But, will you be chased, tusked, horned, bitten, or even scared?

BY PROFESSOR JEFFREY FADIMAN, M.A., PH.D., DIP.ED (BRITISH)

“If a rhino charges, you will each run behind a tree,” the ranger ordered. “If the tree  is bent, you bend. If it is small, kneel. The rhino must think you are part of the tree.”

Why did I suddenly feel huge, fat and slow? No way did I think any rhino would take me for a tree. The ranger was in South Africa’s Umfolozi National Park, created to protect the endangered rhinos of Zululand. I was one of six edgy tourists, preparing to walk with the Umfolozi rhino. To protect us, we had one ranger, one Zulu game guard, two rifles for emergencies, one radio for real emergencies and a backup helicopter if things got worse. It was very reassuring, but why was I not reassured. Why did I choose a vacation where you pay to feel scared?

Why does anyone pay thousands of dollars to go on Safari?  To stare at rhinos? Not likely.  We can do that in a zoo. To watch them prance around in nature? They don’t. Most stand still and chew grass, or sleep. Then why did I want to walk with them?  Why would anyone want to walk with them?

Could it be that deep inside, we need to interact with animals? Dr. Doolittle could walk and talk with the animals. That’s why we all loved his books. As children, we wanted to do it too.  Don’t we want to interact with other species—just a little—especially if they’re wild? Most of us are urban and not wild at all, but part of us still wants to be part of the wilderness, inside the picture and not just taking it. Walk with the animals? Love to.

TODAY’S SAFARI: A (NON) WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE

Africa’s wilderness is melting away, as the wildlife is steadily poached. Thus, the illusion that safari firms project to potential clients is melting as well.  Kenya, for example, commercializes its safaris to where their wilderness experience resembles mass transit. Every morning, whole convoys of minivans, gaily painted to resemble zebras or giraffes, roam well-beaten paths in predatory packs. Drivers follow pre-set routes, often on pre-set schedules, having long since learned where each type of animal can be found and when.

Wildlife learns the schedules too. On Kenya’s Amboseli Plain, the few remaining cheetahs no longer hunt in late afternoon, when tourists go on game drives.  Now, they hunt at mid-day, bolting their food while the tourists eat lunch. Then, they rest, and the drivers know where. No problem to find and photograph a sleeping cheetah. The tourists wish they would rise and run and hunt. Mostly, they don’t.

In Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater, drivers compete with one another along preset routes.  Their goal is to spot Africa’s Big Five before the tourists go back for dinner. The safari experience has also become high tech. Each vehicle has a radio. If one driver sees something special, every other driver is called in to surround it. The goal is no longer to sit silent, watching big game do something beautiful as the sun sets; the goal is only to take pictures.

Thus, the peak of the commercial safari experience—say, sighting lions on their prey—may be noisily shared by a circle of mini-vans, each with its quota of chattering, picture-snapping tourists. Nor have drivers (with exceptions) developed much mini-van etiquette. With up to 9 vans surrounding each sighting, they compete to provide clients with closer views. As the vans press closer, motors throbbing, both the magic and the photos are spoiled, as the animals get nervous, stop eating and uneasily move off.  Surely, there are better options.

WALK WITH THE ANIMALS? WHY NOT IN ZULULAND?       

My wife and I wanted to find those options. We wanted to walk with the animals (or, at least walk near them), not just photograph them through a windshield. We also wanted both protection and training. We needed to learn how to act while on foot, not just around rhinos but every other animal. We needed a guide who could both teach us bush lore and carry a rifle.  We chose South Africa’s Umfolozi National Park. At that time, it had about 3,500 black rhinos, 19,000 white rhinos, 96 other types of wildlife, 330 types of birds and 31 species of snake, including cobras and puff adders.

We arrived at a wilderness camp, with small tents, large cook fire, shovel ringed with rolls of toilet paper and a sign that told us to look for animals in four directions as we dug. The low point was a “bush shower”; a bucket with holes in the bottom, tied high in a tree. To intensify the experience you shower at night, when the cold air cancels the hot water and your imagination can populate the darkness with red eyes, crouched low and creeping closer.

We were joined by a ranger guide, a Zulu game guard, and four other tourists. Instruction began immediately. Lesson one concerned the previously mentioned need to “become trees” if a rhino charged. Lesson two stressed the need for immobility if no trees were around. “Animals see movement,” the guide instructed. “Freeze and you’re invisible.” Lesson three dealt with evasive action if we did get chased. “If a rhino gets close, wait till he drops his horn, then dodge left. His eyes will close and he won’t see you go.”

Outwardly confident and actually unnerved, I asked the guide if he had ever been charged. “White rhino won’t charge unless threatened, but black ones do, all the time. They want you to get away from them, so they go off like pop guns. Once I peeked over a hill, he added, just ahead of both the game guard and group, and looked square at a black rhino. We both jerked back in fright, but then she charged.”

