Sitting at my bungalow overlooking the Olifants River valley at 7:30 pm. It’s been a hot day, but not like a couple of days back, and now a dry wind is blowing as I sit here typing under the yellow light of my porch.
Moved to Olifants last night and was lucky enough to be assigned a bungalow overlooking the broad river valley. We’re coming to the end of the dry season and each night seems to build closer to rain. Last night I sat on the porch in the dark and watched the most amazing electrical storm over Mozambique. The sky was constantly alit with lightening flashes to the north and east. It was far enough away that you couldn’t hear anything but the substantial wind. It was like the end of the world and must have been scary as hell for the animals.
Long after I’d tried to go to sleep, the storm moved in to full thunder and heavy rain. All of the windows were open and, together with a troubling back, I didn’t get much sleep. So a different routine today. I didn’t get up until nearly six and then did a half-hearted drive around, had some toast and two double espressos and came back to take a nap. Slept a small bit, but felt better and went back out this afternoon.
Generally, the photography is going poorly. I’ll explain later what’s so damned difficult about it, but the bottom line is that getting anything here is, near as I can tell, about 90% luck. Last year, I was very lucky early. This year – well, I know the park better, know the animals and the bush better, and I’m just not getting crap. It’s hard to get up at 0415 every morning and just drive around and not get much of value. I get demoralized but then I find some place along a river and sit in my car in the shade and think about how beautiful it is here. It can be like a beautiful spring morning in the Texas Hill Country (except imagine it crawling with lions and elephants) and sometimes I sit and feel the breeze and listen to the birds and think about how good life can be. In a way, I think it’s like waiting for your luck to turn at poker. If you can hang in there and don’t go broke, it’s bound to change. Obviously my aversion to fighting the crowds doesn’t help because the simplest thing to do would be to drive around as fast as the law allows until I come to some traffic jam and then try and force my way in to photograph whatever sleeping lions there are. No thanks.
Last night, I was right at the end of the time window (the gate closes at 6:30pm and you’d better be there…) when some guy stopped me on the road and said that there was a male lion about 1K behind him. I had just enough time and because it was the end of the evening, traffic was thinning out so I took a chance. I was kicking myself because while he said the lion was on the left, I didn’t ask how far off the road and thought I might just miss him (you have no idea how easy it is to just drive right by a lion, especially with the light fading) but I needn’t have worried because as I came around the bend he was standing in the middle of the road looking (at about eye level) at some people in a new, black BMW. Then he flopped down on the road. Luckily the folks in the BMW didn’t stay long so I backed up by the lion and popped a few frames. He was a particularly spooky lion. Some kind of bad vibe about this guy. Something about the way his eyes never seemed to quite focus. If he is truly a solitary male (and I think he was), then his life is assuredly very hard. Anytime he wanders into a pride’s territory, he’ll represent a mortal threat to the males of the pride (typically prides are led by a coalition of 2 – 4 adult males). They will immediately drive him away or kill him if they can. It’s very difficult for a solitary lion (especially an old male) to hunt effectively, so I’m certain the guy was feeling very haunted. When I look at the photos, I can see how scarred up he is. Again, these aren’t Hollywood lions and life is very hard for them. It’s only a matter of time before a group of pride males catches up with him and sends him to lion heaven. Anyway, some lions look like big cats and make you go, “Aww.” Sometimes though you just know they’ve eaten people and you really are just protein.
Gina contacted me today, asking if there’d be some opportunity to Skype soon. That filled me with a sense of foreboding, fearing that something happened in my family, but it turned out to only be an insurance question. I was irritated, not with Gina to be sure, but that somehow that part of my life found me here. That part will come soon enough.
The rain yesterday doesn’t mark the end of the dry season. It’ll take several days of soaking rain. But soon, the termites will come.
Today is Saturday. The girls will be here in one week. I miss them a lot.
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