One of the more interesting things we learned on the walking safari is that the Big 5 (lion, rhino, elephant, leopard and Cape buffalo) are so-called because these are the most difficult and deadly animals to hunt on foot. When encountered, generally speaking, lions will roar, charge a few paces and then back away. Rhino will apparently spook and run if you get large and act weird— much like black bears in the states. Plus, because rhinos have poor eyesight, if you stand aside from the path of their charge, and keep absolutely still, more often than not they will rush right past you. Elephant are unpredictable but usually give plenty of warning in the shape of ear-flapping and trumpeting, allowing ample time to retreat. Leopard, unless they’re cornered, want nothing to do with people whatsoever. But Cape buffalo?
In pictures, frankly speaking, these things look like glorified cows. Large, monstrously-horned glorified cows but glorified cows nonetheless. However, to a man, all three of our guides informed us that the last thing they wanted to see is a Cape buffalo, on its own, up close, on foot, in dense bush.
When Cape buffalo sense a threat— say, something with eyes in the front of its head, indicating it must be a predator ( FYI: that’s you)— they just charge. Their simple, bovine brains aren’t adept at nuance so they don’t plump for warning signals. They just run right through you. And, since they weigh almost a ton, you stand no chance. Legend has it, you’re just dead. The only way out is to climb a tree (hard to do on a grassy plain) or, to quote Isaac the tracker, “Shoot him through his nose and into his brain.”
And so, unarmed, in dense brush, off-piste, with no guide (save yours truly, our fearless, half-wit, in-charge leader!), seeing a smattering of Cape Buffalo grazing in the near-distance raised the heart-rate just a little.
Then we heard the hippos.
“I think we should go back to the car,” whispered Cat.
“Duly noted. Keep marching. The estuary must be close.”
The main rule with hippos is don’t get between them and the water, which is where they feel the safest. And, since we were walking toward the water— or so I thought, we couldn’t actually see it— any hippos we stumbled across would no doubt flee from us and toward the safety of the nearby estuary. That’s what I kept telling myself anyway.
Cue more, possibly angrier, catching-our-scent hippo noises. If you’ve never heard these beasts up close before, they sound like what septic systems would sound like if septic systems could belch.
“You just remember,” I whispered to Cat, as we approached the crumbling, sandy lip of the estuary, “out of a twenty-one day holiday, I was in charge for four of them— four measly days. You sure as hell are going to remember this one.”
Suddenly, by blind luck, we stumbled out of the high grass and onto a small embankment. Below us, a raft of fifteen hippos slept and gurgled in the shallows. They glanced up, decided we weren’t worth the trample, and went back to being their adorable, oversized pig-whale selves (hippos are closely related to whales and eighty percent of their communication occurs through clicks and whistles underwater). Taking out the camera, I allowed myself a hard-earned moment of smugness, and forced the wife to stay and watch for a good fifteen minutes. That being said, I don’t think either of us really enjoyed ourselves, or appreciated the moment, until we got back to the car.
Which I returned the following day.
I haven’t been in charge since.
