Tusk And Go Situation

Sun Herald

Sunday May 3, 1998

Tom Hyland

Safaris offer the chance to commune with animals in the wild, but just how close do you want to get? Tom Hyland reports. WHEN confronted by a charging elephant, the trick is to remember that, nine times out of ten, it isn't charging at all.

You're given lots of advice about wild animals if you go on safari. Like what do in the unlikely event of being charged by a rhino: stand still, face the animal and step aside at the last moment.

Sounds easy enough.

We were in the Matetsi wildlife reserve, near the Zambesi River. This is in the north-west corner of Zimbabwe. Victoria Falls is 40km down the road, Zambia is across the river and to the west are Botswana and Namibia.

Our safari guide, Priscillah Marira, normally carries a rifle. But not this time, as we were driving between camps, not looking for game to watch.

We were in a four-wheel-drive vehicle when we spotted the elephant, a tusker, about 7m away, browsing in the thick scrub at the side of the track.

He spotted us, too, and gave every appearance of not liking what he saw. He raised his head, flapped his ears, lifted his trunk, sniffed at us and motioned menacingly. We watched him, he watched us, and he looked as if he was going to come our way.

Marira switched off the engine and let the Land Rover roll back.

"Let him come," she said.

Easy for her to say. As a professional guide, she is paid to know when a charging elephant is not a threat.

As it turned out, the elephant was only being cautious: it is called "mock charging". He was annoyed rather than enraged, and backed off silently into the scrub, leaving us gasping with delight.

In the jargon of eco-tourism, this is what they call an "interpretive wildlife experience".

The jargon does no justice to the pleasures of safari travel. Nor does it mention that part of the wildlife experience is the thrill which comes from getting close to a big, dangerous beast.

On safari, around the campfire at night, you hear plenty of stories about close encounters with dangerous animals.

While attacks on humans may be rare, the risk is real, even if you sometimes get the feeling that the guides play up the risks, knowing that this is what travellers want to hear.

Matetsi is a five-star safari camp on 50,000ha, once a hunting concession, now a privately-owned game reserve given over to eco- tourism.

You don't rough it at Matetsi.

The lodges have canvas roofs, teak floors, air conditioning, mini-bars and full-length windows overlooking grassland and scrub.

Each lodge has a large bathroom. If you are into eco-decadence, you can recline in your bath, a chilled Zambesi lager in hand, and watch the wildlife drinking and bathing at a waterhole 70m away.

At night at Matetsi, a guard escorts you to your lodge after dinner.

A note given to guests warns that the camp is not fenced and animals are free to move throughout the area: "Please be aware of the associated risks and dangers."

From the open-air dining area at Matetsi you can look across to a pan where animals come to drink and bathe and wallow. BULL elephants slowly make their way up the valley. Zebra, wildebeest and buffalo are shoulder to shoulder at the waterhole, like drinkers at a bar.

A mischievous, unruly army of baboons advances along the valley, scattering zebra and antelope. A sable antelope with massive curved horns canters from the scrub after carefully assessing the scene.

Dozing in the dust are three lugubrious wart- hogs. They bear a distinct resemblance to a well- known member of the Australian Senate.

If Matetsi is too up-market for your budget or taste, Mahenye Safari Lodge, across the country in south-east Zimbabwe, on the border with Mozambique, offers more affordable comfort and charm.

Mahenye nestles under the trees on a small island in the Save River. The river forms the north-eastern boundary of Gona-re-zhou National Park, 5,000 sq km of dry scrub and home to more than 4,000 elephants.

We gathered on the river bank for afternoon tea and gazed across the Save towards the park. Across the river, baboons came down from the bush and sat at the water's edge.

We drank our teas and watched them. They drank from the river and watched us.

Mark Homann, senior guide at Mahenye, took us across the river by boat and led us into the scrub, where he loaded his rifle and told us what to do if any dangerous animal began heading towards us.

"Just stand still while we decide on a plan," he said.

"Whatever you do, don't try to run away, because any big animal can run faster than you."

We spent two hours walking in the thick bush, where we spotted large groups of impala and bushbuck.

Vultures flapped overhead. There were lots of animal tracks, but this time we didn't see any large, dangerous beasts.

But one of the thrills of a safari is not knowing if any large, dangerous beasts are seeing you.

Homann squatted in the dust, pulled apart a great round cake of elephant dung and handed it around. There is some-thing slightly surreal about being in a circle of Australian city-dwellers, gathered in the Zimbabwe scrub, sniffing and probing at lumps of dung.

But you can learn a lot about an animal by having a close look at its dung.

Such as when it had been in the area, what it had eaten, and which other beasts were now dining on its droppings.

And it adds a whole new dimension to the term "interpretive wildlife experience".

Late in the afternoon we walked back to the boat for "sundowners".

As well as a rifle, game guides usually travel with an icebox, and Homann produced chilled bottles of beer, gin and tonic.

So we sat on the sandbank, drinking and savouring the silence as sunset approached.

A flock of ibis flew by in V-formation.

The sun set quickly, the light at first a soft greyish pink then a deep gold. Within minutes it was dark.

On the way back to the lodge the boat struck a sandbank. We jumped into the crocodile- infested Save River topush the boat into deeper water.

This was an immensely therapeutic experience which put the stresses of urban life and the perils of corporate crocodiles into perspective.

The crocs are dangerous, of course. Near Mahenye, one recently took a young boy who fell asleep while fishing on the banks of the Save.

At Victoria Falls tourists are warned to beware of the lions.

Lions are comparatively inept hunters, usually preying on stragglers, the weak, the ill and the lame.

One is reputed to have found easy pickings among drunk revellers weaving their way home from the bars and discos.

To a lion, presumably, a weaving drunk looks like a weak, ill, lame straggler.

Crocs and lions, however, are not as dangerous as hippopotamuses.

This seems strange, given the hippos' lumbering gait, vegetarian diet, and generally whimsical behaviour.

But benign-looking hippos account for most of the attacks on humans by African animals.

Which just goes to show that, in Africa, things are never quite what they seem.

CHECK IN

FLIGHTS: South African Airways, phone 02 9223 4448, has three flights a week from Sydney and Perth to Johannesburg. Zimbabwe Express (02) 9264 8277 flies regional routes between Johannesburg, Harare and Victoria Falls.

PACKAGES: Bench International, (02) 9290 2665 or 1800 221 451 toll-free, has several Zimbabwe packages.

© 1998 Sun Herald

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