An African Adventure: Part 1

(A true Zimbabwe story)

It was a long weekend and we were headed up from Harare to Mana Pools, a nature reserve on the banks of the Zambezi River.

Not just any nature reserve, mind you. This is one where you get to camp among the animals! The sites have a toilet / shower, but that's it - no fences, no protection from wild beasts, just a number on a pole so you camp where you've booked to camp.

We got a bit of a late start. By the time we got to the ranger's station to pick up our entry permits, they'd already left for the day. Only one option for us, and that was to camp out right there and wait until morning.

We all scurried to set up camp before it got too dark. I had a little 2-kid tent, others had larger. Someone set out a huge canvas ground-sheet for those who would rather sleep in the open, and we dumped whatever wouldn't fit in the tents onto that.

Supper got underway. Fire going well, food flowing - and then someone knocked over a gas lamp, right next to my tent! It started exploding, and exploding, and exploding, as each gas chamber ignited - we counted 35! We took cover and prayed that the tent wouldn't melt. Fortunately our prayers were answered!

However, it was way too hot in the Zambezi valley to sleep in a tent, and we all ended up on the ground-sheet for the night.

Fast-forward a few hours. The moon was up, all was still (bar the one guy who snored). I woke up sometime near midnight, found my torch (flashlight) and decided to see if the tent was still standing. Yes.... but the beam of light reflected off EYES! Eyes that were definitely not human... Slowly I shone the torch around the perimeter of our camp. Eyes everywhere!

I woke Greg and Laura-Anne carefully, and they found their torches too. With the combined strength of our little lights, we made out that we were surrounded by a pack of hyenas!!! One would start moving toward us, we'd shine the light in his eyes and he'd back off. The next would make a move, we'd shine the liight, he'd back off.

Don't ask me why we didn't wake the others, but we stayed up the rest of the night, warding off hyenas with light. Finally, finally, the sun rose and the hyenas drifted off into the bush.



After breakfast a few of us decided to stretch our legs before the final haul to the reserve. We made our way past the little lake, stocked with dead trees, their branches reaching skywards through leftover mist. We climbed the small hill behind the lake... and froze.

There before us sat a semi-circle of hyenas - the same group that had paid us a midnight visit. They faced us with the leader in the middle - the biggest, meanest hyena I ever saw!

The one rule of bush walking is that you never run when you encounter a wild beast. Slowly, ever so slowly, we backed away, down the hill, out of sight - and then ran!

I'll never forget the look in those hyena's eyes - the strongest-in-Africa jaws - the fear that crept up and grasped at my throat. Fear equivalent to the "terrorist alarm siren" that used to cement my feet to the ground during primary school in the war years.

I wouldn't want to relive this adventure, but it's one I'll NEVER foget.

(You can read someone else's adventure at Mana Pools here, and another here or here - just so you know I'm not exaggerating! :) )