Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [42]
We began our visit by staying two nights at Skukusa Rest Camp, the largest and most highly developed of the facilities inside the park. I have mentioned that every visitor and vehicle has to be back inside their respective camp boundaries by a designated time. The same strictures apply to departure. No one is allowed out of the camp until five-thirty in the morning. Hoping to be first out, vehicles start lining up in the dark around a quarter to five. We were sixth in line.
Two roads lead out of Skukusa: one that heads due south, where nursing hyenas had earlier been spotted, and the other east. A couple of miles outside the camp gate, a turnoff leads to a crossing of the Sabi River and shortly thereafter, to another that crosses the Sand River. Seeing that everyone else was staying on the main tracks, we opted for the lesser-used twin-river crossing. As soon as we made the necessary northward turn, we lost sight of any other vehicle. There was no car ahead of us and none behind. Nurtured by proximity to the two rivers, trees and brush closed in around us. I was driving.
Ten minutes out of camp, with Ron avidly studying the map of the park and riding copilot, I saw something on the road ahead. Gradually, our car drew a little closer. The dappled early morning light falling through the trees revealed the hind end of an animal and a long tail switching back and forth. Despite my rising sense of excitement, I looked at it for a long time before I felt confident in saying what I was thinking. There was a reason for this: I had been skunked before.
On my first trip to Amazonian Peru, I wanted more than anything else to see an anaconda. Motoring up the Manú River, I thought I spotted one, and excitedly yelled out, “Anaconda, anaconda!” while gesturing vigorously in the slender shape’s direction. The boat driver quickly turned in the direction I was indicating, motoring slowly toward the left bank. It was soon apparent that my anaconda was nothing more than a twisted log bobbing against the riverbank. Thereafter, whenever we passed a suitably serpentine branch, either the guide or boatman would point and chortle loudly, “Anaconda!” It was a useful lesson. From then on, whenever and wherever I thought I had made an interesting animal “spot,” I waited until I was sure of my identification.
So despite my initial disbelief at what I was seeing, this time I was sure.
Not in deep bush, not hiding among riverfront trees, but pacing methodically up the road ahead of us was a black leopard.
Still sleepy from rising early to park in line at the Skukusa gate, I blurted out to Ron, “I think that’s a black leopard!” And then I just stared. Held the wheel and stared. Dimly, a voice at the back of my mind was screaming in a desperate attempt to get my attention. “Camera! Get the camera!”
Eventually, the notion drifted to the forefront of my stunned mind, and I finally began fumbling with my gear. By the time I had the battery mounted and the camera turned on, the leopard had cast a single contemptuous glance in our direction, turned sharply to its left, and disappeared into the undergrowth. We drew up alongside the place where it had entered the brush. There was no sign it had ever existed. One of the rarest sightings I have ever experienced, and I was late with the camera again. This is why professional photographers always have a camera loaded, ready, activated, and at hand, and battery conservation be damned. In my personal litany of missed shots, the black leopard of Kruger ranks right up there with the Kanha tiger looking down at me from atop the dry riverbank.
On our third night, we transferred our base of operations to Olifants Rest Camp. Located much deeper inside the park than Skukusa, Olifants is too far away to be reached by day-trippers. Perched