Running in the Wild

1． The moment I spotted the two Land Cruisers with blue license plate (the unmistakable UN symbol) moving towards me, I knew that we were in for serious business. They were not those imitation trucks that stayed on the paved roads, but true 4WDs with masculine body and fat tires meant for the mud, dirt and rocks. I was in Tanzania to service an international meeting and came a few days earlier to join my friend, Mitch, and her colleagues from a local UN office on what Mitch described as an unforgettable “once-in-a-life-time” safari. It turned out to be a truly unforgettable experience as I was richly rewarded with fond memories from observing people and watching animals as well. “Welcome to Africa,” Mitch jumped down from the high-clearance truck and opened up her arms. I had reached out for a casual handshake but hastily changed in the mid-air to meet a bear hug. Oh, yes. This was Africa, a land known for its open, natural and wild spirit. Mitch introduced me to the rest of the safari platoon. There were altogether six of us, plus two drivers. “I had to turn away many others,” Mitch couldn’t conceal her excitement, “so that everyone aboard gets a window seat.” Even with same seating privileges and genuine 4x4s, I soon noticed, all travelers were not equal. We in the first car were dead serious about the trip. There were maps and print-out sheets, globe position device, Nikon SLR cameras, in addition to marine outfit, hiking boots and yes, a registered pistol. In sharp contrast, travelers on the other car appeared enviably relaxed and casual, carrying such items as sun glasses, sun hats and point-and-shoot cameras that would fit more for the sand than for safari: A lady from Myanmar was even wearing full-length sarong and flip-flop sandals. I began to wonder who knew better how to enjoy a safari. 2． Our destination was Selous Game Reserve, about two hundred kilometers south of Dar es Salem, the capital of Tanzania. It was one of the three UNESCO World Heritage sites in the country and with a size of 50,000 square kilometers, the largest national park in Africa. “As big as Switzerland”, travel literature loved to claim, an association my colleagues in Geneva might not feel flattered with. We stopped to spend a night in Saadani, a place recently carved out and added to the list of national parks. Only a few black-and-white colobus monkeys came out to greet us. I learnt that it would be some time before large numbers of wild animals were relocated from elsewhere. The lodge we stayed, “Tent with a View”, consisted of a bunch of thatch-roofed huts, all facing the Indian Ocean. The owner, a one-braided blond in her 40’s, led a team of black servants to receive us. We were duly informed of the 6pm-10pm lighting hours, the only time electricity would be available, and not so subtly reminded of the necessity of tipping the stuff. A quick dip in the ocean soaked away the driving fatigue. I experienced the queer feeling of a warm upper torso but frigid lower body, thanks to the strong sunshine on the surface. After a late 3-course dinner, we set on the balcony floor to watch the sparkling stars. Underneath salty waves lapped ashore repeatedly and washed away any residual of city life in me, as my mind drifted in the cool breeze. 3. Intoxicated by the sentiment of becoming part of nature, we zigzagged our way into Selous Game Reserve, after some eight hours of bumpy ride on hideously scarred roads, passing villages of thatch-roofed bandas as children dashed out from nowhere to wave at us. Selous Safari Lodge set right on the bank of Rufiji River. There were 10 dark green canvas tents pitched on wood platforms, buried deep among trees and bushes. Each tent had two zipper doors: the front entrance and the back one that led to the shower and toilet. The sound of zipping up and zipping down from various tents was rather pleasing to the ears. The owner, a rather laid-back English man, spent most time drinking beers with lodge guests, leaving the business with his black manager. I fell asleep to the best surround-sound music played by anonymous insects and night creatures in a 360-degree concert hall. Granted, it sounded more like an endless tuning session whereas the conductor never showed up. Morning calls came at about 6 o’clock, when hippos in the river let out their sonorous yawning. I could hear monkeys crushing nuts and crashing twigs on the trees. At one point a steady stream of water dripped onto the canvas tent. Since it was not raining, I could safely assume that it came from a monkey answering nature’s call. 4. Such feeling of being part of nature was the theme song throughout our journey. It was accompanied by the feeling of