Salon Wanderlust | My Serengeti crapshoot

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By Gary Kamiya
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(07/09/98)
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(07/08/98)
The Cup runneth over and over
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Professional scalpers and amateur partyers in Marseille
(07/07/98)
World Cup scenes
By Matthew McAllester
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(07/07/98)
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By David Kohn
At the Memphis World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest
(07/03/98)

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MY SERENGETI CRAPSHOOT . | . PAGE 1, 2
Finally, I gather up some courage, zip my tent open and poke my head out. I scan the area in front of me but it's pitch dark and the lanterns have long since been extinguished. I hobble toward Masai's tent, praying that this sudden movement will not cause me any unfortunate accidents.
"Masai!" I yell, "I need a torch."
"What for?" he asks, in a tone that suggests that this is no time for a Sunday jaunt in Central Park.
"Bathroom," I reply.
"You have heard the lions, haven't you?" he asks, with a tinge of incredulity at the idea that I would consider walking in this inky blackness to an even darker shed 50 feet away with lions roaring nearby -- not to mention snakes. "This is the bush, not a lodge," he remarks in a tone he probably reserves for a very small child with an exceptionally low I.Q. "Anything can happen." He adds that lionesses hunt at night, and the fact that the males are roaring so close by means that there's a good chance the females are out looking for prey in the same area. All in all, not a good time to go for a crap. "Go somewhere close," he adds and dismisses me by depositing the flashlight at my feet.
If I was scared before, I am truly terrified now. I think of the number of times I've used the word "terrified" without really appreciating the full impact of its meaning. Now I know. In fact, mere minutes have transformed me into a connoisseur of terror. And the bit about the lions hunting, "Was that really necessary?" I think to myself. As I scout around for a good location to squat, I curse Masai fervently for his sharing of what is undoubtedly a rich knowledge of lion behavior at a most inappropriate moment.
I pick a spot several feet away from our Land Rover and as I squat, the ridiculously helpless nature of my predicament hits me: I am crouched in the middle of the Serengeti with my pants down to my ankles, inviting every sort of predator for a quick meal as I wave my bare buttocks tantalizingly in their faces. Fortunately, this grim realization enhances my bowel movement and the whole affair, while seeming like hours, takes a couple of minutes. While I am hunkered down, I look at the tall Serengeti grass that frames our camp waving to and fro in the wind and immediately chastise myself for spending hours devouring all those wildlife films on the Discovery channel at home. Films with precisely this sort of tall savanna grass waving in the breeze, as a well-camouflaged lioness sits in a frozen crouch, her body taut as a steel cable, waiting to spring upon an unsuspecting gazelle. Or someone taking a midnight crap.
Suddenly, I see the grass parting slightly, and I hear something moving not more than 10 feet away. My eyes bulge in terror. My mouth goes dry. After the usual slew of grizzly images that my brain seems intent on manufacturing (example: black-maned lion gripping me by the thorax and shaking me like a rag-doll as I emit horrible, gurgling noises), I try to calm down by convincing myself that it's probably a mongoose or a rock hyrax (a rodentlike animal about the size of a rabbit that, strangely enough, happens to be the closest living land relative to the elephant). Not especially keen to hang around and check out my hypothesis, I hastily wipe, yank my pants up and gallop toward my tent.
Once again, I'm a Navy SEAL in the thick of combat: unzip, dive, roll and zip. This time around I'm twice as fast. Once I'm safely ensconced in my sleeping bag, my pounding heart slows down. The saliva starts flowing. A couple of minutes pass and I feel a bit courageous again. "That wasn't so bad," I say to myself. As I'm mentally awarding myself a purple heart for bravery, a hideous shrieking ensues. This time the sounds are not more than 30 feet away from our tents.
I groan in despair as I recognize the sound. A pack of hyena. The sound is deafening and unbelievably bone-chilling.
I begin to panic. Do hyenas rip into tents and attack humans? Or are they generally wary of us? I rack my brains but can't seem to come up with an answer. The sounds get closer. The pack cannot be more than 15 feet away. By this time, the wind has picked up and the entire tent is fluttering and shaking in spurts. Every time it does so, I recoil, expecting fangs to rip through the flimsy tent. Sometimes I can't seem to differentiate between the animal sounds outside and the effect of the wind against my tent. At one point I hear a rustling and sniffing a scant two feet from my face. I have this uncontrollable urge to open the tent a crack to try to see what's going on outside, but sheer fear prevents me from doing so. Every time I inch toward the tent zipper, I imagine the snarling, saliva-coated muzzle of a hyena in front of my face, and my hand drops to my side with alacrity.
