November 26
Thanksgiving Day
1330
It’s Thursday afternoon, Thanksgiving Day. I’m sitting out
on the spacious deck/dinning area at Orpen Camp, spending our last day here
where we spent our first. It’s breezy
and I reckon about 100F. A starling of some sort is squawking about something
and I can see a troop of baboons moving along the camp fence line. And, as I write this, I just heard a young
elephant complaining about something. My pale, white-skinned neighbors two
bungalows down are sweltering red-faced on their deck and pointing a hand-held
fan at each other. One of the things
about spending a few weeks in the bush is that you become reacquainted with
some simple pleasures that you’ve forgotten about in the complexity of life
back home. I’m enjoying a ginger ale,
with ice very much. Last night, we ate
pork chops, fried potatoes and cream corn.
Seriously, cream corn. And it
was awesome.
Now a family group of elephants has moved into the water
hole just beyond the fence line. Moms and young ones and I can see a little
baby. It’s hot and dry here and they have to drink every day.
Yesterday morning we left Letaba with heavy hearts as we
near the end of this trip. Letaba is
such a beautiful camp. It’s not the most
popular camp, due I think primarily to its location, but it’s a lovely spot and
we’ve enjoyed good success there. We
drove south without much to see, had a pizza for breakfast at Satara (all the
rules go out the window here – and, it was great!). Shortly after leaving Satara to continue our
journey, a driver in an oncoming vehicle flagged us to a stop and asked if we’d
seen lions yet, because there was a group of three lions on the S12, about 250
meters off the paved road that we were on.
We headed over there to find only an older lady in her black BMW sitting
on this unpaved road in southern Africa, watching sleeping lions tangled up in
the bush.
It didn’t take too long to figure out what was up – there
was a female in estrus and a male who she was mating with. And, the third wheel – another female who
seemed close to the mating female. They
both appeared young so maybe a sister or cousin. It was already a very hot morning but they
relocated in a shady spot quite close to us on the road. We noticed that the
female in heat had two very nasty gashes on her left-rear leg. The male mounted her a couple of times but
neither party seemed too energetic, both because of the heat and because I
assume her leg was really hurting.
The dynamics began to emerge, as it seemed to be the case
that the male was not welcoming the female who wasn’t in season. He seemed to quietly snarl at her and his
body language indicated his displeasure.
This erupted into a mild squabble with snarling and batting then he
forced himself to lie right between the two females in the small patch of
shade. It’s like if you’ve ever had a
cat or dog force themselves into the space between you and your spouse. All the
while he made quiet sort of growling/rumbling noises.
We were very close, maybe 10 meters from the lions, and I
had the 600 on shooting very tight shots of lion faces and suddenly all hell
broke loose with lions roaring and fighting and the young female on her back
being pounded by the male. I got no shot
because, a) I was shooting too tight, and b) because it startled the living
hell out of me. It was all I could do to not drop the lens out of the car
window. It was like having a bomb go off
next to you. In retrospect, I should
have seen it coming. Part of what makes
lions so fascinating is that there’s this contradiction in their basic
make-up. They’re really the only social cats
and there is a great amount of bonding and affection apparent between socially
related lions. They’re constantly
rubbing up against each other and grooming and often sleep in contact with each
other. But there’s also an undercurrent
of violence just beneath the surface.
Sometimes it’s predictable – around feeding, or during mating – and
sometimes it seems to come from nowhere.
But I should have realized that the male’s quiet expressions of
displeasure with the unwanted ‘friend’ would eventually erupt.
After the fight, the female in heat relocated to another
shady spot. The male followed her though
I noticed that she was careful to position herself where it would not be easy
for him to mount her. The young, unwanted
friend stayed right where she was. When
you watch a lot of lions, you started deciding that some lions are just
prettier than others, and she is a very pretty lion. She also seemed a lot more curious and
engaged than the other two. She was alert
and awake while they were panting in the shade, and she watched us, she watched
the birds, she watched insects – she was much more engaged in her
surroundings. And I admired her because
she didn’t give an inch when she was attacked and she held her ground while the
others got up to leave. She just sat
there for a while, appearing to be totally unbothered by what just happened.
But eventually she stood up, turned away and slowly walked off into the bush
alone.
We considered ourselves lucky and left the lions to
themselves, heading to Orpen to check in and then to take a short drive before
the gate closed for the evening. During
the afternoon, it looked like thunderstorms were building to the west and
during our drive the weather changed dramatically, with very strong, gusty
winds, lightening and dropping temperatures.
Overnight, more lightening, thunder and rain.
Our intention was to get up and hit the road as the gate
opened but in reality we took it more leisurely and didn’t get out the gate
until about 0500, just as the sun was coming up. We saw two hyena, jackals, warthog and then
up ahead we saw some cars stopped and then we saw a large number of figures
running to and fro – we’d found the wild dogs.
We’d guess that this pack has about 20 – 25 members, about half being
pups. The light was beautiful, but it was challenging to shoot because they
never stop for an instant and we were shooting around all of the other cars
stopped there. The dogs then decided to
start moving and everyone fell into line to follow them as they took one of the
unpaved roads heading south. We were in
the middle of the pack of about 12 cars and we quickly decided that this wasn’t
for us. We were thankful that we got to
experience the sighting and the cost/benefit equation of trying to follow these
fast moving dogs in a pack of a dozen cars just didn’t work out.
We headed back to where the lions were, and sure enough, about a half kilometer farther
north, I glimpsed the male’s back while he was in the act of mating. There were in an area of tall grass and if he
hadn’t actually been mating at that moment, we’d have never found him. We watched for a bit, fired a few frames, but
they were pretty far in there and often obscured. So, we left, went to Satara, ate breakfast,
stopped by briefly to see them again on the way home, saw a nice big bull rhino
as we continued our trip to Orpen and then got here a couple of hours ago.
Our time here is about done now. We’ll take a drive this evening though I’m
expecting thunderstorms again tonight.
And then, if we can, we’ll braai up a steak for Thanksgiving dinner.
We’ll pack up and be ready to leave tomorrow morning early. We’ll probably take a last short drive in the
morning – no cameras, just to enjoy coolness of the morning and the smell of
the bush and the sounds of the birds as the begin their days. Then the drive to
Jo’burg, coordinating returning the lens, hanging out at the airport, the
forever flight to Atlanta, the mad rush to retrieve luggage, recheck luggage,
go back through security and catch a flight to Salt Lake, then the very short
layover in SLC and then finally home.
It’s hard not to be sad.
I’m sure you can stay long enough that the pull of home overcomes the
pull of this place of beauty and adventure, but I’m not there yet and I don’t
think Gina is either. It doesn’t help
that we hear that there’s been a big dump of snow, meaning that we now begin
that long, cold and dark winter. I’ve lived
in Bend for most of the last 18 years.
There are things I like about it certainly. It’s pretty.
I’m fortunate to have a good job, working with smart, caring people. My friends are there. But I’ve never really learned to love the
climate and winter, and the days of going to work in the dark and coming home
in the dark, makes my stomach knot.
But for tonight, I’m hanging on to all that we have to be
thankful for. This is I think the 6th
time in the last 7 years that I’ve spent Thanksgiving Day in the bush. Now that is something to be truly thankful
for.
Mind if I squeeze in here? Apparently, yes.
A Very Pretty Lioness
Wild Dog Pups At Play
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