November 21, 2013

Letaba Rest Camp. 

It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and I’m writing this on a small table in a screened porch at our bungalow in Letaba.  This morning arrived dark, cool and blustery with the threat of rain.  During our morning drive the rain arrived – first a fine drizzle and then a full-on downpour.  It’s now evolved into a long, cool, soaking rain.  It’s the kind of rain the bush needs to truly come alive after the dry winter and I’m wondering if it’s also the rain that will bring a termite emergence.

Our bungalow overlooks the wide, sandy course of the Letaba River – probably 1000 meters across here.  I’m hearing constant bird calls, including the beautiful call of the woodland kingfisher, a bird whose arrival signals the true beginning of spring for the people of southern Africa. Downstream I can hear baboons making a fuss about something.

We spent 3 very hot days/nights at Lower Sabie.  It’s really beautiful country with fairly dense bush crowding onto the roads.  We had a couple of lion sightings but they weren’t interesting photographically and were the usual unpleasant tourist experiences.  Something about being in the presence of lions seems to shave about 25 points off most people’s IQ.  Saw no leopards at all.  What we did find were many rhino and that was a joy.  Rhino have come under terrible pressure from poachers here.  I don’t know the current stats – last I looked something like 750 rhino had been killed by poachers in South Africa this year.  Many in the Park itself.  Our fear was that they’d be less visible and more skittish, but we didn’t really find that to be true. It’s probably not a good thing actually, but the white rhino here seem very relaxed around vehicles and were grazing comfortably, with young, within 30 feet of ours.

We did have an elephant adventure while driving back to the camp at Lower Sabie two days ago.  I’m always cautious about elephants.  They’re the only animal that makes me nervous when I’m in a vehicle.  They’re highly intelligent and sensitive. In their world, their size, strength and intelligence means that they’re used to being in charge.  Sometimes they’re obviously wary and intimidated by humans but here in this setting they’re often not, and may often challenge you on the road. And they’re big and powerful enough that they can and do damage or destroy vehicles. I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the past six years observing elephants but I don’t feel that I understand them well and don’t feel confident that I can necessarily predict their behavior.

There are two scenarios that come up.  The first is the bull elephant who deliberately will approach you on the road, preventing you from proceding. I’ve had this experience many times.  The elephant will be on the road, or eating just off the road.  I’ll stop the car a considerable distance away and turn off the engine, just to give the elephant space and let him do his thing.  Most of the time, they just move off the road and you can resume your journey.  Sometimes though, they quit eating and begin walking right at you.  They’re not trumpeting or displaying any really overt signs of aggression (though sometimes they may fondle their tusks which is meant to be a clear warning), but they’re also walking directly toward you, not looking right or left, with some clear intent.  There are two schools of thought about this.  I back up.  When the elephant is, say, within 40 meters, I’ll start the car and back up a couple hundred meters and shut the car off and wait for the elephant to lose interest and move off of the road.  There’s a different school of thought that holds that, when you back up like that, it becomes a game for the elephant and keeps him interested in chasing you.  That school holds that you should just hold your ground and sit very quietly in the car.  After satisfying its curiosity that you’re not a threat (theory states), the bull will just move along.  When I was with Albie, a trained guide, we encountered some young bulls who refused to yield the road.  Albie approached confidently, banging the top of the cab with his hand and the elephants moved on.  But Albie also suggested that I (as an untrained person) continue to back up, and I do.  I’m not willing to chance it, with my family, in someone else’s vehicle.  The consequences of misjudging the situation could be serious.

The other situation that one encounters is the breeding herd of elephants.  This will be a group, primarily of females and juveniles – infants to adolescents – and, while mature bulls tend to travel separately, there may also be bulls hanging around hoping for a date.  Like mothers everywhere, elephant mothers are extremely protective and can become very aggressive if they feel their young are threatened.  You will often see breeding herds crossing the road.  It’s not like the bulls – the females will lead their young across the road, often with an adult female positioned between the young and any vehicles on the road.  Then they move on.  The fear is that you won’t see them all in the dense bush and somehow come around a curve and find that you have members of a breeding herd crossing both in front and behind you.  Especially in areas with very dense bush, you could inadvertently put yourself in a position where you bumble in between mother and young, so we try to be especially cautious and aware around breeding herds.

