African experiences in the wild

I love nature and being outdoors and have had a couple of
interesting experiences in South Africa. My South African
friends seem to find my stories pretty interesting and even so
much more the people I have met in Australia and other
countries, so I thought I\'d put some of my experiences to paper.

Hyenas in the Transkei

A friend and I went to the Transkei years ago with the intention
of catching some fish for my marine fish tank. On arrival at the
Hluleka game reserve my friend took out the beers and I went for
a walk to see where I could snorkel. I found a little footpath
running along side the coast and just followed it for a couple
of hours. I walked past a small waterhole, but there were no
animals around and I did not give it a second thought.
Eventually I realized that it was getting late, so I ventured on
back to the camp. By the time I got back to the water hole, it
was starting to get dark and as I passed a couple of trees with
the water hole behind them, I got a sudden chill. It was strange
because I don\'t believe I had seen anything yet, but I felt
something was wrong. As I looked more closely into these trees,
I noticed a blou wildebeest standing a couple of meters from me
staring right at me. The only thing I could think was to
continue as if nothing was wrong, so I kept on walking only to
get a full view of the water hole, which was now surrounded by
animals. For the most part it was a herd of blou wildebeest and
a couple of buck/deer. But there were also a couple of hyenas on
the hill on the other side of the water hole and they seemed to
be running towards me with their heads high in the air. Every
story I had heard about hyenas said that they are cowards, but
I\'d also heard that they have the second strongest set of jaws
in the world and I was not happy with them running towards me.
Nonetheless, I knew that I was still a long way from the camp
and the only thing I could do was to keep on walking, which I
did with a renewed sense of urgency. Well, it only took a couple
of steps before the hyenas were right behind me. I don\'t think
they ever came too close to me, though at the time it felt like
they were on my heels, and I also think they probably turned
around after a couple of meters. But this did not help me, I had
heard that you should not turn your back on hyenas, so for the
rest of the way back to the camp I continued turning around
every few seconds to see if the hyenas were still around. I got
back to the bungalow some time after 9:00pm and was truly
exhausted from walking in the bush in the dark while trying to
look behind me all the time. My friend, sitting in his jocks
with a beer in the hand, was furious that I was away for so long
and left him all alone in the bungalow. Funny thing, coz I was
pretty furious that he never told the game ranger that I had
been gone for more than 6 hours!! Needless to say, the rest of
the weekend was spent in and around the bungalow, drinking beer
and eating crayfish!!

Leopards in the dark

While living in Johannesburg I decided one Saturday morning that
I needed to get away from the city and headed off to the
Krugersdorp nature reserve. Arrived there and found the campsite
in the middle of the reserve surrounded by a fence on every
side. At reception I asked if I can set up my tent somewhere for
the night and I guess I should have noticed that the
receptionist was surprised about me wanting to sleep in a tent,
but she didn\'t say much about it. Drove around the camp and,
though there were quite a few caravans and people around, I was
surprised to find what I thought was the spot with the best view
unoccupied. So, I set up my tent and went for a drive around the
reserve. An ostrich attacked the side mirror of my car and I saw
a couple of rhinos, but for the rest nothing too scary. When I
got back to the camp I found a whole crowd of people standing
around the fence in front of my tent, so I asked one of them
what was going on. As soon as he found out it was my tent, he
piped out \Hey, here\'s the guy sleeping in the tent!!\. A couple
of guys came up to shake my hand, showed me the leopards not too
far away that everyone was looking at and also mentioned that I
must have a serious set of brass hanging to be sleeping in a
tent right in front of the only \spot\ where the fence had been
broken down. Well, pride got in the way and I decided not to
pack up my tent and go home. But, I did decide that now was a
good time for a couple of beers. That night I couldn\'t sleep and
I was convinced that every sound I heard was a leopard sniffing
around my tent, but I\'m brave and stupid and everything was fine
until I heard a really loud shuffling in the trees close to my
tent. I lay dead still for a moment and quietly grabbed my keys
in one hand. Heard the shuffling a second time and my brass
simply wasn\'t big enough. I jumped up, completely destroyed my
tent in trying open the zip and ran out shouting at the top of
my voice into the bush. I\'m sure I could scare away any leopard,
rhino or ghost lurking around, but only long enough to open my
car and jump in. As uncomfortable as it was for a somewhat
large, 6\2 male to sleep in the front seat of my Opel Record,
there was no way I was returning to the tent. Anyway, the next
morning at the swimming pool I heard a guy asking his buddies
whether they heard that scream during the night, but err, I just
packed up my tent and disappeared quietly.

Having written these two stories, they now don\'t seem all that
interesting in print as it\'s hard for reality to compete with
Hollywood. However, I am just an ordinary city-dweller that
happens to love the outdoors without knowing too much about
animals and the wild. A blou wildebeest may not seem scary until
you\'re standing a couple of meters from it with nobody else
around and you realize exactly how big those things really are.