Very Much Delicious: Part 16

Part 16 of my diaries from 1996 about my trip to Malawi and Zambia. And, by the way, the title of these posts was explained in Part 5.

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It was the first day of the new year and we planned to spend the whole day in the Park, driving much further South than we had so far gone. Sadly Louise was feeling ill and had to stay behind to await a doctor. The rest of us though were soon under way and this time we drove straight to the airfield and then on past the plain where last night we had admired the sunset. Almost immediately we saw a group of giraffe in the distance, their long necks bobbing up from behind the trees. The distance to them was however too great and the ground between us too uneven to allow a closer approach. It didn't matter. A few minutes later we came upon a solitary male. He was chewing at a tree top in a clearing and was no more than twenty feet away. Obligingly he posed for photographs.

    Near the river we paused to stretch our legs and I spent a few minutes observing and sketching a tiny white spider that was too small to photograph. Later I identified it as one of the Salticidae, a jumping spider. Before we had set out Sarah and Sheila had complained about a rather bigger Arachnid that was sharing their cabin. That had been a large baboon spider, the African equivalent of a tarantula. Geoff had killed it with enough bug spray to fell an elephant which I thought was rather unjust. It wasn't actually hurting anybody after all.

    When we continued David was continually asking for more giraffe. My facetious comment that I would be really impressed if Geoff could find us a kangaroo received the reaction it deserved. David's wish was soon granted. We came upon four giraffe together, a little way from the road but across an even grassy stretch of ground where we could drive closer. Not only was the group more interesting than the solitary male had been but the light was much better here for photography. We all snapped away happily, David especially so. When he was done he sheepishly confided that the reason he had so keenly wanted to find more was that for the first one he had had no film in his camera.

    Our next encounter was more dramatic and had no time for pictures to be taken. We had been on a track skirting around a dried up river bed heading towards an area where we hoped to find lion. This led down through some fairly thick trees before emerging into a clearing. Of to one side, near an isolated stand of trees was an elephant, a large full grown male elephant. He trumpeted a warning and started a lumbering mock charge. We stopped. He stopped. Then he turned as if to go back into the trees. Without warning he wheeled around and with his ears flat and his trunk down he came thundering towards us in a charge that was anything but mock. Geoff slammed the Land Rover into reverse and took us back into the trees at very high speed. Satisfied that he had scared us off the elephant aborted his attack and followed us no further.

    The next excitement came when Barry caught sight of two lion in the distance on the  opposite bank of a tree filled valley which we had been following south. Geoff, who seemed to know every path and track in the park, tried to find a route round towards them but without success. We were on the verge of quitting when we found another lion, a female, resting in the shade of a tree and looking rather bored. She let us get within a few yards before yawning and walking off into the dense bush where we could not follow.

     We were going to have a picnic lunch but before that we went to the South Lodge and cooled ourselves in their swimming pool and with a few beers. We could have eaten our picnic there but instead drove away and laid out our spread on the ground at the edge of a plain that had to be a mile or more wide. A herd of hundreds of impala and puku grazed on it and there were a few dozen zebra wandering about. It was another scene from my imagined Africa.

    There was another Toyota stuck in the mud. We had come away from our lunch stop and started back North. Half a mile along the road was the Toyota. Unlike yesterday's encounter this one was accompanied by a number of mud splattered people , half of them desperately pushing and the other half desperately pulling. There was a logo for another tour operator painted on the door of the vehicle. Not only were these people clearly trying to help themselves but the chance to tow a rival operator out of the mud was one that Geoff couldn't resist. Having pulled them free we went on. Circling a tree in the distance were three vultures. Geoff steered us towards them. After half an hour of carefully manoeuvring the Land Rover between increasingly dense trees and bushes we were there. There were more vultures in a tree and a couple of hyena prowling about. Whatever was dead though we couldn't see, the undergrowth was just too thick. All the same something had died, the presence of so many scavengers proved it. We gave up trying to find it and continued on our way.

    It was getting towards sunset now and we drove out onto a plain. In the distance was a herd of elephant that was much too large to consider approaching. There were more than twenty adults and perhaps a dozen juveniles and young. They seemed peaceful enough but there was also a hyena, slinking along behind them. Suddenly they caught his scent and we found out just why keeping clear was wise. As one the herd wheeled about and thundered towards the scavenger who took to his heels and fled into the bush. Even at this distance we could hear the thunder of their pursuit. It was magnificent and frightening.

    By the time we reached the gate and left the park it was dark. We expected that there would be nothing more to see. We were mistaken. It was about a mile from the gate to the camp, mostly along roads similar to those in the park. Of course the park is a convenient fiction for the benefit of humans. The animals neither know nor care where it ends. As we approached the camp we turned a corner and there, right at the side of the road was a herd of giraffe. We stopped to watch them and more arrived, appearing as if by magic from the trees. At the end there were seventeen of them, the largest group we had seen and barely yards away. It was a stunning way to round off a perfect day.