I yelled at the group to take cover and freeze, he continued. The game guard stepped up beside me. We fired warning shots in unison. It ignored them and started down. The game guard took cover. I ran downhill, to lead it beyond the group. I remember thinking what a nice day it was except that I was being chased by a great, black rhino. When her horn dropped, I dodged left, but fell. The horn swished by and missed. Then, she ran right over me, giving me a kick. I got up, elated and—wham—went right over again, charged and speared by the rhino’s calf.”

We walked the ridgetops for three days. We wandered the Umfolozi River, while ripples of plains game ebbed away from our advance. Warthog, bushbuck, zebra and antelope would spot us, run, stop, stare back, then drift away. Soon we saw rhino. Bunching together like zebra, we crouched, crept, sneaked, stalked and tried to get in close. Then we froze, photographed and relaxed when we saw they were white. The first day, we stalked one. In the next two days we saw 21 more, all white. At one point, we were surrounded by them on three sides, each stamping, snorting and breaking up bush. Our only problem: white rhinos were everywhere black rhinos, nowhere. Privately, I began to hope we would find one and get charged.

That charge, when it finally came, was triggered by a yellow bird. We all noticed it, watched it land on a bush, then crept up to photograph and admire. Seconds later, a huge black shadow lunged out of the bush itself and charged the group. We fled to trees while both ranger and game guard raised their rifles. Both triggers clicked loudly in unison. Unexpectedly, the shadow jerked at the sound, swerved left and plunged away. Only then did I see it was a buffalo. “Luck”, the guide sighed. “Usually, they charge and charge until a man is dead.”

That night, at dawn, I dreamed I heard a Zulu shouting “20 lion.” I woke. The voice was our game guard. The words were “plenty lion” and he meant in the river reeds. We jerked awake, running riverwards dressed in cameras and underclothes, then stopped and stared.  One lion, seven lionesses and a compliment of cubs ambled slowly by our group of sleepy, silent gawkers. Each group stared at the other with only mild curiosity. Jaded, both sides had seen it all before. Then, the lions wandered back into their reeds and the tourists wandered back into their tents and both groups went to sleep.

I went to bed but not to sleep. Last week, my major worry was making project deadlines. This week, it was evading rhino and worrying if “plenty lions” were sleeping too close to my tent. So, this was Africa outside the windshield. It seemed both more real, and more fun.  A walking safari is not just going off the beaten path; it means entering a new dimension. We had not only left the safety of mass tourism; we had even left the safety of a car. In consequence, my wife and I learned a little more about each other and a lot about walking with the animals. And we didn’t even realize how much wilder it could be.

WILL THERE BE LIONS?

Lions lie like magic in our minds. After childhood, we never go to zoos to see them, but they still prowl through our imaginations when we consider an African safari. All of us share the lion dream: We want to hear lions roaring, then watch them as they pounce on racing zebras—as our cameras click. In fact, that almost never happens. Lions hunt either at sundown or night.  Most national park rules require tourists to return at sundown (to drink sundowners) and spend the night in luxury tents or lodges.

We do see lions in the daytime, of course. We watch them through the windows of our mini-vans. It is exciting, but not the wilderness experience we pay thousands of dollars to see.  By dawn, most lions have killed, eaten, drunk and grown sleepy. They ease into shady spots in thorn bush, which makes them harder to see, let alone photograph. Then, they sleep—or wake and stretch and yawn. What they don’t provide is action.

My wife and I wanted “some” action. We were afraid to walk with lions, but wanted to walk near them—near enough, perhaps, to watch them hunt without them hunting us. Again, we needed a guide. Searching for lions takes on a new perspective when the safety both of a tour-group and vehicle are far away, and you are plodding through the bush following a guide’s back. In simple terms—you’re scared. Thus, tourists rarely leave their cars to “lion walk.” But we did once—almost,

One night, 11 lions killed a kudu, only yards away from where we camped. The roaring came at us from all sides. Nonetheless, we felt safe. A pop-up tent sat atop our land rover, where no lion would reach up for bites. Nonetheless, they kept roaring and a twinge of fear hit us both as we lay in bed listening. We had booked a “lion walk” at sunrise, just we two and a ranger-tracker. It seemed like an adventure when we did it, but then it was noon and now it was night and they wouldn’t stop roaring.

The ranger was silent, small, old and holding a rifle that looked older than him. I asked how many bullets it held. “One,” he replied. He may have meant “one at a time,” but I worried privately if that would do for eleven lions. My wife asked him how many years he had been a tracker. “Many,” he said. Profoundly “unreassured,” we followed him into the bush. We were tracking lions.

Ten minutes later, he stopped, stooped and picked up a thorn branch. “Blood,” he said.  Then, he saw a chip of bone. We stopped plodding and began to stalk. Next, we all saw a kudu leg, hoof and skin unscarred by teeth and claws. Nothing wrong with it except that it had lost its body. Finally, we saw the kill—scattered bones and meat, next to an untidy pile of grass that had once lain in the kudu’s stomach. “Kudu,” said the guide.

