Safari

by Geoffrey Kent

  The next morning, the Royal party heads to the Omani cultural museum at Fort Al Jalali. I stay back to eat a late breakfast with the British Ambassador, Sir Terence Clark, who confesses a flub the Sultan’s staff made as they prepared for Prince Charles to visit. “Bit of a nightmare last week,” the Ambassador says. “Last week, the Sultan sent out at least a dozen bulldozers to clear the ground for the Prince’s camp—”

  “No . . .” I stare at him wide-eyed, quite certain where this is going.

  “Indeed,” he says. “They wound up bulldozing sand in the archaeological digging area and a part of the turtle breeding area.”

  Don’t tell Prince Charles, I warn him. He’s a steadfast nature lover and would be horrified. When the Prince returns from his museum visit, we head to the Sultan’s secret camp on the beach, where the famous Omani sea turtles nest.

  When we land, the area looks like a beachhead from the Gulf War: four-dozen vehicles, three camps, and a fleet of helicopter gunships. While the Sultan’s staff set up for a barbecue, Prince Charles and I venture off for a walk on the beach. Within minutes we discover what appear to be the wide tracks of armored cars, and it dawns on us that these must be the tracks of the famous hawksbill sea turtles that make their way annually from the Red Sea to the beaches of Muscat.

  Over a breezy dinner on the beach, one of the Sultan’s guides explains that the turtles in Muscat are extremely solitary and spend all their lives at sea, meeting exclusively for the purpose of mating. The female leaves the water only every few years to lay her eggs high on the beach. When she finds a depression in the sand, she claims it and digs a deep hole. Then, crouching hind-end down, she takes a few intense hours to herself and deposits her clutch of eggs. “How many does she lay?” I ask our guide.

  “One hundred fifty at a time.”

  There is an instant roar of disbelief among us men. I envision the plight of the determined female turtle, all alone with a great shell on her back, her abdomen heavy with babies, using the claws of her great flippers to dig her hole and relieve her body of her eggs. Too often, her labor is in vain: a fox or a monitor lizard will sniff out the yolk-rich eggs, and very few of the baby turtles ever survive their fifty-five-day maturation period to reach birth.

  The few hatchlings that do make it crack from their shells employing great strength from their tiny flippers. Then as a frantic little group they emerge, producing a stampede of miniature tracks in the sand as they race from their hole to the water, where they’ll have to avoid predators like crabs, birds, and mammals. Out of every ten thousand eggs that a mother turtle lays in her eighty- to one-hundred-year lifetime, only two or three of her young will actually reach twenty or thirty years of age to produce their own offspring.

  The guide tells us that as if those threats aren’t enough to endanger the life of a newborn turtle, the hatchlings find their way to the water according to only one critical influence: the brightness of the sky over the water. This first journey to the sea is important in calibrating the turtles to a magnetic orientation, allowing them to return decades later to the area where they were hatched so that they can breed and hatch their own eggs.

  {A&K staff}

  An ad I did for Rolex at the same time as golfer Arnold Palmer and skier Jean-Claude Killy.

  At midnight when we’ve all retired, I call to Prince Charles’s tent. “Don’t stay up reading all night,” I tease Prince Charles. “Your headlamp could plant the wrong signal inside the mind of a young turtle. It will be searching for you its whole life!”

  “I don’t think the hawksbill sea turtles of Oman have the range to swim to Gloucestershire,” calls Tim Landon.

  “We do have a tight day tomorrow,” I tell them. “Six hours of touring to fit in before our five p.m. flight home.”

  The next morning, I step out of my tent at eight o’clock sharp, a beautiful clear morning, as I wade into the sea—bracing and warm. Afterward, I shower and meet everyone for a quick breakfast before we climb a concrete staircase onto the Sultan’s helicopter pad. “Have these steps always been here?” I ask one of the Sultan’s staff members.

  “No, Mr. Kent!” he answers proudly. “His Majesty the Sultan had these put in just for His Royal Highness’s visit!”

  We board our helicopters for a short flight to the top of the Jebel Akhdar mountains, where I was stationed in the army.

