Game on

Weather - Maximum temperature – 41 degrees Celsius

- Weekly Rainfall – 9mm

Highlight of the week

Mango season has arrived. 19 mangos for 5 Kwacha (about 25p)

Lowlight of the week

Avocado season is over

Some of you are in the know. Others are, as yet, uninitiated. Dust, unbearable heat, bugs, core strength exercises enforced by uneven terrain and uncertain suspension. Rituals with binoculars and cameras, performed in open vehicles. The terror of an untamed wilderness, capable of piercing our world with tusks, claws or teeth. I speak of the dominant unit of currency in the South Luangwa Valley. The game drive. A compulsion for many. Love it, or hate it, the game drive needs its own blog.

David Attenborough’s voice was ever present in my childhood. To my great delight my childhood persists. Sir David is immortal. He narrates the life stories of the creatures that fascinate me and Keith. His voice evocative and transporting. It takes us to the African bush and to other exotic locations. But his voice depends on a symbiotic relationship with moving images. It is the moving images of natural beauty that we crave. But we want more than even that. We want to be present as the wildlife lives. Even as the predator strikes. Even as the solitary creatures dance together to splice their DNA. Gritty. Uncensored.

The programmes that David Attenborough narrates bring extraordinary wildlife to our homes. But only now do I fully appreciate how much time, patience and skill goes into making a single episode. Of course, the BBC don’t have a monopoly on making ground breaking wildlife films. South Luangwa’s own Will and Lianne Steenkamp devote their lives to capturing the agony and the ecstasy of predators living in the wild. Their recent award-winning film: Olimba. A Leopard Odyssey is breath-taking. Their images surpass anything that Sir David narrates. But what really sets their film apart is the heart retching story of Olimba’s triumphs and failures. Olimba’s family traumas will have you gripped. Perhaps in tears. One hour of viewing bliss takes 2 to 3 years to film.

Take us to the leopard enclosure please. We tease our guide, and friend, Kiki. Many tourists might expect that a drive in the park is like a trip at the zoo. But wild animals aren’t looking to show punters their best side. Prey animals seek to stay alive and obscure. Predators choose to hide from both prey and all third parties, including Valley doctors. None of these creatures evolved to feature on the cover of National Geographic. Other tourists think that they can fast forward their game drive to check out the mating aardvarks, wildlife documentary style. In the same way that Will and Lianne Steenkamp skilfully tell Olimba’s story: our friend Kiki, and the other highly skilled guides of the South Luangwa Valley, bait you with anticipation. Infect you with their enthusiasm. Dazzle you with knowledge and fascinating tit bits relevant to our common quest. The chase is on. They use all of their senses to lead us to the perfect viewpoint. Listening to the alarm calls of puku antelope. Following the vaguest trail of footprints in the dust. Smelling the carcass of an impala hanging in a tree. Finally, the climax. The predator revealed. Delivered up close and personal.

The game drive is ninety percent anticipation and ten percent action. Even on a good day. To promote a sense of anticipation: many guides will ask you what is on your wish list. Just the big five please. Aim high. But without time travel, or Chitty-chitty Bang-bang, that request would be setting your guide up to fail in South Luangwa I’m afraid. Our fellow man has long since done for the rhino. Last seen locally in 1998. These days North Luangwa provides the closest enclave of rhino. Fortunately, the rest of the big five are still plentiful in South Luangwa, although you still need plenty of nous to find them. To maximise your chances, you need a highly trained guide, with well-tuned senses and stacks of patience to cope with shy creatures constantly taking evasive action. Expectant guests pay big bucks for that perfect image. The livelihood of a guide depends on satisfied guests.

Talking about good days: I’ve previously mentioned that Keith defines a good day as one in which an elephant has been sighted. He loves that I trust guides to allow these magnificent beasts to approach us when they appear affable. In the Honey badger (our car) I tend to insist that we give elephants an extra wide berth to be on the safe side. Whilst we relish the anticipation of seeing anything vaguely interesting in the park and savour the joy of being in the great outdoors in any shape or form some things float our boat more than others. To help you to understand what our personal favourite sightings are: we have developed a grading system. Elephants are still Keith’s favourites, but their ubiquity gives our safari outings a baseline. Good. Any day can be upgraded by a more rare and precious sighting. Big cats take things up a level to excellent. Our friend Yvonne’s cat Shouting doesn’t count. Too small. Having said that: the progeny of big cats raises the stakes further to outstanding. Small big cats are particularly cute. They make for outstanding images. I hope that you are still with me? And the endangered status of wild dogs automatically makes them an outstanding sighting. And wild dog pups, whilst in the first few weeks of life, are said to be magical.

