While on safari in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, I witnessed what I had read time and time again; that a good guide can read the bush like most read a book. While staying at a tented fly-in camp, I was assigned a guide born and raised all his years on this land. On my first morning he and I set out for a bush walk. Before leaving camp he asked what I wanted to see. I didn’t have a particular list but I wanted to track something. I told him I wanted to experience finding the track of an animal and following the tracks until I found the animal they belonged to. He, a man of few words, mumbled “hmmmph” then loaded me into his mokoro (a tree trunk carved into a canoe shaped boat) and we took off. I wondered silently if I had asked too much.
After floating the amazing waterways of the Okavango Delta -filled with huge crocodile and dangerous hippopotamus - for about an hour, the guide pushed us up onto a bank and pulled the mokoro out of the water then said for me to follow him. He and I walked amongst hidden inherent dangers; me following him in silence. We stopped at a sandy spot. My guide studied the ground then said, “Two lion slept here last night. They went that way early this morning.” He then, without fanfare, walked on while I was still staring at the ground trying to see just where it said that in the dirt. We walked for several more minutes then he stopped again and studied the ground with great intent and said, “Just wildebeest.” Again after searching the ground for words, I saw nothing then hurriedly caught up with him and continued to follow.
We walked around massive termite mounds, under numerous enormous trees, occasionally I was enveloped in the smell of wild sage in this pristine environment. We passed the bones of an impala then the skull and horns of buffalo. As I was watching a troop of baboons in the distance while walking, the guide stopped again and studied the sandy floor. This time he pointed to a huge imprint and said, “Two elephant left here only minutes before.” He looked off to our left and pointed. “They went that way. We can track them. Is good?” He asked as if to see if that met with my tracking desires. I said okay and off we went. I was smiling broadly as my heart raced. I was thrilled to truly track an animal but nervous too.
We walked a bit then would stop as the guide studied the ground. He showed me the tracks and how he could tell which way they were going by the shape and the indentions of the track and how fresh the track was. I felt like Jungle Jane.
After hoofing the ground for another thirty minutes, occasionally stopping to study the ground, my guide pointed into the distance. “They are there.” He said very matter-of-factly. In a clearing (not far enough away) stood two massive bull elephants. “Did you enjoy tracking?” my guide asked. I did enjoy tracking very much but at that moment as I stood looking at those two massive bull elephants who were looking back at the two of us on foot with no gun nor even a radio, I wondered why I hadn’t specified that I wanted to track an impala or a spring hare or something a bit less menacing….
No comments:
Post a Comment