This week Ntobeko, our firstborn, sent a disgusting clip to the family WhatsApp group. It showed a bunch of European tourists on one of those open game-viewing Land Rover thingamalorries. The ranger makes a stop and a large lion approaches the vehicle. I sat up because I was thinking, "Hello! Action!"
As it turns out, this shameless, disappointing, poor excuse for a lion lumbered up to the vehicle and started playfully nuzzling the tourists. It was licking and caressing these yellow-toothed bastards, making me physically sick. I yelled at my screen, "Come on! Bite somebody, Simba! Claw at someone and make it look like an accident so that they don't put you down afterwards!" Alas, Simba is clearly in the throes of a hectic bout of Stockholm syndrome and doesn't want to rock the boat.
It is not a secret that I harbour a deep hatred for my species and what we have done, and continue to do to the world around us. I hate the fact that we have fenced "nature" behind electric wires because where we live is above and beyond nature, ostensibly.
Any time anyone suggests that I join a game drive, I respectfully decline and continue clipping my toenails.
Every time there's a story on the news about some tourist mauled by an animal, or a group of idiotic tourists following a visibly irritated elephant and being trampled to pieces, there is a collective gasp. "What happened? Oh, my goodness, what a tragedy!"
I'm personally surprised any time anyone tells me they went on a game drive and the story ends there. I keep waiting for the punchline, "And then a honey badger appeared out of nowhere and bit the tyres of our Discovery to shreds." I would feel then that the Lord's will had been done.
I felt that way even after the close shave I experienced with a warthog in Hluhluwe that I shared here a few years ago. Had I been standing just 5cm forward of where I stood, I'd definitely be on prosthetic limbs right now. And it would have been my fault for not exercising my self-preservation skills and staying away from a warthog's natural habitat.
Speaking of Hluhluwe, the last time I was at Phinda Lodge, our ranger was this easy-going, affable fellow. He was also a beer sponge, and if you plied him with enough Amstels, the most beautiful stories would tumble out of him. He told us that, about three weeks before our group visited, he had been with some tourists from Germany. In that main group was a quartet of grumpy, mean-spirited ladies in their late 60s.
Every supper time around the bonfire, and every breakfast they nagged him: "Ve vant to see lion kill!" The following day they'd be at it again, "Ve vant kill!" They were there for about a week. On the eve of their departure, the gods of the jungle answered their prayers. Over the ranger's two-way radio, one of the rangers on the ground tipped him off about a pride of lions encircling a herd of buffaloes. He loaded the Kill Quartet on the Land Rover and headed in that direction.
Now, when you see lions on BBC Wildlife, you don't get to hear the sound of claw piercing skin and the bellow of the trapped prey
They couldn't contain their excitement on the ride. "So, ve finally see kill?" they kept asking. "You vant kill, you see kill," he would respond. They parked their vehicle and waited. The ladies were getting impatient: "Vere is ze kill?" And then, without warning, the lions pounced on a calf.
Now, when you see lions on BBC Wildlife, you don't get to hear the sound of claw piercing skin and the bellow of the trapped prey. You don't get to smell the fear in the air or see the desperate look in the eye of what is, very often, just a baby buffalo or a zebra. The German ladies were watching it live. That's when they discovered that they didn't really "vant to see kill" after all.
They thought it would be swift and over in 30 seconds like on television. But the fight was significantly longer and far crueller than they'd imagined. After two minutes they were begging him to start the car and drive back. But he just sat there and gave them some story about how it wasn't a great idea to interrupt a kill. Faces were buried in hands, heads were hidden inside shawls.
Finally, they drove back in complete silence. When they got back to camp, three of the ladies got off the vehicle and hurried to their tents. The fourth one, ring leader of the Ve Vant Kill gang, did not budge. On further investigation it become apparent that during the kill, she had managed to soil herself.
I wish more visits to zoos and game reserves ended on such a high note.
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