freedom. Free to be yourself, to go into no-man’s land and free from worldly concerns. In Swahili, it’s ‘Hakuna Matata’. The spirit of unrestraint was perhaps best exemplified in C.F. Selous, after whom the reserve was named in 1922. Son of then London Stock Exchange Chairman, he refused to follow the family career and came to Tanzania to chase after wild animals rather than live stock futures. Our travel companion, Felik, turned out to be another type of freedom fighter. A forty-something from Ghana, he was a savvy, enthusiastic mountain climber. While most of the colleagues at his age had decided to settle down in the U.N. for a secured pension, he was busy with elaborating a business plan for “a piece of” undeveloped land back at his hometown. “I won’t stay with the UN for long,” he exclaimed, “because I don’t want to live like a suitcase to be shipped around by others.” My friend Mitch represented a typical example. She moved back to Africa after a two-year stint with a U.N. agency in the highly congested, flamboyant city of Bangkok. Now she planed to trot through every national park in southern Africa before her retirement. “I missed the fresh air in Africa, even if it’s mixed with garbage burning smell,” she confessed before leaving Thailand. “I also missed the openness and the feeling of free-riding in the wild.” 5. ‘A free ride in the wild’ was just what we did. Selous was not as popular as her two World Heritage siblings up in the north, Serengeti and Ngorogoro, largely due to the inconvenience of access. It was nevertheless unique in two ways. It boasted of Rufiji River and its tributaries that cut across the entire area, ideal for a boat safari. It also embodied varied terrain of rolling savannah, woodland and scattered bushes that added to the surprises and thrills from sudden discoveries. Fewer visitors meant less congestion and more adventure. In much tramped parks you would just follow other cars. Four or five trucks enclosing on one lonely lion was a fairly common scene. Not in Selous, where we were very much on our own, deeply swallowed by the woods and bushes. The pure pleasure lied in operation search-and-enjoy. “You first look at the tire marks on the road,” our driver James told me. “They would tell you where another car went and how long ago.” It sounded like safari drivers communicate with each other by leaving tire trails behind, much like other mammals did. Animal dropping was another way to track the whereabouts. Mitch pointed to some elephant dung nearby and explained that the freshness indicated how far the animals had gone. Perhaps the easiest way was to get some tips from other travelers over the dinner table. We drove madly for some two hours in search of a reported bloody, smelly scene where a wildebeest was killed by 20 lions the day before. Despite of clear directions, we still lost our way and reluctantly returned with wild imagination only. Even the global positioning device didn’t offer much help. “It won’t tell you how to get around inside the park,” the owner told me dryly. “But with proper marking, it can surely tell you how to get back.” Yes, that was how dogs remembered their way home by marking the trees. 6. High-tech did have its place during our expedition, in a rather amusing way. Jina, a short lady from Indonesia, was a devoted Muslim. Since our safari began on the last day of Ramada, she remained in the truck fasting while we enjoyed our picnic lunch in a gas station. But later that evening she joined us for dinner. “I had to see a new moon before I could end the fast,” she said. I looked up in the dark sky and swallowed my question with a sip of beer. There was no sight of moon at all. “Oh don’t worry,” Jina was quick to dispel my doubt. “Oh I just received a short message on my mobile phone from relatives in Geneva,” she smiled, biting a chicken leg. “They saw the new moon above Lake Leman. So it ends the fast for all of us.” I felt intrigued by her ingenuity and asked if there were other IT applications for religious purposes. “Oh, many other ways,” she glowed proudly. “For example, I go on the web to get the exact date when Ramada begins.” What a difference it would have been had we had an IT gadget to track the wild animals. On the other hand, the “eyes-wide-open” search was also a lot of fun. It was a game that heightened our sensation and led to surprising, even heart-stopping encounters with animals. Once we almost ran into a giraffe. It was so close that I could see the hollow nostrils of his drooping nose. Another time we were passing a narrow opening but didn’t notice the elephants close by. Then we heard some noise and saw a male elephant, barely 10 meters away, turned his head toward us, ears flapping angrily. “Get out now!” Mitch almost screamed. “He’s going to charge!” I was thrown back hard against the seat as James jerked the car in full throttle and sped away. “Do you really think the elephants could get us?” I asked, once we were out in the open area. “Well, it depends on how you drive,” James let out his typical smile. “Never go straight. You have to zigzag your way out.” He checked the rear view mirror as if to make sure we were not followed by uninvited wild guests. 