As soon as I convince myself that the pack has wandered off and that it's just these nuisance gusts that are exacerbating my heightened anxiety, the wind subsides and I can hear the pack screaming louder than ever. For two hours I lie in my tent recoiling and cowering in alternate spurts like some committed mental patient in a padded cell. Finally, the dual effort of concentrating on these frightful sounds and tensing up for a bloody attack takes its toll. The shrieks cease and I drift off into a fitful sleep.
I wake up at dawn, the mild rays of the sun painting the inside of my tent red. Almost immediately, I feel strangely euphoric. I have slept a night in the Serengeti surrounded by roaring lions and shrieking hyenas. I have wandered out of my tent in the dead of night and unwittingly relieved myself right under the noses of a pack of animals reputed to have the strongest jaws in the business. I have not incurred the wrath of any venomous snakes by stepping on them. Survival, I realize, is a giddy sensation. I triumphantly step out of my tent and stride purposefully toward Fred's.
"Did you hear the hyenas last night?" I ask, certain that this amiable Austrian must have also spent the night quaking in abject terror for a couple of hours.
No such luck. Fred reports that he slept soundly throughout the night thanks to several Safari lagers (Tanzanian beer) that he downed during dinner. I give him a look of dismay and turn away. I ask Natalie, the Canadian, the same question and she laughs at me. Perhaps it was Fred snoring, she suggests cheekily.
As I hurl unpleasant, almost hateful thoughts at her, doubts begin to creep into my head. I am embarrassed to think about the helpless state of panic I was in not so many hours ago. Am I that much of a sniveling baby? Did I conjure up the whole thing replete with visions of imminent death? Did I really hear what I thought I heard, or have I become a quivering, delusional wreck after just one night in the bush?
I am beginning to feel extremely sheepish. Best to forget the whole affair, I reason to myself, lest I start cultivating a reputation for being a paranoid schizophrenic. I stroll toward last night's campfire, which is about 15 feet from our tents. The ground around the campfire is covered with a combination of ash and fine sand. Right next to the campfire are four massive hyena paw prints. I run to my tent and check its outside perimeters. I think I can detect faint prints, but the ground is hard and covered with grass, so I can't be sure. I walk to Natalie's tent about 10 feet away. All around her tent, in the soft sand, are a multitude of large paw prints.
Vindicated!
Sleeping in a tent in the middle of the Serengeti can be a petrifying or an invigorating experience -- or perhaps, as in my case, a bit of both. Looking back, I am tempted to reel off the usual "man-against-nature" clichés: how the night was a poignant reminder of how completely defenseless we humans really are; how almost anything out there can horribly maim or kill you in seconds, from a pint-sized baboon to the African buffalo, dubbed the "most dangerous animal in Africa"; how nature is so unpredictable and ultimately unconquerable. But I won't. I will mention, however, that given the chance, most animals will go out of their way to avoid human contact. And after my first night in the Serengeti, I give fervent thanks for that.
SALON | July 10, 1998
Rajiv Rao is a reporter for Fortune magazine in New York.


	A L S O _T O D A Y Mondo Weirdo The naked truth about the best nude beaches T A B L E_T A L K Is train travel the best way to experience Europe? Share your thoughts in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y The Grand Eurotrash World Cup Bar Tour By Gary Kamiya To catch World Cup fever in America, you've got to find the rest of the world. That's why God invented bars (07/09/98) Letter from Wimbledon By Simon Worrall Of mice and mist and other misadventures (07/08/98) The Cup runneth over and over By Ethan Zindler Professional scalpers and amateur partyers in Marseille (07/07/98) World Cup scenes By Matthew McAllester Passion and indifference mix in rural France (07/07/98) Hog heaven By David Kohn At the Memphis World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (07/03/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives		MY SERENGETI CRAPSHOOT . \| . PAGE 1, 2 Finally, I gather up some courage, zip my tent open and poke my head out. I scan the area in front of me but it's pitch dark and the lanterns have long since been extinguished. I hobble toward Masai's tent, praying that this sudden movement will not cause me any unfortunate accidents. "Masai!" I yell, "I need a torch." "What for?" he asks, in a tone that suggests that this is no time for a Sunday jaunt in Central Park. "Bathroom," I reply. "You have heard the lions, haven't you?" he asks, with a tinge of incredulity at the idea that I would consider walking in this inky blackness to an even darker shed 50 feet away with lions roaring nearby -- not to mention snakes. "This is the bush, not a lodge," he remarks in a tone he probably reserves for a very small child with an exceptionally low I.Q. "Anything can happen." He adds that lionesses hunt at night, and the fact that the