  We fly along the walls of Wadi Tiwi—wadi, I remember from my army days, being the Arabic word for “valley”—getting a spectacular view of this gorge in the middle of the mountains.

  There’s a high wind when we reach the site where the Sultan has arranged for us to visit some recently discovered tombs. The pilot maneuvers deftly and apologizes when we land a few minutes late. It’s fine, I tell him, but we’ve got to mind the time this afternoon to make our five o’clock departure flight for India.

  “There’s nothing that will delay us this evening, sir,” he says.

  Just then, Prince Charles alights from his helicopter, sets his hands on his hips, looks around, and says, “This is not exactly like Gloucestershire!”

  The tomb site, rather barren, lies 5,500 feet high in the mountains. The area features not much more than a dome-topped tower surrounded by an intricate series of large boulders, clearly the tombs, which our guide says would have been laid here starting in 3,000 BC and continuing over the following thousand years. Under study by a team of archaeologists, the tombs lie in various states of repair. The craftsmanship and detail, I can see when we inch up close, are superb.

  From there, we seek out my old stomping ground at the very top of the Jebel Akhdar mountains. When I was here on mules three decades ago, there were no roads or electricity—but now as we walk through the village centers, there are telephone lines hung above the mud houses and TV screens flashing on the walls inside. When we reach my old base on the plateau above the village of Saiq, it too is hardly recognizable: in the old days, the base consisted of nothing but a few huts, a football field, and a viewing platform dais for the inspecting officer. Now there are an impressive modern headquarters, sophisticated artillery ranges, and paved airfields.

  From there, we make our way to a region with high cliffs—and I’m delighted how I remember these walnut trees with hearty nuts, and the pomegranate trees flowering with lively pink blossoms. Prince Charles finds a steady place on the mountain track to sketch—he says he loves to draw not just for creativity’s sake, but for the calm it gives him to survey the scenery, hear the noises, and smell the air.

  I take off alone on a quiet stroll. When the breeze blows, I also take in the air. It carries down scents from the contoured fields where onions and garlic grow, just as it did in my army days. In the fields sway tall strands of wheat and the tiny purple flowers of the alfalfa plant. Oman never felt much like home when I was stationed here, but I’m comforted that some parts of the country have remained untouched.

  Heading back, I call to Prince Charles. “Sir, we’d best get a move on. It’s nearly time for lunch.”

  “Right, Geoff, just let me finish this one branch . . .”

  “Fine, sir.” I check my watch: the afternoon is escaping us. I watch His Royal Highness as he tilts his head in thought. What a crazy life this is, I realize in a sudden surreal moment. As a boy, I never could have dreamed that one day I’d accompany the Prince of Wales to visit my old Sandhurst friend, who’s now the Sultan of Oman, in one of the most ancient lands in the world. I never even knew to imagine that Prince Charles—such a good-natured, considerate, and influential man—would be one of my close friends.

  Visibly satisfied, he rises from his folding stool and walks toward me, smiling. “Come on then, let’s go,” he says, breezing past me toward where our cars have driven up to fetch us.

  Our drivers locate the elegant guesthouse where the Sultan has arranged our lunch. Prince Charles had made a special request for a light lunch of vegetables and salad, but when we sit down, the Sultan’s staff serves us with something much differen
t: a seven-course meal with smoked ham, grilled red snapper, beef, mutton, and chicken. After a dessert of Omani dates, I sit back in my chair. “Had enough?” says Tim Landon.

  “I feel like a sea turtle without the ability to lay any eggs.”

  Everybody laughs. We drink the last of our coffee—rich and strong—and meet our cars to make our late-afternoon flight. On takeoff, we have another good laugh when Prince Charles and I glance toward our escort helicopter. Evidently, there was some confusion on takeoff, and instead of the gunship guarding our flank, it has ended up on the wrong side. We are looking directly into the barrels of their guns! The pilot quickly realizes the mistake and moves into the correct position.