Very Much Delicious: Part 15

Part 15 of my diaries from 1996 about my trip to Malawi and Zambia. And, by the way, the title of these posts was explained in Part 5.

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We were up at five thirty and for once everything went properly to the plan so that by six we were already in the park. Almost immediately there were Zebra, dozens of them grazing near the road. Nearby, perched on top of dead tree was a magnificent Batleur Eagle that took flight at our approach, rising on the powerful steady beat of its massive wings until it was a distant speck. Silhouetted against the sky was a flock of open billed stork, their distinctive shape clear even to the naked eye.
    At an algae covered pond a monitor lizard, about five foot long from nose to tail was out for its morning stroll while two Crowned Heron and a Goliath Heron, a bird so large that it could have stepped straight from the pages of a bestiary of imaginary creatures, all watched from the centre of the water.
    We drove on deeper into the park. Ahead of us we could see a vehicle, a white Toyota, off the road and in the mud. As we approached it a middle aged man in a white suit came towards us. With him were two boys aged about eleven and seventeen. The younger one looked fairly normal but the older had on a torn T-shirt and faded jeans and had rings through his nose and ear. Capped by a mass of spiky unwashed black hair he looked a real mess.
    "We are stuck." explained the main unnecessarily. His accent had the over preciseness of a Scandinavian. He was Danish we later learned.
    "Sixteen hours. No food. No water." whined the punkish teenager.
    "Have you tried to get it out ?" asked Ken.
    "Of course." replied the father. "It is not possible to move it. Do you perhaps have a rope ?"
I couldn't help thinking, and from the expressions on their faces neither could everyone else, that he couldn't have tried very hard considering that there was no mud on his white suit and even his shoes were still spotless. Geoff shrugged.
    "No, we have no rope." he said. He clearly had no inclination to help people who had no inclination to help themselves.
    "Oh. Then perhaps you could take us to the Wilderness Camp ?"
    "I don't want to lose the whole morning for my people." said Geoff "But there's a lodge here in the park. I can take one of you there and there will be someone there who can come and tow you free. The others should wait in the car. There are lion and leopard in the park."
The teenager was in the Land Rover before either his father or his brother had time to move.
We drove back towards the gate and turned off down a side road towards a group of buildings. Geoff halted and got out. A couple of park employees greeted him like a long lost brother. We couldn't hear what he was saying to them but they were obviously amused by it. One of them gestured and our sullen faced guest got out and went to them Geoff came back and in a few moments we were off again leaving the youth to negotiate a price for their assistance.
    This morning we had more time so that we went a little further into the park, past a disused and slightly overgrown airstrip that had been laid down when the park was opened. The park is huge and criss-crossed with rivers. The roads pass over them on a mixture of wooden and concrete bridges. One of them crossed high above a dried up river bed. Two hundred yards away crossing the hardened mud were a family of elephant. We watched them scramble up the bank and disappear into the trees. Half a mile further on Geoff suddenly swung the vehicle off the road and  shot at high speed between the trees. We strained to see what he had seen. It was an animal about the size of a dog with striped hindquarters and it was moving very fast as we tried to chase it down. For a moment it hesitated and then changed direction, flashing in front of us. It's face was feline apart from the rounded ears. We were too slow in turning and it had gone. Geoff stopped and got out.
    "That," he said "Was a very rare thing to see during the day. It was one of the civets and they are supposed to be completely nocturnal. You're very lucky to get one in daylight."
    By now we were feeling peckish having come out without breakfast to get an early start. By common consent we headed back to camp to eat. The rare sightings weren't quite over though. We were by now all rather blasé about the birds although the twitchers kept adding new species to the list which currently stood at more than one hundred and seventy. The Egyptian Ibis was the latest, seen several times in quick succession. Sarah however had her eyes on the ground. She had proven to be our most keen-eyed spotter and now she did it again. She banged on the roof and Geoff halted. By the side of the road was a tiny, but clearly adult antelope of a type we had not previously seen. We consulted the books while it stood patiently there and finally pinned it down as a Sharpe's Grysbok. It was one of the rarest antelope species in the reserve. As it finally moved away we caught sight of its mate, a brown blur among the green background.
    Our afternoon drive, by comparison, though producing game in abundance produced nothing that we had not already seen and when the sky started to turn black we decided to cut it short. After all here was to be a third drive today, a night drive.
In the event the threatened rain never came and when we assembled for this last drive it had turned back into a fine and sunny early evening. The park rules permit only specially licensed operators to drive around after dark so this trip was not in the Land Rover. Instead we were in a modified Toyota Land Cruiser driven by one of the camp staff. This had three tiers of seats at the back arranged so that everyone could see properly. We drove into the park and followed a similar route to the morning. The usual animals were out, warthogs, antelope, zebra - including one very heavily gravid one - lots of birds.
We went past the airstrip and down to the river. On the river plain we stopped and got out. The driver took a large plastic bottle of orange juice and shared it between us in tin cups. The sun was just touching the horizon and as its lower edge spread out into a golden glow the landscape was transformed. It was as if we had entered a new and magical land. The colours were impossibly beautiful. The trees on the far bank took on a rich shining hue as if someone had poured honey on them and as we watched it deepened into the colour of flames. Meanwhile the water darkened to a cold black mirror reflecting the trees as a ribbon of fire. Behind us the trees on the plain became black skeletal monsters silhouetted against the darkening bruise of the sunset. Everything was perfect. This, I thought, is how I've always imagined Africa.
    Then someone turned off the lights. The sun dropped from view and it became night. We climbed back into the Land Cruiser and the co-driver turned on a spotlight whose piercing beam stabbed out for a thousand yards and made the surrounding darkness seem so much deeper that it was as if we were driving along an infinite black tunnel. At first all we found were smaller nocturnal creatures, genet, elephant shrew, slender mongoose and a white tailed mongoose. Then, as we came around a bend there was a solitary giraffe. As the beam illuminated him he gave us a disdainful look, turned his back and strode haughtily into the trees.
    Further along the beam froze a large group of puku, their eyes glowing like a field of tiny stars. Circling them, sly and sinister, a hyena stalked, seemingly undecided about where to go or what to do. A few minutes later we found out what he was waiting for as the beam found a leopard, slinking low against the ground, choosing its supper from the herd. Hyena are scavengers. This one would wait until the leopard was done and then feast on the remains.
Down by the river the he swept the lamp towards a loud grunting and found two hippo facing off for a fight. They charged each other, veering off at the last moment for a bone crunching shoulder to shoulder collision. Suddenly one of them lost his nerve and turned and lumbered off into the darkness leaving the victor to voice his throaty triumphal laugh.
    We returned to the road, pausing to let an elephant cross, and drove on. Suddenly there were lion in the beam - two males, one old and slow and limping and the other younger and leaner. They watched us approach. Neither seemed at all aggressive but no-one felt like leaving the safety of the vehicle for a closer look.
    It had been a magnificent drive. Even Barry had to admit that it was one of the best that he had ever been on.
    "You can be out for a week without seeing as much." he said as we climbed out of our seats back at the camp.
    There was a roaring fire going over which Geoff was grilling chops. After a couple of beers we were ready to eat and to go with the chops Peter had done a thick, rich bean soup and pancakes filled with a delicious tangy cheese and vegetable combination. As we ate an exhausted but satisfied silence fell. Everyone was reflecting on what a great day it had been. When we had finished, clearing our palates of the rich tastes with a light fruit salad, everyone retired to bed, oblivious of the fact that this was New Years Eve. Further festivities would have felt redundant, not to mention being more than any of us could have managed.

