Hyena and Electricity

12/13 Monday and Tuesday: On Monday, while trying to find the dogs, Philip spotted a hyena walking toward us. He was a young one (the hyena) and kept getting closer and closer, until he was too close to photograph. He looked at us, smelled us, and even bit the tires to find out what we were. When he determined that we weren't anything he could eat, he ambled away down the path looking for something better to do. Tuesday we had an even more intimate encounter. We saw three youngsters, biting, chasing, humping, and generally roughhousing on the road. That was about 20 ft away, then they came closer. One of them bit the tires (do truck tires look like buffalo?) and then all three passed right along the vehicle, smelling for the dead meat we'd had in the back a few days ago. When I looked over the side, I found myself eye-to-eye and nose-to-snout with this incredible creature. They were inquisitive, but it might have been that they just wanted that meat from the back. One of the youngsters looked like he was about to put his paws up on the tailgate and look inside. The irony is, we have been tracking and baiting them all week, without finding them, but now we could have just leaned over and put the tracking collar on them. Except, of course, they're wild, making this one of the most intimate and memorable experiences we've had in the park.

On Monday afternoon we had an African experience of another kind. We were atop one of the highest hills of the reserve, tracking the dogs, when a storm came up. It was soon shooting lightning bolts across the sky and we figured holding up a metal antenna into the sky was no longer such a genius idea. We skittered down the slippery rocks on Rocky Road (every road here has a name) watching the storm as it built up.  By now there was more lightning, more rain, more drama. It was our night to cook, so we had prepared spaghetti impala-bolognese at lunch time. We were re-heating it just as the power went out. We nearly made it, but didn't quite finish dinner, so by candle-light and headlamps, we had a lukewarm bolognese with semi-cooked noodles, salad, and cold garlic bread. It was just like camping, and man, was it a beatiful lightning show around us! We may have eaten a few moths that flew into the sauce, but it was a fun night and a bonding experience with the group.


We headed off to bed, expecting the power to come back on overnight. It didn't. Neither did it come back the next morning, or afternoon, or night. We were racking our brains for a meal that would work in a single pot over a campfire when Michelle saved us by suggesting the local bar/restaurant 20 minutes away. Whew! We had a good meal, light and no moths in our food. It was a nice change and when we got home at 10:30 pm, we had power again. Our day wasn't quite finished, however. We still had to take more rotten meat out to a new spot to attract hyenas. Philip was shot from another 3:30 am daily start and stayed behind, but I am fascinated by hyena and wanted to see if we could call them in. We had threaded two lamb shanks with heavy wire and needed to tie them to a tree in long grass. I was getting pretty sure that there weren't any snakes to worry about in the bush, but we had seen a Mozambique Spitting Cobra crossing the road the day before. I had heard that they hear footsteps and flee so I stomped on the ground as hard as I could and clapped loudly to scare any slitherers away. I'm sure I looked the crazy tourist that people could tell stories on later, but peace of mind is worth it.

We got to the tree with nothing spitting venom into our eyes (I'm pretty sure it was because I clapped like a fool) and got the meat tied up. We then fired up a computer which seemed totally out of place in the black of night in the bush to play a CD of animal noises to attract the hyena. One was a buffalo calf that sounded like it was calling for its mother and the other was a warthog piglet that sounded like it was being lifted up and didn't like it at all. It might have worked for the hyenas, but, wow, what an awful sound! We played the screeching and bawling for a half an hour with no luck, so headed home. By then it was 12:30 am. I couldn't face another 11 hour day on three hours' sleep, so we decided to shut the alarm off and sleep in. What a luxury to get 7-1/2 hours of sleep rather than four or five!

Baby!

At work tracking the dogs across the savannah.