by Whatever You Do, Don't Run- True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide (epub)
Badge would emerge from his forays into the garbage with a mucky face, lick his paws, and settle by the dented and rusty trestle table where the guides and managers ate their dinner when not with the guests. It was somewhat unnerving trying to eat a meal with one of Africa’s most ferocious animals sitting only a foot away from us. But Badge would calmly watch us eat, making a surprisingly cute twittering sound every time one of us lifted food to our mouths. As the meal wore on, growls would be interspersed with the twittering, until the whole experience became unsettling enough that whoever was closest to Badge would break the rules of our company, the ethics of our profession, and the law of Botswana by flinging him something to eat. As soon as the treat hit the bare earth, he would jump onto it, voraciously chomping through whatever bone and gristle it contained (we were never fed as well as the guests). As he finished, his face would settle into what looked very much like a grin.
A honey badger’s face isn’t as pointy as its European’s namesake, and is therefore a little more humanlike. The silver on its back extends only as far as its forehead, making it appear to have a short fringe. If you ignore the claws and mutilating tendencies, you could even call the animal cute. Despite my reservations and the distance I kept, I started to like him.
When Badge sat beside me at the table, making his oddly birdlike noises and looking at me with his little dark eyes, it was easy to start thinking of him as a pet. None of us ever had the courage to pat him, though, and I’ve never seen as many guys sit through whole meals with their legs so firmly crossed.
As unusual as his arrival was, it wasn’t long before Badge wasn’t even a novelty, and having him follow us around was as normal as walking an unleashed dog. We knew he wasn’t dependent on the camp for food, because sometimes he would disappear for days, even weeks at a time. We would grow concerned that something had happened to him, until he would nonchalantly reappear, tear a hole in the kitchen wall, and jump in the bin.
We never saw Badge during the day. He may have been sleeping, he may have been foraging elsewhere; there was so little research available on honey badgers at this point that we really didn’t know what he might be up to. But most evenings, just as the guests sat down to dinner, he would appear, have his meal from the bins, then sit by the table with the staff. On rare occasions, if someone got up, he would follow them a distance, but he would lose interest quickly and go back to his mixture of begging and threatening to those who were still eating.
One night he followed me farther, but at first I didn’t realise it. The walk to my little canvas house took less than a minute in daylight, but at night I took it more slowly, scanning the surrounds with a flashlight in case there was something in the path. It had become enough of a ritual that I was probably a bit too relaxed when I heard a growl.
For reasons I’ve never understood, I am incapable of telling what direction sound comes from, so I swung the flashlight around wildly, looking for the owner of the threatening voice.
It was Badge. He was a few feet behind me, the short silver hair on his back erect, all paws firmly planted, and his mean glare directed at a point that I now had my back to. Anybody who has owned a dog or cat has had this done to him or her. It is freaky in an empty room, but in the pitch-black bushland, where the threats are very real, it is downright terrifying.
“What is it, Badge?” I asked, knowing how much I must have sounded like the kid from Lassie.
He growled again and stamped one of his feet, sending a puff of dust toward the adversary that I couldn’t see, even though I was shining my light in the direction he was staring.
“You’re not just messing with me, are you, Badge?” I’ve never felt foolish talking to animals, but I do think it is ridiculous to expect a reply. Badge, though, seemed determined to communicate that there was danger, and his erect tail started shifting from side to side, like a cobra shaping up to strike.
“Oh please don’t fart.”
The odour that came was so powerful that my eyes still water thinking about it. It filled the air like a blanket, cloying and noxious. Nothing I had ever faced in the bush had given me such a strong urge to run, but I was sure that whatever Badge was protecting me from would chase me if I did. I jabbed the light around, desperately looking for the telltale eye shine. None came. Fearing Badge’s excretions more than any predator, I charged in the direction he was staring, and Badge gave a little “huff” noise as if to say, “Damn fool! That’s where the danger is!” I wasn’t sure if he was backing me up or not, but I figured that being eaten was a faster death than being suffocated.
I was moving the light around fast enough now that it would disturb the predator if I was lucky enough for it to be epileptic, but I still couldn’t see what Badge was trying to gas. In a wild sweep, on the edge of the light, I caught a flash of—fur—tawny fur. I swung the light straight back and shone it full-on the stuffed leopard that I had forgotten to bring inside that day.
Badge growled at it.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I wondered if Badge actually cared about me like a dog does its master, or whether he thought of me as one of his young. The main reason for my insomnia, though, was that no matter how many times I had washed myself, I still had an unholy reek emanating from my pores.
Badger kept visiting the staff, and was always hesitatingly welcomed. He was the only truly wild animal I knew that ever became a pet, or decided that we were his. Eventually a new camp was built at Mombo, and the old one was torn down. The sites were only a few hundred yards apart, and we all expected Badge to turn up one day, flip the lid off a bin, growl, and make us laugh nervously again as we covered our most delicate parts. But he never did, and I never saw him again.