Two days ago, we were heading back to Lower Sabie, traveling north on the main road toward camp.  The traffic was light and there were no other vehicles around at the time.The bush is pretty dense and crowds the road there, meaning that an elephant could literally be 10 feet off of the road and you might not see it.  We saw a healthy bull feeding near the road on the left.  It’s something you see 20 times a day.  We slowed down and moved into the other lane to give him plenty of room.  He didn’t react at all and so we moved on.  About 200 meters later we saw a female step out into the road.  We slowed up and stopped because we could see other elephants in the vicinity.  Another female stepped into the road and we could see two very young elephants in the bush behind her.  We stayed parked to watch and the young did step out onto the road and they stayed on the road.  This was unusual because, in our experience, mothers usually just escort the babies across.  She was standing in the road, browsing to the left while the juveniles were standing on the right side of the road, also browsing.

At this point I glanced into the rear view mirror and saw the bull we had passed walking onto the road.  And he turned and started walking toward us.  Suddenly it seemed that we were not in a good position at all but then he turned to his right and began eating off to the side of the road.  I began to relax and turned my attention to mom and babies, where were still standing in the narrow, two-lane road in front of us. 

I glanced back up in the mirror and, damnit, the bull was coming again, and fast.  You notice things at a time like that.  I noticed that as he walked rapidly toward us that there was a definite spring to his stride that that his head was swinging back and forth as he came forward, head on at us.

Now it was starting to seem like we were in a very tight spot.  I couldn’t move away from the bull by going forward because of mom and kids and the bull was clearly on his way to see us.  I started up the car and began to slowly roll forward, hoping that if I put just a little pressure on mom, that she’d take the kids and move off the road.  She turned toward me and gave her head a violent shake, flapping her ears – a clear warning that I was too close.  Gina’s telling me now to back up and I’m telling her that I can’t because the bull was coming fast from behind.  I think that’s when she realized how close he was.  It’s funny what you remember – she told me later that she’d recognize that elephant anywhere because he had a distinctive little hole in his left ear.

I moved the car forward again, hoping that the mom would move and again she wheeled toward us and shook her head.  By this time, I couldn’t even see the entire elephant in my rear view mirror, he was that close.  We were running out of options and Gina and I were desperately trying to think through a plan.  In about one more second, our only option would have been to raise the windows and sit perfectly still and hope the bull just sniffed us, lost interest and moved on.  But in that last moment, the mom glanced around to her left and the kids wandered a little to the right, creating a small gap and I floored it.  I didn’t look right or left, just focused straight ahead.  In my peripheral vision, I saw one of the juveniles jump off to the right with a look of fear on his face and I think I saw the mom whip around, but we got through.  I never looked behind me at all. 

Gina and I were both pretty shaken and I felt bad that I stressed mom out.  I do feel in my heart that if we had sat still we’d probably have come out ok, but I could also imagine a scenario that would go terribly wrong.  Elephants have no reason to ‘like’ people – we’re bad news to most animals of course. Elephants do attack cars here, usually when tourists don’t have enough respect for the animals and put themselves into a position where they’re too close and don’t pay enough attention to body language.  I’m not sure what we should have done differently in our case, and hope to talk to a ranger about this in the next couple of days.  I feel like we do respect elephants and that we do give them lots of space.  But, there we were, like a couple of tourists in a very tight spot.  At the end of the day, it becomes part of the adventure.  Especially once the adrenaline wears off.  But, man, it was not fun in that moment when it dawns on you that you’re running out of options.  Custer must have felt something like that.

Yesterday, we took an uneventful drive to move to Letaba, where we’ll be for three more nights.  Stopped at a couple of beautiful overlooks.  This really is very pretty country.  This morning, a drive in the cool rain.  Little animal life, though we did see a side-striped jackal – a new sighting for us.  We found a quiet pool of water quite near the camp, with a low water crossing where you can park your vehicle and watch activity up the draw a couple hundred meters or so.  It’s shaded and the light is beautiful.  It’s big enough to have three hippos and a number of medium size crocs and some nice bird life.  It’s a little thing, but it’s a very nice place to just sit and watch.