7. James was surely a likable person and loved to tell folk stories. I was truly amused by his one-of-a-kind humor. “I need to stop here to see my uncle,” he once said blankly, pulling over into a busy village market. But paying such a social visit would mean serious delay in our schedule, I reckoned to myself. Mitch laughed in an understanding manner: “James invented such an expression to request a toilet stop.” Another time when we were deep into the winding woody paths, James reduced the speed again. I thought he wanted to have a rendezvous with his uncle when he looked left and right and declared, matter-of-factly, “I think I lost my radio around here about a year ago.” “What? How do you know it hasn’t been picked up by someone else already?” I couldn’t believe my ears. Even Mitch frowned. “James, are you sure it was here, in the middle of nowhere?” she sounded rather incredulous. James beamed apologetically. “Sorry. I’m just waiting for our colleagues’ car to come up.” He checked the rear-view mirror again and said, “It’s easy to get lost around here.” 8. It was surely easy to lose direction in Selous. But it was easier to lose oneself amid the awesome beauty of nature and be deeply struck by how man and nature could be in perfect harmony. Two moments of most exciting, unforgettable experience came in a most undramatic way: quietly observing chunky elephants near the woods and slender giraffes drinking by the pond. On both occasions we simply moved close enough to the animals, shut off the engine and rolled down the windows, watching in silence. The elephants were chewing on the grass and tree leaves in perfect ease and leisure. I could smell the juice dripping from their mouths. One or two babies tagged along their mothers lovingly. The males threw a glance at us from time to time. The giraffes were more cheerful. They had ingenious ways to move their clumsy body. To drink, they split their rear legs and bent the front ones, drooping down into the water. To play, they either touched noses in the front or rubbed their bottoms in the rear. It was like a roll of landscape water-color painting unfolding, in which we were both painters and subjects. The occasional clicking of camera shutter added to the tranquility of heavenly peace. You may say that these animals could also be seen in zoos. But you wouldn’t see them at their best. If you visited a friend and found him in the blue, wouldn’t you feel bad, too? 9. Alas. The luxury of getting close to wild animals and being part of nature could cost you an arm and a leg. Be prepared to be taken for a ride when you ride deep into the woods. For the lodges charge hefty figures for full-board accommodation that include three meals. They start at around US$100 per room and could jump to US$500 per head per night at those lodges inside the park. The latter, dubbed ‘fully inclusive’, throws in 2-3 guided safari tours. Even the peripheral services extorted not-so-reasonable charges. Boat safari on Rufiji River cost $30 a pop. Want to see birds? A guided tour would chop another $30, regardless of the size of the group. A colleague of mine went into Ngorogo for a three-day fly-camp safari, whereby he moved around with rented tent. His total cost: $900 and up, excluding round-trip airfare. Luckily, we as a group of residents paid $50-70 per night throughout the trip, thanks to the meticulous planning and hard bargaining by our veteran fellow traveler Mitch and her colleagues. African safari was basically a rich-man’s game, plain and simple. 10. But for those of you lucky and daring explorers who finally made the trip, it would be a once-in-a-life-time experience indeed. You would be richly rewarded and never regret it. Let’s close our eyes and imagine: a bumpy, off-road ride in a camouflaged 4X4, a noisy, heart-sinking flight in a 10-seater plane, breathing in pure, fresh air mixed with a little exotic body fragrance, and gazing into the open, endless savannah dotted with lonely, exotic trees. Don’t you want to take off your shoes and socks to feel the tickle of the soft grass in between your toes? Don’t you want to run, no traffic light and no stop sign, just run and run? Well, this is Africa, where you get a run in the wild.