The Vastness of the Land

The morning started with our usual muffin & Lucky insisted I have some tea so I relented to keep him happy.

We then headed off at about 6.45am as the sun was rising.

Most of our walks are done in silence as we don't want to disturb the animals plus conversation is more difficult when I'm following along behind. This leaves a lot of time to look around, admire the beauty of Africa & contemplate life's big questions like, "I wonder what's in MD's backpack?" Plus others that are actually more serious.

Being out in the African bush brings a certain sense of belonging. So many people who have returned from here remark that, "There's just something special about Africa!"

Perhaps it's the realisation of how small you really are amongst the sweeping landscapes & giant animals here. Maybe it's a sense of coming home that somehow lingers deep in our collective psyche from when our ancestors first left these plains around 200,000 years ago. Or maybe it's just an amazingly unique place. Whatever it is, there's just something about Africa that makes it special & makes you want to return time after time.

The vastness of the land seems to put a lot of other things into perspective. Out here, all the problems of the world don't really seem to matter that much. It's just you, the land, the trees & of course the animals (the star attractions) in your own little African bubble. Maybe that's why MD's backpack has a label with "No Issue" on it ... or maybe it was just on special & he liked the colour! After following him & his backpack around the savannah for 5 days, you have time to think about these things!

The main thing that changes as you're walking along is the sound your boots make on the different surfaces. Sand squelches a little, the burnt & brittle grass shoots crackle, & the dry dust gives a dull thud each time you step on it. Apart from this, the other main noises are the swoosh swoosh of your trousers. But if you tune your ears beyond all of these, you hear a symphony of wind, bird calls, animal noises & buzzing insects all of which is fairly frequently punctuated by planes that now seem odd & intrusive as they ferry tourists & supplies in & out.

Tracking

Every now & then, MD will stop, point at some tracks, & say something like "The lion passed through here last night. Very fresh" Each time, I'm amazed at his knowledge & almost half expect him to say something like "The lion was female, she had a limp in her left hind leg, she had just eaten a meal of Kudu, in summer she enjoys long walks on the beach and in winter she loves to curl up with a good book in front of the fire."

He never said anything like this of course, but he seems to know everything there is to know about the animals out here. Like the trails that the hippo & elephants carve out so they can use these when they're accessing the water because they're a bit deeper than the surrounding land, the birds that follow lions around so they're always first when the lion makes a kill, or the way that female lions wait downwind while the male lion goes up wind & roars to scare the prey into the waiting jaws of the female. I wondered whether Dash, our male tabby cat, is somehow remembering this behaviour when he wanders the house at 2am wailing ... or maybe he's just being a pain in the ass!

As we continued our walks together, I felt like I was slowly improving. "That was a zebra call wasn't it?" and I was often right. "Is that a herd of Impala over there?" or "These tracks were made by water buffalo, correct?" I was feeling good about the knowledge I'd gained until I'd ask if these tracks were made by a snake. "No, pigeon". Damn, I was so close!

He means well

Usually MD had lots of interesting things to teach me about but sometimes he just stated the bleeding obvious (quite often repeatedly) and it was all I could do to just grunt my acknowledgement because inside my head was screaming "Derrrrr!". Maybe he reacts the same way in his head when I try to guess the wildlife calls!

Statements of his that fell into the facepalm category included:

• "This is the water," when we arrived at the river.
• "This is the breakfast," when sitting down to our first meal of the day, often around 10-11am after a 3-4 hour walk.
• "Sausage tree" when referring to a tree with large, sausage-shaped seed pods that he's pointed out to me about 100 times before. In my head, I always add "of Chicago". Thanks Abe Fruman.
• And my favourite, uttered after 2 days of walking around together, "This is Africa!"

He means well.