siblings of the Big Five and are the ant lion, the leopard tortoise, the rhinoceros beetle, the buffalo weaver, and the elephant shrew. We only saw the ant lion, but was pretty cool to watch. They make these little holes in the ground about three to four millimeters in diameter and wait for an ant or other small insect to walk by, slide a little into their conical trap, and then pounce. They inject an enzyme into their hapless prey and essentially turn them into a milkshake that they can suck out. No need for a Nutri-Bullet here. Liquid ant. It’s what’s for dinner. Or termites as well. Evidently one can fry them up with a little salt and they are good eatin.’
We wandered along looking at a few more plants and birds and just enjoying listening to Frazer speak. We also learned that along with the Big Five and the Small Five, there is also the Ugly Five. It’s got to be a bummer to be on that list but they say any press is good press. The Ugly Five are the warthog, the Marabou stork, the vulture, the wildebeest, and the hyena. Personally, I disagree with the warthog, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Also, we were instructed to note that turtle dove coo sounds like “work harder” in the morning and “drink lager” in the afternoon. Coincidence? I think not. We also got to play with the pod mahogany seed pods; they can be used to make key-ring holders and crayons! We also learned that male hippos use their feces to mark their territory. More on this later.
We reconvened at the camp. The Younger Four – M didn’t catch any fish but saw some hippos, I assumed that the Experienced Ziacs caught a nap, and the Gen 2 Z’s + M watched an ant lion catch, well, an ant. We reconfigured for our afternoon game drive with the CC Ziacs and Papa heading South with Neddy, and the Fairfield Z’s and Mimi heading to the North.
We saw lots of impala and som puku by the camp, a Lizzie’s Buzzard, and the warthog version of a “logadile.” I can’t recall if I referred to the logadile yet, but it’s when you get excited thinking you see a crocodile and well, it turns out to be a log. That said, the two vehicles rendezvoused at a bend in the river where the was a gorgeous sunset and an actual, enormous, crocodile peacefully dozing on a sandbar.
We returned to camp for a dinner of barbeque rump (I really do like saying that), eggplant parmesan, a squash and carrot dish, and roasted potatoes. The meals have been solid!
The campfire talks were becoming increasingly personal as we became increasingly comfortable with Dumi and all of the wonderful people we were meeting at each and every stop we made. There is something special about the people that work in the camps that is beyond it just being a hospitality job. I can’t put my finger on it exactly but I think it is akin to pride in their position and their work, but it’s something more than that. Maybe it will hit me as I continue to write, but it’s something special. Graceful.
I’m not sure but I suspect that it had something to do with some mild prodding from Emily, but somehow it came out that Dumi seems to like our group. In the notes, it says “Dumi admits we’re awesome.” I’m uncomfortable with such blatant hubris, but here we are. “Has there ever been a group like us?” “Nope,” says Dumi. We did have a great pop culture discussion with Dumi and Ignatius talking about television shows like “Good Times,” “The A-Team,” “Dallas,” “Knots’ Landing,” “Sanford and Son,” and “Knight Rider.” Movie interests included “Predator,” and “Commando,” (I’m sensing a theme) and a blasphemous disinterest in “Star Wars.” Intriguingly, Black Panther was a hit in Africa and not considered offensive. It would seem that sometimes, we in the United States are good at creating divides where they don’t exist. Also funny that we were bonding over 1980s television. Who knew?
Safari in the Crucible of Humanity 