The camp was unfenced, so the animals were free to wonder through as they pleased. Some visitors, such as the hyenas, were on an almost nightly schedule. Their first visit came at 2am on the second night. The door to the kitchen had been accidentally left open, and the hyenas were not about to let such an opportunity pass them by. They crashed happily through the boxes and bins, giggling and whooping as they did so. In the morning the duty team came face to face with the chaos that had once been a kitchen. “Oh. Hyenas I guess” was not a phrase anyone had expected to utter so nonchalantly.
The hyenas’ visits were not just confined to the darkness. Whilst doing the early morning pre-drive check in the first week, the guys on duty were snuck up on by one of the larger females. Sadly no-one was there to witness them (heroically) leaping a good few feet from the ground over the back of the Land Rover to stand on the seat. It was our turn a couple of weeks later, but thankfully by this point we were as used to them as they were to us. Their boldness was staggering; they’d creep silently past where we were sitting chatting and grab the bin that was less than 5 meters away from us. The lucky duty team would then have to add ‘bin recovery and rubbish clear up’ to this list of early morning tasks - judging by the number of bite marks in the bin this was a common event.
The elephants crashed past camp one night; though we were all too deeply asleep to notice! The next day we went down to the river bed and followed the trail of destruction that they’d left behind them. Bushes had been stripped and trampled and huge branches had been ripped off the trees.
Savannah Baboons and Vervet Monkeys were frequent – and noisy – visitors to the area. The piercing screams of a youngster being disciplined by an alpha male are unnervingly human. A couple of snakes slithered through, including a Mozambican Spitting Cobra - certainly not one you’d want to mess with.
And then there was the night of the lions.
A few days earlier the lions had settled in the river bank near camp - only a couple of hundred meters from the volleyball court in fact, so the game needed to be played with a rifle to hand, just in case... That night we were coming back from an assessment drive and the spot light picked out the outline of three lions on the track leading to camp. Back at camp we were told to stay together and not go back to the tents: only three of the six lions had been accounted for. Throughout the night we heard them calling as they headed northwards, leaving behind a wonderfully clear set of spoor for us to follow the next day.
The hyenas’ visits were not just confined to the darkness. Whilst doing the early morning pre-drive check in the first week, the guys on duty were snuck up on by one of the larger females. Sadly no-one was there to witness them (heroically) leaping a good few feet from the ground over the back of the Land Rover to stand on the seat. It was our turn a couple of weeks later, but thankfully by this point we were as used to them as they were to us. Their boldness was staggering; they’d creep silently past where we were sitting chatting and grab the bin that was less than 5 meters away from us. The lucky duty team would then have to add ‘bin recovery and rubbish clear up’ to this list of early morning tasks - judging by the number of bite marks in the bin this was a common event.
The elephants crashed past camp one night; though we were all too deeply asleep to notice! The next day we went down to the river bed and followed the trail of destruction that they’d left behind them. Bushes had been stripped and trampled and huge branches had been ripped off the trees.
Savannah Baboons and Vervet Monkeys were frequent – and noisy – visitors to the area. The piercing screams of a youngster being disciplined by an alpha male are unnervingly human. A couple of snakes slithered through, including a Mozambican Spitting Cobra - certainly not one you’d want to mess with.
And then there was the night of the lions.
A few days earlier the lions had settled in the river bank near camp - only a couple of hundred meters from the volleyball court in fact, so the game needed to be played with a rifle to hand, just in case... That night we were coming back from an assessment drive and the spot light picked out the outline of three lions on the track leading to camp. Back at camp we were told to stay together and not go back to the tents: only three of the six lions had been accounted for. Throughout the night we heard them calling as they headed northwards, leaving behind a wonderfully clear set of spoor for us to follow the next day.
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