Personality dictates the safari experience. Birders might prefer to tick off sightings from a wish list. Or perhaps a pristine image, shot at close quarters might be your bag. Eager to prove your prowess to yourself, or to your peers. But you get what you pay for in the Park. A guide will not only find you your preferred quarry. They will get you to the best position to view and photograph them. Even ensuring that the light is in the best position, so that you can sell the image to the National Geographic. Keith agrees with me that guided drives are a quantum leap up from self-drive safaris. Mostly because he likes to get close to elephants. But I have also been known to yell at Keith to wind up the windows of the Honey badger to keep patrolling lions out. Open game viewing vehicles afford you no real protection against marauding big cats. But somehow there is a virtual barrier around a vehicle that allows light to penetrate for photos and videos but provides absolute protection against incursion by any animal, with one notable exception. Elephants with attitude.

We come full circle to the elephant. Understand their body language or feel their wrath. Elephants have an uneasy relationship with humans. Elephants roam outside the park into areas that were historically theirs. Our villagers grumble that elephants steal their fruit and make them constipated (Please read our blog called Doctors Doolittle). Many shoo them off vocally, but others resort to sticks and stones. A childhood rhyme reminds me that the relationship between elephants and humans is damaged much more by force majeure. If only we could confine ourselves to calling them names. Sticks, stones and even bullets come their way. Elephants are hunted in the game management areas nearby. Hunters claim that their numbers need to be controlled. Hunters also inflate the estimates of apex predators in the area to justify taking a quota of sickening trophies. I’m sceptical that we should believe their claims.

Professional guides rock. Their senses are super senses. They would knock spots off the bionic man. I don’t even care if I’m mixing metaphors. Switching off the engine to sharpen his hearing, Fannuel immediately pricks his ears. There is a predator 500 metres away, immediately to our North. Likely a leopard. He guns the Land Rover. In a flash we find the leopard and her cubs. A magical moment. Delivered by a super sense.

A different day, a different guide. We return to camp at the end of a night drive. Four lions and two leopards in the bank. John reads the bush telegraph. That’s an alarm call. Something is unsettling the baboons. They’re not too worried though. Probably hyaena. The lights of our land cruiser and our spotter’s search light soon confirm his reading of the situation. Four skulking hyaenas. Uncanny.

At the risk of repeating myself I need to share my absolute fear with you. Although Keith and our guides assure that me that we are protected from predators by an invisible force field in our open vehicles, I can’t shake off my abject terror when a lion walks our way. She fixes her gaze on mine. Would my massive camera lens protect me at all? I doubt it. Perhaps it is this sort of exhilarating experience that draws me back into the Park, again and again? Lions in action. Possibly they are my favourites.

I didn’t expect to be writing about pray here. Agnostic as I am. Sorry, I meant prey. There is considerable pressure on guides to provide their guests with predator sightings. But the vast majority of park creatures are potential prey. Just as fantastic as predators and usually more accessible. Prey animals are more numerous by a factor of at least ten and possibly by a factor of one hundred. The other day we watched a lone male giraffe for over an hour. He masterfully wrapped his elongated blue tongue around fresh shoots and flowers dangling from a sausage tree. Jurassic Park has nothing more exotic. Legs too long to drink safely. Eyelashes too long and splendid to need mascara. With all the fantastic beasts that the Park hosts we have plenty to watch and admire even before the carnivores deign to make an appearance. Amazingly even elephants are subject to predation. A four-year-old elephant was taken down by two male lions last month. Thankfully unwitnessed by human eyes. The lions feasted for days. Ranks of hyaenas and squadrons of vultures had to wait their turn until after the kings of the jungle were sated.

Most game drives last three to four hours. The morning routine involves being in the vehicle by 0600. We hope to catch game in action. Playing, hunting or mating. As the sun starts to fry mammalian brains, shade is sought. Then there is little action. Only sleeping and panting. Some prey animals tolerate the sun well. But open game viewing vehicles only provide air conditioning whilst in motion and the return to camp is triggered by a combination of hunger, thirst and borderline heat stroke. Many safari goers will siesta during the day but Keith and I rarely settle when staying in a camp. Surrounded by fantastic beasts to watch and admire – elephants, snakes or baboons - we always seem to be on the go. Sometimes our restlessness is due to an obligation to provide medical care to camp staff or tourists. By 16:00 we are back in the Land Rover. Raring to go. A short period of well illuminated game viewing follows. The sun heads west and the light fades. Sundowners revive us and prepare us for a change of pace and style. The search light comes out and now we are all eyes. Eyes shine in the dark. Prey animals cower. Predators prowl.

We are unpaid volunteers here in South Luangwa. But we are paid handsomely with open access to the Park. Skilled guides reimburse our own gifts of time and expertise to the Valley population with matching time and expertise. The bush gives freely to those with ample patience. We are not on holiday in Zambia. But our down time is exciting and absorbing. Please don’t feel too sorry for us eschewing the luxuries that Kwetu and the developed world usually provide. We’re doing alright.