Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [71]
In my life, I have seen many people and many animals open their mouths wide, but that solitary leonine gape on the south shore of the Chobe remains to this day the most memorable yawn I have ever witnessed up close.
Patrick’s favorite spot turned out to be a place where the Chobe River bends lazily to the north before swinging southeast, narrowing afresh, picking up speed, and resuming its churning rush toward the Zambezi River and Mosi-oa-tunya, the Tswana words for “The-Smoke-That-Thunders” (better known but not better enunciated as Victoria Falls). Below Patrick’s bend, the water spreads out to give birth to numerous shallow sandbars that provide ideal habitat for wading birds and effortless haul-outs for basking crocodiles. Both were much in evidence when we arrived.
Parking as close to the shifting, car-trapping sands as we dared, we climbed out of the jeep and walked down to the water’s edge. So shallow were the mirrorlike pools and shimmering capillaries of river that there was no place for a croc, much less an idling hippo, to hide. My knowledge of Botswanan ornithology being woefully defunct, I could only stare and marvel at the hundreds of shorebirds and other more infrequent avian visitors that flocked to the shallow plain to hunt and drink. Without having to ask, I immediately understood the reasons for my guide’s affection for the place.
Setting directly behind the Chobe and somewhere over Namibia, the sun was dusting the water with tincture of sulfur and cinnabar. Walking farther out onto the crocodile-visited sands than I was willing to risk, Patrick stood with his hands on his hips silently admiring this small, secret corner of his homeland. For long moments, he forgot about me, and I was pleased to see him privately enjoying what so few others had the opportunity to share. I stood in silence on a slightly higher sandbar, my gaze shifting from the gold-suffused water to the wealth of animal life that was wholly intent on its sunset activity.
On another bank just in front of us, a small herd of impala was inspecting a solitary croc. One at a time, they would approach, sniff the motionless reptile, then apprehensively dart back out of reach. I thought their actions reckless and ignorant. But the cold-blooded croc was far more interested in soaking up the last warming rays of the setting sun than in helping itself to a dim-witted hors d’oeuvre.
Several puku, or Chobe bushbuck, wandered out of the woods to drink, their movements as delicate and coordinated as those of a string quartet playing Mozart. Chobe National Park is the only place in the world to see them, and I was conscious of the privilege. Perhaps it was the overriding tranquillity of the locale, but the animals and birds acted as if we were not present. Had we arrived in a growling dinosaurian Unimog sporting twenty chattering tourists, I suspect the unperturbed wildlife would have acted differently.
As he rejoined me, it was evident that Patrick had thoroughly enjoyed the respite from a day of having to explain to wide-eyed visitors why hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa and that a water monitor is a spectacularly large lizard and not a gruff Afrikaner whose job it is to ensure the working of the lodge’s hydraulic systems.
He glanced speculatively at the descending sun. “We’re already late. We’ll get back after dark.”
I smiled. I had enjoyed every moment of the day, every second. “Like I told you, blame me. It’s all my fault.”
He nodded, smiling anew, as we climbed back into the jeep.
So used are most of us to city life that we have forgotten what real night is like. The all-encompassing darkness is accompanied by a multiplicity of sounds and noises that our ancestors made studious efforts to avoid. As we headed back toward the lodge, Patrick