The Drowning
On safari you find that nature has a rhythm, an organised pattern of activity. There is a peak in the morning, as the nocturnal animals hurry through the last of their business and the diurnal species wake up, stretch, and start sniffing around for food and danger. As midday approaches there is a lull, as most living things go dormant in the heat of the day. When the afternoon cools there is a reawakening, as the animals shed the listlessness that the heat had cloaked them with. At night there is even more happening, but most of it remains unseen in the darkness. Like most camps we took advantage of the coolest parts of the day to do our safari drives, one starting in the afternoon at four and the other in the morning at the rather rude hour of five.
In the mornings, I was always in a hurry to get out into the bush. Many of the guests were startled to be woken so early, particularly as they were on holiday. The shock was doubled by my haranguing them to move quickly. I would do it as gently as I could at first, then become more forceful as my frustration increased, reminding them that they could have muffins and coffee anywhere, but leopards were a rare sight and every moment spent dawdling was an opportunity lost to find one.
“Don’t you ever get tired of doing this every day?” they’d ask, sometimes a little exasperated.
“Tired, yes. But never of watching animals.”
Sometimes people would ask me to expand. I think this was a stalling tactic so they could finish their muffin.
“When my alarm goes off, I hate it with a passion,” I would explain. “Then I remember where I am, and that once I drag my backside out of bed I’m going to go and watch wild animals. If you had told me as a boy that this would be my job, I wouldn’t have believed you. All I ever watched on television were nature documentaries and the occasional James Bond film. I thought that because they were on television they had the same degree of reality. So if you had asked if I wanted to be a safari guide when I grew up, I would have said no, because to me it was as foolish and unrealistic as wanting to be a debonair super-spy. So when I get really tired now and it’s cold and my pillow feels too good to leave, I remember one thing: I’ve got the coolest job in the world. I’m James Bond. Now finish your muffin or I’ll leave without you.”
My cajoling sometimes bordered on harassment, but it m
eant that I was usually the first guide to leave the camp and the first to see what the animals were up to. I had four people with me that morning who had all arrived in camp the afternoon before. On their first drive they had seen plenty of herbivores and a small group of snoozing lions. I was hoping for a little more action on this drive. It was late winter and the air was crisp and still carried the nighttime scent of damp grass. The flood season was just ending in the Okavango, so the entire landscape was lush with greenery, dotted with small pools of water fed by dwindling channels.
Barely after we had left camp, two young male cheetahs strolled across a short grassy plain in front of us. It required no skill to spot them, and as I was still sleepy, I offered a silent thank you to them for making my job so easy. We watched for a while, but they both had full bellies so were unlikely to do anything of great interest. It was only moments after we found them that they indicated their day’s plan by flopping down on the side of a termite mound. I radioed their location to the other guides so they could have a look, and we moved on.
We drove for only a few more minutes, and rounding a corner we found a leopard climbing down a tree, right beside the road. While my guests were delighted, I was slightly irritated for two reasons. As a guide you want to pace things during somebody’s stay. If they see everything at once, there will be too high an expectation on following drives. The second reason was that I had the skills to find these animals if they weren’t being such exhibitionists, and I wouldn’t have minded the opportunity to show off some tracking and wildlife-interpreting ability. Despite my disappointment, the two couples had both been on safari before and were staggered by our luck.
“We’ve never seen a leopard,” the English couple gushed. “It’s very exciting.”
“We have, in Mala Mala,” said Bob the American, naming a South African camp. “But not as close as this, and it wasn’t as active.” Mombo is blessed not only with an abundance of leopards but with animals that are very relaxed with the vehicles, having never been persecuted by hunters or large numbers of tourists, so they behave as if you aren’t there at all. We watched this individual for a while until he too settled, and figuring the morning couldn’t get any better, I proposed we stop for a coffee, a little earlier than we usually would. Beside me on the passenger seat sat a picnic basket with tea bags, instant coffee, thermoses of hot water, tightly sealed Tupperware containers of milk, jars of sugar and home-baked cookies. Africa can be more civilised than people imagine.
We started driving toward a lagoon that was filled with hippos. It was a spectacularly scenic place to stretch your legs, and the receding floodwaters had left the surrounding areas dotted with wildflowers. Water lilies blossomed in the deeper parts of the channels that fed the hippo pool, and hundreds of storks, terns, herons and skimmers preyed on the fish trapped in the shrinking ponds. The birds dipped, stabbed and waded—a festival of colour and movement. And as we drove through, they would lift up like balloons released at a carnival, settling again behind us.
I stopped to look at the tracks of a large herd of buffalo that had passed through the area. They were fresh enough for me to think the herd must have been there within the last half hour. I looked in the direction the spoor was heading, but I didn’t see them. My eyes followed the tracks in the direction from which they had come, to see if maybe some of the herd was lagging. I thought about following the tracks, wondering if it was worth it after such a productive morning already. I had just settled on having the coffee instead when in the distance I saw a small group of birds fly up. They circled, and I could hear their harsh calls of alarm. I saw some antelope watching the area the birds were in, nervously stamping their legs.
“I think he’s seen something,” the American woman said to her husband, as if somehow I wouldn’t hear her or like Lassie would thump my forepaw to indicate what it was that had my attention.
