Another freezing night on the train. Day at Antelope Park activity lodge run by whites. A well organised affair. Greeted by tea and biscuits on the lawn served in those old cream and green enamel teapots your Great Aunt might have had in the 60s/70s. Could quite easily be an English summer fete – were it not for the elephants on the lawn.
Walking with lions. Safety briefing in English which is then translated for the six French. This winds the Canadians up no end. They’re not liking this translation malarky as it takes more time than it should. No one wants to be in the French bus. There’s a right old hoo-ha.
Told that if the lion handlers shout “Watch your back” it will either be a lion just passing through or it will be a lion stalking you.
Jolly good. If that’s the case you’re to turn and face the lion raising your stick and shout “No!” at the lion. This fazes Miss Daisy no end. Final question is “Have the lions been fed”. This fazes Miss Daisy again. Worried she’ll be gobbled up by mid-morning.
Assumed that these lions were smallish but when the jeep pulls up two large lions race towards us. Can see that they’re a bit big. Hmmm. Not sure about this. Hope they have been fed. Group of about a dozen walk through the bush with two lions roaming between us. Quite a spectacle but they keep racing off into the bush so the handlers have to coax them back to the group (the lions that is…..). Allowed to touch and stroke (the lions that is…..) whilst having obligatory photos. Hair is thick and wiry.
Follow up to walking with lions is feeding the lions. Wow. Never seen anything like it.
Stand behind an 8ft high chain link fence. The enclosure is empty. The holding enclosure beyond has about eight very large and mature lions running up and down the fence line waiting to enter the feeding enclosure. A metre away the other side of the fence is lion food. Abbattoir cast offs. Including one cow foetus still in the womb. Not a pretty sight before us. Door to feeding enclosure is opened and the lions race down the enclosure at breakneck speed about 50m to the line of food a metre away the other side of the fence. Dust and grit fly. Blood and guts fly. Four alpha males burst onto the food their front paws gathering up their share. Fighting breaks out for more territory. Noise of the deep roar is immense. A raw roar. Deep grunting. Can feel the power. More fighting for food. Lions lie on top of their share. Roar. Roar. Roar. All puffing and panting. Can’t eat yet as too hyper. Takes a good ten minutes before their bodies have calmed down sufficiently to enable them to start gnawing at bone and meat.
The foetus is ripped from its womb and a lion runs off with it to the shade of a tree. The foetus dangling from its mouth. Beta lions wait in the background knowing full well they’ll be attacked if they try for food. Alphas tucking into their lunch puts us off ours. Pretty gruesome.
Sedate elephant ride through the bush. Or so I thought. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Now know not to go elephant riding. Unbelievably uncomfortable. Three on each elephant. Elephant handler. Swiss woman. Me. Fortunately Swiss woman is deaf. She can’t hear my cries of pain and expletives. Cling on for dear life. Dismounting with cramp is absolute agony. Fellow female riders say the pain is comparable to childbirth. Well if that’s giving birth you can keep it. Flipping hurts. Physically damaged. Two elderly Canadian woman unable to dismount at the platform as elephant skittish. Have to dismount by being manhandled by the handlers grabbing their legs and sliding them down the side of the elephant. Camera at the ready for that “You’ve been framed” moment. Sadly, there isn’t £250 earned.
Receive email from English couple I’d met on the train from Dar Es Salam. They live and work in Nairobi. They had been in the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi on Saturday when the terrorists started their killing spree.
Stuck for three hours in the mall until being rescued by security services and escaping in an ambulance. Thankfully they’re alive and well.
Train is at Somabhula station. Across the tracks is a school. We’re invited for a few songs, speeches (complete with overt hand and arm movements) and poems by the children along with a very funny sketch about sharing by three young lads. Two of the lads turn “upstage” away from their audience to continue their sketch but are quickly told by teacher in a stage whisper, “You’re facing the wrong way!”. Two lads share an apple and argue over who has the biggest half. One boy plays the wise old man – he hobbles over with stick and stooping – and takes a bite out of one lad’s half to try and equal the share but that makes the other lad’s half bigger so he takes a bite out of that…….then alternates between taking bites out of each half. Until his mouth is full of apple.
And the two lads have no apple at all. The whole school and audience is laughing every time he takes a bite as he’s progressively unable to say his lines as mouth is full of apple. Very funny. Music teacher could be Floella Benjamin judging by her looks.
Two albino kids. One girl. One boy. Thought they were whites at first. Never seen an albino before. They’re like buses. You wait years to see an albino then two come along at the same time.
Do my usual running into a group of children pretending to be a monster. Arms flailing up in the their shrieking “Grrrr……rrrrr……rrrrrr”. Just like the school in Tanzania, the kids love it and run off laughing and screaming. So just have to do it some more. Fellow travellers love it. One shakes my hand and receive a round of applause from the French when I board their mini-bus. Miss Daisy tells me “You’re a wonderful person.”. Quite a few people I’ve not spoken to yet say how much they enjoyed the “monster” routine. The Swiss deaf couple even give me a sign language name – basically raise your arms in the air and shake them pulling a funny face.
That’s sign language for “Touring Taurean”.
