magnificence fear awe & beauty

We have landed in Maun, a true safari town and supply post placed in the heart of Botswana's National Parks. We arrived dust covered and filthy, looking forward to showers, beds and something cold to drink. We have been here before and the route we just took was a mirror of our previous trip two years ago. It has been surprising to find ourselves recognizing  bends on a dusty road or the face of a man who sold us firewood, when those details were ones we thought we had forgotten. There was a moment when I wondered why we would come back to a place that we had travelled to so recently, when there is so much in the world that I still want to see. Now that we are on the other side of an intense experience, I have no doubts as to why we are here. We have driven vast distances, worked hard and been uncomfortably hot and dirty; yet what this effort gave us access too, is worth every ache and exhausted sleep. We have witnessed within feet of us, extraordinary interactions between species and also within family groupings of animals. We were in a place that is a long drive from which ever direction you approach it from and that remoteness brings with it the reward of vast areas of wilderness with little evidence of humankind's impact. No lights, no trash, no asphalt covering the earth. Just fires burning in the vast dark of the African night, there to cook on, provide light and keep predators at bay. A pretty pure form of simple.

During game drives, we encountered herds of Wildebeest racing across the veld, spotted light footed jackal in the first rays of sunshine and seemed to come across a giraffe behind every shrub. So many of the animals that we observed had their young with them and our presence without fail saw adults moving to place their bodies between us and their babies. The care and tenderness of parent towards child seemed no different whether a human or animal. Is it purely survival of the species that leads them to protect their young or is there tenderness there too? Hard to know, but it feels like there is. 

We watched in awe as elephant almost ran to water holes on sweltering days, their delight clearly evident as they wallowed, splashed, drank or simply stood, taking in the pleasure of water on days of blazing heat. Babies were always flanked by adults and younger elephant rollicked while elders took a more dignified approach to the celebration of muddy water going on around them. In a memorable moment, we watched a massive bull elephant leave a waterhole in order to escort an uncertain youngster to it, when his access to the water had been cut off by vehicles which had pulled up more intent on their photo opportunity than allowing what was happening to take place. The bull was forced to walk within feet of us in order to "fetch" the youngster and made his displeasure clear. He walked with the slow power that these massive creatures do, stopping along the way to give us a long, hard look, putting us in our place. Our windows were down and we didn't move a finger or take a photo as he stood feet away, with us at this mercy and in his sights. Like him, we were trapped by the other vehicles and could do nothing but sit quietly and hope no one around us angered him. He eventually moved on and we breathed again. 

We were continually struck by the difference between the herbivores and the predators who hunt them. They are two such different kinds of creatures - herbivores gently grazing all day with an almost meditative grace and predators whose hunting creates a maelstrom of activity and their lazing under the shade of a thorn tree, is accompanied by the knowledge that simply standing up will create a stir. (A stir amongst the hunted, but also amongst all of us hoping to get a glimpse of their tawny fur!)

Lion are always high on everyone's safari bucket list and our early mornings were often rewarded with lion sightings. One lioness gave herself away by the twitch of a dark-tipped ear above golden grass as we drove passed her. We stopped and watched as she lay in the morning light, us wondering if her breakfast might walk passed. We held our breath as a lone giraffe grazed her way over to the lioness's hiding place. The lioness crouched, her body tight and muscles bulging as she sized the situation up, ready to launch an attack. She held her position, but eventually must have thought better of the potential injury that trying to take down a giraffe on her own could mean. She eventually lay back down and waited for something else to come by and the giraffe grazed on, oblivious to the drama that she had played a part in. 

The gift of information that we gave about a lion we had spotted, was rewarded by information given in return a few hours later. A guide whom we had tipped off, tipped us off in return about a pride of lion a short detour off of our route to Maun. We had a long drive ahead of us that day but took his advice and were rewarded immensely with a pride 10 lion sitting in the shade at the edge of a water hole, waiting and watching for what might arrive to drink on a hot day. We watched them sizing up elephant - a smaller group with babies piqued their interest and one young male took the chance to prowl closer to the water, following an elephant as it walked down. He was young and foolhardy and so backed off when he realized that no one else had joined him. That elephant group moved on quite quickly, possibly aware that the lion were there. Shortly afterwards a massive herd slowly moved in, threading past our vehicle as they emerged out of the bush around us. We watched as they walked within feet of the lion, very often unaware of them - the first of the group walked so silently that we watched as he and the lion all jumped in fright as he passed them, all of them noticing each other in the same moment. Dust, nerves, adrenalin all lifted and then settled again. More and more elephant came down, either walking on the far side of our car - herding their babies away from the lion, using us as cover, or walking between us and the lion - who were at the most lying 20 feet away from us, putting us all in close proximity with each other. It was awe inspiring to be in the thick of this tinderbox, wondering if it all might explode. Ultimately the herd was too big and the lion backed down, letting the elephant revel in the waterhole undisturbed. We stayed until the latest we could and eventually had to leave, knowing the distance that we had to drive and the heat which was building and with two boys who had already been in the back seat for 5 hours at that point and were getting wriggly. 

We pointed our Landcruiser south and headed for Maun, away from the magic of the bush but with hours of dusty and rutted roads to get through before we were there. We had time to decompress and digest the world we had immersed ourselves on a road that made us appreciate were we had been even more.