I didn’t thump anything or say a word for a moment; I just kept watching. In a slight hollow I saw a glimmer of gold fur as a crouching figure slid forward. It was a lion, and it was stalking. It was turning into an incredible morning, but I was almost tempted not to point out the big cat. The group still had three more drives together, and after a morning of cheetah, leopard, and then lion everything would seem like an anticlimax. In the end I made my decision based on selfishness. The whole reason that I was in Africa was because I loved animals, and there was still nothing I enjoyed more than watching them.
“Lions,” I admitted. They were a fair distance away from us, and I had only been able to spot them because the Okavango is so flat you can see for miles. With my binoculars I could see that it was a female with three young males. This was the second smallest pride in the area. As with most of the lions at Mombo, I could immediately recognise the family by its territory and the number and gender of its individuals. The males were the female’s sons, too young to be a threat to the dominant males and not quite old enough to be useful hunters. They were about two years old, with the first wisps of mane surrounding their faces. Within the year, their father and uncle who ruled the entire north of Mombo would drive them away, before they could challenge them. Until then they would stick by their mother, who was their nurturer, provider, and often unwilling playmate as they roughhoused with her tail while she tried to catch food. In fact their only value was that they were fearsome looking enough to keep hyenas at bay when a kill was made. Their mother didn’t have it easy.
“This pride is marginalised because it only has one adult,” I explained to the guests. “Bigger prides with more adults don’t want competitors around, and have pushed this little family into the flooded areas all winter. We see them hunting in the water quite often and have started calling them the Otter Pride.”
As I spoke I was weighing which route to take to get a closer look, or whether to follow at all. The plain was muddy where it wasn’t still under shallow water, and I knew there was a fair chance of getting the vehicle stuck. If I had known that getting bogged in the mud was not the worst thing that could happen, I would have held my tongue and not pointed out the lions at all. Instead I explained that we would do some real driving to get a little closer.
The lions were setting up to stalk a herd of antelope, so I didn’t want to get too close and draw attention to the hunters. Instead I planned on looping around both predators and prey, so that when the chase occurred they would be running straight at us, which is a spectacular sight. The guests were enthusiastic about the plan, and at first I made encouraging progress. Across the plain were a number of low mounds made by a type of grass-eating termite. These created small islands, and I zigzagged from one to the next, racing across the sticky patches in between.
The lions kept moving, we kept following, and the water got deeper. First it was only midway up the tires, then it started sloshing over the running boards. Some started to seep through the decayed rubber seals of my door, making my feet cold. I had some small doubts about our ability to get any closer to the lions, but I was twenty-three years old and thought I was James Bond—so I pushed on.
By now there was a voice at the back of my mind that was nagging me, insisting that I just say to the guests, “Well, we can’t get any closer. We’ve seen so much already. Let’s go back and have our coffee, such a lovely morning, really,” but I had a masculine imperviousness to nagging and was enjoying myself skidding around in the mud. I started to show off and was shouting out the names of the plants and birds we passed as we revved and roared through the deepening water. “Black-winged stilt! Wild date palm! Vlei ink flower! White-browed coucal! Water lily!”
Oh bugger, I thought. Water lilies only grow in deep water. Before I could impart this nugget of information, the vehicle plunged abruptly into a channel, dropping near vertically.
The hole we were in could only be a narrow channel, I thought, as there was a dense island of trees nearby that would grow only on higher ground. As a wave came over the bonnet and soaked me (the Land Rover had no roof, nor a windshield), I gun
ned the engine, which was now burbling strangely, and we shot up the opposite bank. I kept revving, and we slid onto firmer ground. I let the engine run until it had burped out whatever water it had swallowed. Then I switched it off.
As much as I disliked the thought of what my guests must look like, I turned around.
It was motley.
The couple from England was sitting on the rearmost of the three tiers of seats, which offers the best viewing but is also in the firing line of any mud that spits off the front wheels. It was apparent that while I was avoiding getting stuck by plowing on, they had been splattered several times. But instead of being the usual blotchy and spotted mudpack, they wore a streaky, Jackson Pollock–like mess. The wave of water had splashed them just enough to cause all the ooze to run down their rather bedraggled-looking clothing. The Americans were not much better off. While they had avoided the worst of my mud flinging, the wave that had shot over me had landed full force on the first row of seats, where they were sitting. Their hair was plastered to their faces, and the lady had the leaf of some aquatic plant behind her ear. They looked rather grim, and reading their faces gave me the impression that they did not think highly of me or the way I drove.
“Well,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll be going back that way.”
That decision was as big a mistake as following the lions in the first place, which I now announced we would be giving up on. The cats had continued through the floodplains, and I knew that if we carried on it could only lead to us getting stuck so badly that I would have to call for help to get us out. And like all guides I hate having to call for help.
After some placatory language to my guests, and apologising for their damp state of affairs, I announced that we were now on the other side of the very lagoon that I had intended to stop at earlier. The lagoon is fed by a channel in the opposite direction from the way in which we had come. I remembered when it had dried up the year before that there was a place in that channel where the bottom was sandy and shallow. We would cross there, have our coffee, and then make a slow way back to camp for breakfast, maybe finding the buffalo herd whose tracks we’d seen and, despite our aquatic incident, could still declare the morning a great success.