“Tracks,” said the guide. We followed. The sun rose, transforming itself from golden- beautiful to white and baking. I slid into a walking trance in which my mind waged civil war. The larger part knew clearly that I did not want to find 11 lions, crouched and waiting for us in the bush. The smaller part knew I did. Suddenly, I remembered just what lions smelled like. I had learned in zoos. I knew I would smell them before I saw them—and that they would smell me first. I also knew that lions purr while resting—a sound that now rasped my nerves from miles away, especially since I was plodding toward it. In short, I felt both inwardly scared and outwardly alive. In fact, I may never have been more alive than when I was tracking lions.

I want to tell you that we found 11 lions, but this is not a fairy tale. The tracker taught us how to track, pointing out not just the prints of lion, but leopard and hyena as well.  Nonetheless, the lion spoor gave out. As the sun rose, they vanished into the thickest bush, seeking shade and sleep till sundown. And the thickest bush is just where we refused to go, including the guide. Both crushed and relieved, we returned to camp and scotch and shade and sleep, only gradually aware that tracking lions had become a high point in our lives.

WALKING TOWARDS LIONS

We found lions frequently when safe inside our land rover, but actually walked up to them just once. We were with a lion guide, a man who actually kept three lions caged in his back yard. He saw them as pets and partners and loved them all. Each night, when his family was asleep, he went outside to talk to them—a mix of cooing, soft roaring and speech. “I tell them my troubles,” he told us. “Sometimes, they tell me theirs.”

Once, he took us lion-walking. The bush grew thick and thorny. The trees were grey, not green. Worse, they looked identical—same height, same shape, all thorns, no leaves. It was very, very quiet, until it wasn’t. “Listen.” Murmured our guide. “What?” we both chorused, but we knew. The roaring was faint, intermittent, but continuous. “Lion, West,” said the guide, turning West “Good,” we chirped in unison, while I privately wished we’d go East. But West we went, while the guide pointed out small signs: Old tracks. Old dung. Fresh tracks. Fresh dung.  Why did the number of ions keep increasing in my mind?

Then, we came on a scene that I had never watched in Africa. To our left was a wall of chest-high elephant grass. To our right lay thorn bush and trees. In front, however, lay a small green-grass meadow, thick with milling game. Kudu, wildebeest and warthog all milled around in circles, sometimes actually butting one another out of the way. Yet, none of them fled. To us, it meant nothing. To the guide, it signaled that at least one male lion was crouching on one side of the herd and his females on the other. Males, thick chested, are clumsy and slow. If the prey gets running it often escapes. Females are streamlined for speed. Often, they herd the running prey into the male lions kill-zone.

Thus, the events that should have followed this scene were predictable. Act one: The game on the meadow had been caught in an ambush. They sensed it and milled around frantically, panicked by the scent all around them. That would last as long as it took all the females to creep into place in the surrounding forest. Act two would begin with their collective roaring. A lion’s roar does seem to come from all directions. However, if the male kept silent, the prey would careen en-mass towards him. The animal who came closest would see him, swerve sideways in panic and thus present a perfect target for his charge.

That was the script. Unfortunately, we intervened. Like three aliens landing ln another planet, we broke into their performance and our appearance stopped the show. On the meadow, each of the plains game stopped on cue, to swing around and stare at us, ears at attention. Within the high grass, so did a single male lion, who rose from his cover to gaze. No one moved.

We forgot to be frightened. We just crouched and stared and thought how beautiful he was. The fear that he might hunt us, or that the females might stalk us through the forest never appeared. The only frightened party was the lion. He gave us one, long golden-eyed look then streaked away. So did everything else. The plains game streamed from the meadow, while the lionesses slipped off into the bush. “Follow?” asked the guide. “No, we both answered with a single word, a silent sigh and a common thought. “What could top what we’ve just seen?”  Africa’s peak safari experience was over.

A little later, so was our African walking safari. “What was it like there, walking out by yourself?” our U.S. friends ask politely, not really caring but fleetingly curious. “Like your first ride on a roller-coaster.” I answer. Some pre-trip anxiety, a little dread as you get close, one moment of real terror, then the feeling that you have not only survived but done something wonderful. We have walked with the animals in Africa. We have done something wonderful.

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Jeffrey A. Fadiman is a professor of Global Marketing at San Jose State University in California, and a Language and Area Specialist for Eastern and Southern Africa. A graduate of Stanford University with two years at the Uni[1]versities of Vienna and Free Berlin, this Fulbright scholar taught both U.S. and global marketing tactics at South Africa’s University of Zululand. He first experienced Africa in 1960 by canoeing up the Niger River to Timbuktu. Thereafter, he lived in Meru, Kenya, where he rediscovered the traditional history of the Meru tribe, which had been crushed by British colonialism. Fifty years later, the Meru accepted him as the first White Elder of their nation.