  In the meantime, I glance at my watch. We’re twenty-five minutes late, a logistic that I never would have compromised in our army days. Today, however, our timing is perfect: the sun sets over the sandstone cliffs, the mountains casting intense shadows over the sleek green ribbons of alfalfa growing in the field beneath us.

  After our whirlwind three-day visit, I reflect that as a young man on a mule, the young Lieutenant Geoffrey Kent of the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards never could have known that one day he would return to accompany His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in such style with a flotilla of helicopter gunships! In the end, it’s an old army friendship, and another destination, come full circle with significance to my life.

  {A&K staff}

  Floating in the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth at 1,378 feet below sea level. This is a memorable experience for travellers to the Middle East.

  {Jorie Butler Kent}

  Crossing a river to Timburke Village.

  Chapter 14

  Papua New Guinea

  1993

  At this stage, Abercrombie & Kent has moved into a variety of corners of the world, and I’m conjuring my next vision. For thirty years we’ve been showing people some of the remotest places on earth, but now I want to bring the world to people who don’t have the opportunity to travel. I’m primed for my pitch when I meet Mark McCormack, the founder of the benchmark talent agency IMG, at a Wimbledon party in the early nineties. “Mark, let’s create a TV series together,” I tell him. “I want to take viewers inside the world’s most unusual locations.”

  Mark puts me in touch with the producer Charlie Lafave, and together we determine that the best way to do this will be to follow celebrities to the places they’ve always wanted to travel. We line up Lauren Hutton, whose all-American natural beauty made her the highest-paid model in history in the 1970s, to star in an episode. The series is titled To the Ends of the Earth. “And when I say go for exotic,” Mark says, “I mean go for it.” We ask Lauren where on earth she’d go if she could choose any location. “Just dream,” I tell her.

  {Jorie Butler Kent}

  The stunning masks at Karawari, which are used in rituals, dances, and fertility ceremonies.

  She says she wants to locate the remotest human tribes on earth.

  Our timing is right on. Since the late eighties, American and European tourists have grown hesitant to leave the safety of home. Ronald Reagan’s bombed Libya, apartheid’s been happening in South Africa, India and Pakistan are fighting over Kashmir, and Egypt has suffered its own internal struggles. In 1986, I’d done a reconnaissance to Australia with the intention to employ one of my sales and marketing philosophies: “Go where the fish swim.” We’d been attracting more and more Australian travellers. I’ve been eager to push into a still-unspoiled land in this same area, one with tourism opportunities that weren’t yet in full swing. For Lauren, I know just the place: To the Ends of the Earth would be filmed in Papua New Guinea.

  “You’re sure you can get us in, Geoff?” Charlie the producer says on the phone. “Keep in mind this is a fifteen-person production crew.”

  “As long as the crew and the actors are fully committed, my team will get you in.” Having already spent some time with Lauren, I’m confident she will be perfect. She loves motorcycles, the outdoors, and even diving.

  Caroline Wheeler, my right-hand woman, voices some doubt. “Don’t you want to take them someplace where Americans would actually want to holiday?” she asks me. “When most Americans hear the words ‘Papua New Guinea,’ they think of the Rockefeller boy who disappeared there. Maybe dial back on the intensity, just a touch?”

  “It’s Papua New Guinea or nothing,” I tell her. “Mark McCormack said ‘exotic,’ and we’re going to give him exotic. Mainstream television viewers have never seen a place like this.”

  “Yes, Geoff,” she says with a sigh. “Perhaps there’s an excellent reason for that.”

  After ten years’ working with me, Caroline knows I can’t be deterred—though as my team and I begin to lay out the itinerary, I do begin to wonder whether we’re pushing the bounds a touch too far. Papua New Guinea is home to some of the most secluded indigenous people on the planet: there are valleys and villages where many of the inhabitants have never even laid eyes on a white man, and it’s known that some of these natives still practice rape, cannibalism, and headhunting as part of their everyday life. Even if these accounts are slightly exaggerated, the lifestyle in this country could put many viewers off: the men and women live completely separately from one another, and they meet up only for sex. The women wear nothing but grass fronds on their lower halves, and the men who live in the highlands are called “wigmen” for the elaborate wigs and masks they wear. Apart from that, their normal wardrobe consists of not much more than penis gourds. “Lauren Hutton is a feminist, you know,” Caroline chides me.

