We sail out of Ushuaia in spitting drizzle and fog. It’s only four hours to Puerto Williams, and we celebrate our departure with a bottle of champagne. The boat’s strict no drinking while underway policy is already falling by the wayside. I quickly discover that Spirt of Sydney, built as a solo around-the-world racer, offers almost nowhere to sit out on deck. We eat our chicken curry dinner while standing, trying to keep out of the rain. Trying to avoid getting stuck cleaning dishes, I grab my cameras and head back on deck, photographing the warm glow from down below as the midnight sun fades.
Throughout Botswana, park rules dictate a strictly enforced sunset curfew. But as my second grade teacher put it succinctly, “Paul thinks rules are for others.” So it was nearly midnight, with a lightning storm crackling in from across the border with Zambia, that I parked myself in a foul-smelling water hole and waited. The pride crept in silently, stopping to drink from the meager, fetid pond during their evening hunt, waiting for the rains to return.
As it is, rental cars and I already have a long and eventful history. A wheel flying off along Johannesburg's M-1. A windshield gone missing in Port-au-Prince. A little unpleasantness in Jerusalem regarding inexplicable rock damage. I've learned to say "Dude, it was like that when I picked it up" in seven languages. So it was with my usual brio that I picked up my designated safari vehicle, a sporty Toyota mini sport ute. After two weeks the muffler's been stove in, there's an alarming clattering every time I turn left and a fortnight's worth of spilled cookie crumbs have attracted a vigorous and rapidly expanding insect population.
Like I said, nothing new.
It wasn't until photographing a lion pride at dusk when I encountered an altogether new sound. I looked in the mirror in time to see an oversized tabbie lit blood red by the brake lights crunching on my bumper. I look at the holes she punched through the high impact plastic, look at my skinny, sunburned arm, and roll the windows up.
The insect life here has taken a liking to me as well. Assorted flies, ants and spiders have taken to calling my truck home. I thought the cookie crumbs would suffice, but one took an inexplicable liking to my foot. I felt a sharp sting, swatted, swerved and swore mightily, then went back to the never-ending business of disassembling my vehicle piece by piece. No matter how hard I ignored it though, the bite became a welt and kept right on swelling until achieving altogether elephantine proportions. I don't much care for doctors under any continent, but this seemed beyond the range of meager supply of Tylenol PM and Bactine.
Every time I pack for East Africa, I take a look at the map; take note of the equator slicing through Kenya, and pack accordingly. But these plains lie more than a mile above sea level and the nights cool down fast. The autumn short rains have begun as well and each day starts clear and crisp, turning hot by noon until puffy cumulus clouds build into an eggplant-colored squall. It cuts loose without warning, a driving deluge that knocks the temperature down 30 degrees in as many minutes. Most nights it settles into a nagging cold drizzle that gives tent campers a head start on the chest cold season.
Somehow I managed to pack for a three-week camping safari without any excess baggage, but no matter how many times I dig through my duffel bags, all that cozy Patagonia fleece remains resolutely back home in Seattle. Instead, my desert weight sleeping bag and see-through tent have kept me on intimate terms with the elements here. If I sleep under a week's worth of dirty laundry, it's not really so bad.
I've driven more than a thousand miles so far, all of it in second gear and none of it on anything resembling a proper highway since leaving greate metropolitan Nairobi. Dust tracks wind through the bush, most no more than
tire tracks in the grass. When those give out, you can make your own. After a good afternoon soaking the black-cotton soil goes both icy slick and just about bottomless. The act of steering becomes less a command than wishful thinking as the car slithers and lurches about.
Cheetahs rely on stealth as much as their legendary speed to catch the gazelles that are the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast. One morning this mother stalked three different herds of gazelle with an entourage of three playful cubs and a dozen rumbling diesel trucks. The element of surprise is frequently in short supply, and in spite of hitting highway
speeds, she came back winded and hungry each time. I'd happily share my lunch, but I doubt Pringles and canned curry would settle any better in her stomach than mine.
I do help matters some by accidentally flushing a hiding gazelle fawn from the tall grass. All wobbly legged, she looks like Bambi but the cheetah is in an unsentimental mood,
and has it in her sights instantly. I ponder the ethical and karmic implications of all this as the cheetah walks, then trots and finally throws on a last minute burst of speed to grab the fleeing fawn.
Bambi doesn't stand a chance in hell, not even when mum lets her go. It's
sort of catch and release hunting; training for her cubs. They give chase, tackle and thoroughly maul the fawn before finally having it for lunch. I feel awful for the fawn, but a whole lot worse when my camera jams as I'm shooting her bleating demise. The cheetah cubs feast and grow strong, vast herds of gazelle still fill the plains and mum is already looking around for seconds.