Ongoing #55/Harrow Daily Poem 12

At first I couldn't think of a poem for the next doodle, a partly drawn castle, but then it occurred to me that I am spending my Summer on the Hill, Harrow-on-the-Hill to be precise, as I have done for nine of the last ten years. And then it occurred to me how essentially those ten summers have been interchangeable.

Summer on the Hill

Another Summer on the Hill
With lessons taught and time to kill,
With kids that come from every place,
And run and jump and fight and race,
With beds that are a foot too small,
With weddings in the dining hall,
With mushrooms served for every meal,
With days that merge, become unreal,
With biscuits in the resource room,
With gardens that are in full bloom,
With visits to the only pub,
Within this thriving urban hub,
With one day off to go to town
And gossip of what's going down,
With conversation that's the same
As every other time we came,
With too much time we cannot fill,
Another Summer on the Hill.

Ongoing #54/Harrow Daily Poem #11

Timely. Very timely.

This evening was a mid-course social and they decided to have a wine and cheese party. If you have been paying attention you will know that I am supposed to cut down on alcohol because of the gout (which I have done and which continues nonetheless to be hideously painful) and fatty foods like cheese because of the high cholesterol.

The list of things that I am not supposed to eat is really rather startling, especially when two other bits of medical advice are added:- my doctor's advice to lose weight and the general advice that dieting makes your gout worse.

Now just a couple of pages ahead in the book I am using for inspiration is a drawing of an empty fridge. What more need be said?

Well there's this for a start.

My doctor says I've gout, so I need to give up meat.
Fair enough, I thought, there are other things to eat.
"Also to be avoided," my doctor pressed ahead
"Are mushrooms and asparagus." "No problem there." I said.
"Anchovies and cauliflower, spinach and sardines,
Things containing yeast, not to mention peas and beans.
Also alcohol's a problem, you ought to cut it out."
I sighed and said , reluctantly, I'd try to do without.
"Next, " my doctor said, "Your cholesterol's too high,
So here are all the things to be avoided by and by.
Eat no margarine or butter, eat only cottage cheese.
Avoid fatty foods and fry ups. And no biscuits please."
He paused to take a breath before going on, "And now
You also need to lose some weight, but with no dieting somehow
Because dieting we find seems to drive the acid higher
And the acid is what causes gout to set your foot on fire."
I took in the advice that my doctor slowly gave me
And went and did the one thing that would surely save me.
I spoke to his receptionist and what I told her shocked her.
"I have to give things up," I said "Such as visiting the doctor."