  Denying my rising doubts, I respond: “And I’m not?”

  Further complicating our planning is the fact that there are hundreds of tribes that speak almost a thousand different languages—none of them English—and that many of the villages that neighbor each other fight frequently over their livelihood of kina shells and pigs. The managing director of our Australia office, Anthony Hyde, agrees to meet me in Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, where with Charlie Lafave we board a boat on the Sepik River to make our way inland.

  When a Land Cruiser picks us up in Mount Hagen early that evening, I know we’ve hit on a location that will render Papua New Guinea unforgettable to TV audiences. Winding down rutted dirt roads, we encounter groups of men with wide, rugged faces standing outside their longhouses, which are built up on stilts. The men eye us suspiciously, and the director pulls his baseball cap farther down on his head. “Papua New Guinea was the last place that Rockefeller kid was ever seen alive,” he says. “People say he was eaten by sharks, but the way these guys are checking us out, I’d say he was eaten by them.”

  “When was that?” Anthony says.

  “It was 1961,” I tell him. Having taken David Rockefeller, Sr. on safari since the 1960s, I knew the story well. “But that was in West Papua, on the Indonesian side of the island.”

  “Are you sure Lauren Hutton will be up for this?” Anthony asks. In response, the director gazes out of the Land Cruiser, clearly wondering the same. Anthony stretches his neck forward, pulling a pair of binoculars from his bag. “There’s smoke ahead,” he says. “What do you suppose it could be?”

  “Would you like to go have a look?” I ask the director. He nods.

  Our driver turns to me. “Mr. Kent, I wouldn’t advise that we drive into this,” he says. “There could be trouble.”

  {Jorie Butler Kent}

  Before special gatherings and seasonal events, a Huli Wigman (pictured here with me) will spend hours preparing his costume and make-up, complete with a ceremonial wig and accessories.

  “Turn off your headlights,” Anthony tells him. “They won’t be bothered by us.”

  We forge ahead slowly for a few minutes and make a turn around the corner. “Back off a bit,” I tell the driver, and he slowly reverses the truck and tucks it back into a space where we’re protected by bushes.

  “Are those spears landing in the road?” says the director.

  “Arr
ows,” I tell him.

  “Good God, it’s like a movie set,” he says.

  Our driver shuts off the car, and we all watch in silence. One group of men fires arrows at another group, and the second group charges the first. Suddenly there’s an arc of fire sailing through the air, and a grass house goes up in instant flames. In a frenzy, both groups of men scatter away. With our headlights still off, our driver takes us down the dusty road, through the smoke and destruction. “I really don’t know if Hollywood’s ready for Papua New Guinea,” Anthony says. I stare ahead at the road, ignoring him completely.

  When Lauren lands in a twin-engine propeller plane, we begin to film on location. The production crew follows us around a village that borders the rain forest, and as Lauren takes it all in, they murmur words such as “dangerous” and “primitive.” Lauren smoothes her hair and jokes about the cruelty of not having brought a stylist to the most humid climate on earth. “When is the rainy season here, anyway?” Charlie Lafave asks me.

  “It starts in December.”

  “And ends?”

  “In March.”

  “Ah.”

  As if on cue, a heavy blanket of rain drops from the sky. The film crew scrambles to cover their equipment with a tarpaulin sheet, and Lauren and I dash from the field toward the forest in hopes of being sheltered by the trees. “Spider!” she cries.

  “You told me you were tough!” I tell her. “You ride motorbikes and all that!”

  The next morning we were running short of food and wanted to get to the next location. We climb onboard our twin engine Norman Islander.

  As the pilot goes to fire up the engine, the right one starts—but the left one doesn’t. “So,” says Charlie, “it looks as though we are marooned! How will we ever get in a spare part?”

  Then I had a great idea. I remember the model planes I had when I was young. We used to put a string around the propeller boss to get them started.