safarhis

At dinner on the previous night, Onks told us that the French couple was leaving early in the morning so we would be the only guests. He suggested that we might want a lie in until 7am. We replied, in unison, that we would like to be out as early as we could, 6am if possible. With reluctance, Onks agreed to 6:30am. We suspected that the suggested lie in was more for his benefit than ours.

Whilst getting ready for bed, we had heard lions roar outside our tent in the direction of the watering hole. Our initial reaction had been to go outside and look for them but we remembered that we were no longer in the safety of the trucks – unseen by the animals – so stayed in and fell asleep to the sound of lions.

Breakfast was a calm affair without the French and the Japanese. At 6:30, we were at the truck waiting for Onks and determined to have a good day.

Onks had been told on the ‘grapevine’ that neither cheetah nor lion had been spotted yesterday, only the leopard. We had, however, all heard the lions so knew they were nearby.

By now, Rhiannon and I had started to “read the newspaper” ourselves and we helped Onks in following the lion tracks. The early mornings are the best time to consult the paper, when tracks are visible on the dusty roads, before being obliterated by the vehicles.

On a road which had yet to be disturbed by cars, Onks spotted two lions in the distance. He followed the track around and tentatively prepared to go ‘off road’. He did not like to do this because, as he had told us on several occasions, he might get a flat tyre. We did not understand this extreme level of caution. We had learned from Joe that flat tyres are a necessary evil and that going off-road is essential in order to stay in the game of following the game.

Whilst he worried about his tyres, Rhiannon and I took the lead in tracking the lions. We listened for the alarm calls and watched for birds off the ground until I saw a lion to the left of us. Alerting Onks, we followed and happened upon a male lion having a morning drink. Just ahead was a lioness who waited for him and they loped off together. We stayed with them until they passed through the bush and we could go no further. Onks slowly returned to the road.

This was a good start and, as it was the ‘golden hour’ the lighting was right. I was learning a lot about photography from my travelling companion.

Onks stopped for a tea break. He was in a good mood. Most unexpectedly, he picked up a handful of impala droppings. As boys, he explained, they had little money so would club together to buy a bag of sweets. They would then each take an impala dropping, place it in their mouths and spit it as far as they could. The ones who spit furthest won the sweets.

Onks demonstrated this to us, explaining that, as impalas eat only grass and vegetation, there is no harm to humans. After projecting his missile a reasonable distance, he offered me a dropping. I declined politely and told him he could have all the sweets. I did think, however, that it was a shame the French couple were not present. No doubt, they would have been as thrilled with this game as they were with the tusk-holding event.

We could not understand Onks. At times, he could be so moody and difficult with us. At other times, he could be engaging and interested in Rhiannon’s photography. “Do you want to try?” he would ask when he spotted something he thought she would like to capture. A couple of times, when Rhiannon had her camera trained on an LBR waiting for it to take off, Onks would open his door and stand up causing the bird to take to the air. He made it clear that he would never do this to get a reaction from an animal, only a bird.

I told him at the tea break that I enjoyed learning things about the animals and the land. This encouraged him to stop at different plants and tell us their properties. He explained that lions rub against wild sage to mask their smell before hunting prey and that the roots of the blue bush were used for toothpaste until the product became widely available and would turn the mouth and teeth orange. At one point, he stopped the truck to show us a video that had been sent to him of the leopard stealing the cheetahs’ impala. It was interesting but, rather than watching someone else’s video, we would have preferred him to try everything he could to find the cheetahs for us. We knew there was no guarantee and, had we wanted the certainty of seeing this particular animal, we would have gone to a zoo or a cheetah sanctuary instead. What we wanted and expected was for our guide to make every effort to see the animal that Rhiannon had mentioned from the outset

Onks announced that he was heading back to the lodge for lunch. Rhiannon asked him to stop so that she could photograph mongooses playing on a log. He became impatient and moody again. I suspected he was a man who never knowingly misses a meal.

At the camp, he told us we would leave again at 4pm. I asked if we could leave earlier. He said no, we would leave after High Tea. As this was three hours away and Rhiannon and I wanted to be out for as long as we could, I asked again at lunch, with his manager present, if we could please leave earlier. Again, he said no. I looked at the manager for her to intervene and she shrugged apologetically. The already slim chance of seeing a cheetah ebbed away and, although I had been very polite, it was clear that he was not going to go out of his way – literally – to help us.

Our evening game drive was uneventful. At one point, Rhiannon and I saw a few encouraging warning signs including spotting a vulture in a tree and birds sounding alarm calls. Reluctantly, Onks edged very slowly onto the scrubby ground near the vulture before spotting five other vultures in a tree across the way. We saw impala running fast, a dove in a tree and alarm calls from that direction so Onks did the only thing he could. He called in the vulture sighting and the scurrying impala on the radio and asked his colleague to come and join him so that we could follow in his tracks because Onks was not going to risk a flat tyre. We waited for 20 minutes before the colleague called back to say he was not coming. When Onks made to stop for a sundowner, we asked that he keep driving and we and he silently agreed that our ‘relationship’ was over. At dinner, he and the manager spoke Setswana and Rhiannon and I spoke Welsh. Well, she spoke Welsh and I did my best.

The following morning, we were leaving Mogogelo for our third and final camp. Onks was driving us to the airfield. Again, he asked if we wanted a lie in and again we declined. He had told us that cheetahs had been seen near the airfield and we still held the faintest of hopes.

At checkout, we were surprised to be charged for the laundry. In the other camps, it was complimentary and no mention had been made of a fee. Irritated, we paid and reduced the camp’s tip accordingly. We said goodbye to Selly and Feyn who were sweet girls and had, amusingly, asked for a selfie with Rhiannon and me.

The journey to the airport was difficult in that Onks was hardly speaking to us and we had passed the point of wanting to make an effort.

He spotted the tracks of wild dogs, then lost them. Even Rhiannon was not bothered at this point. Our expectations were at rock bottom.

Me: (apropos the wild dogs aka painted wolves) I’ve become very fond of them which is odd because I’ve always disliked wolves

Rhiannon: (horrified, as if I said I disliked Macsen the dog) How could you dislike wolves??

Me: Well, because of how they behave in fairy tales – they’re always the baddies.

Rhiannon (with the same expression she had as a little girl) I preferred the wolf to the three little pigs

Me: But what about Red Riding Hood?

Rhiannon: I was on the other side

We had the huge bonus of passing a hyena sitting by the side of the road. In typical Onks’ style, we saw him by chance which just showed the abundance of wildlife in the area. Rhiannon’s super camera detected an injury to the hyena’s eye. “Mami’ll be interested to see that,” she said.

We saw a lion running across our path but didn’t get up our hopes of getting closer. As Rhiannon said, it is difficult to follow a lion when you hit a top speed of 12.5 mph

Finally, we arrived at the airfield. Rhiannon boarded the little plane as I bade farewell to Onks. I imagine he made it back to the camp in time for lunch.