males are roaring so close by means that there's a good chance the females are out looking for prey in the same area. All in all, not a good time to go for a crap. "Go somewhere close," he adds and dismisses me by depositing the flashlight at my feet. If I was scared before, I am truly terrified now. I think of the number of times I've used the word "terrified" without really appreciating the full impact of its meaning. Now I know. In fact, mere minutes have transformed me into a connoisseur of terror. And the bit about the lions hunting, "Was that really necessary?" I think to myself. As I scout around for a good location to squat, I curse Masai fervently for his sharing of what is undoubtedly a rich knowledge of lion behavior at a most inappropriate moment. I pick a spot several feet away from our Land Rover and as I squat, the ridiculously helpless nature of my predicament hits me: I am crouched in the middle of the Serengeti with my pants down to my ankles, inviting every sort of predator for a quick meal as I wave my bare buttocks tantalizingly in their faces. Fortunately, this grim realization enhances my bowel movement and the whole affair, while seeming like hours, takes a couple of minutes. While I am hunkered down, I look at the tall Serengeti grass that frames our camp waving to and fro in the wind and immediately chastise myself for spending hours devouring all those wildlife films on the Discovery channel at home. Films with precisely this sort of tall savanna grass waving in the breeze, as a well-camouflaged lioness sits in a frozen crouch, her body taut as a steel cable, waiting to spring upon an unsuspecting gazelle. Or someone taking a midnight crap. Suddenly, I see the grass parting slightly, and I hear something moving not more than 10 feet away. My eyes bulge in terror. My mouth goes dry. After the usual slew of grizzly images that my brain seems intent on manufacturing (example: black-maned lion gripping me by the thorax and shaking me like a rag-doll as I emit horrible, gurgling noises), I try to calm down by convincing myself that it's probably a mongoose or a rock hyrax (a rodentlike animal about the size of a rabbit that, strangely enough, happens to be the closest living land relative to the elephant). Not especially keen to hang around and check out my hypothesis, I hastily wipe, yank my pants up and gallop toward my tent. Once again, I'm a Navy SEAL in the thick of combat: unzip, dive, roll and zip. This time around I'm twice as fast. Once I'm safely ensconced in my sleeping bag, my pounding heart slows down. The saliva starts flowing. A couple of minutes pass and I feel a bit courageous again. "That wasn't so bad," I say to myself. As I'm mentally awarding myself a purple heart for bravery, a hideous shrieking ensues. This time the sounds are not more than 30 feet away from our tents. I groan in despair as I recognize the sound. A pack of hyena. The sound is deafening and unbelievably bone-chilling. I begin to panic. Do hyenas rip into tents and attack humans? Or are they generally wary of us? I rack my brains but can't seem to come up with an answer. The sounds get closer. The pack cannot be more than 15 feet away. By this time, the wind has picked up and the entire tent is fluttering and shaking in spurts. Every time it does so, I recoil, expecting fangs to rip through the flimsy tent. Sometimes I can't seem to differentiate between the animal sounds outside and the effect of the wind against my tent. At one point I hear a rustling and sniffing a scant two feet from my face. I have this uncontrollable urge to open the tent a crack to try to see what's going on outside, but sheer fear prevents me from doing so. Every time I inch toward the tent zipper, I imagine the snarling, saliva-coated muzzle of a hyena in front of my face, and my hand drops to my side with alacrity. As soon as I convince myself that the pack has wandered off and that it's just these nuisance gusts that are exacerbating my heightened anxiety, the wind subsides and I can hear the pack screaming louder than ever. For two hours I lie in my tent recoiling and cowering in alternate spurts like some committed mental patient in a padded cell. Finally, the dual effort of concentrating on these frightful sounds and tensing up for a bloody attack takes its toll. The shrieks cease and I drift off into a fitful sleep. I wake up at dawn, the mild rays of the sun painting the inside of my tent red. Almost immediately, I feel strangely euphoric. I have slept a night in the Serengeti surrounded by roaring lions and shrieking hyenas. I have wandered out of my tent in the dead of night and unwittingly relieved myself right under the noses of a pack of animals reputed to have the strongest jaws in the business. I have not incurred the wrath of any venomous snakes by stepping on them. Survival, I realize, is a giddy sensation. I triumphantly step out of my tent and stride purposefully toward Fred's. "Did you hear the hyenas last night?" I ask, certain that this amiable Austrian must have also spent the night quaking in abject terror for a couple of hours. No such luck. Fred reports that he slept soundly throughout the night thanks to several Safari lagers (Tanzanian beer) that he downed during dinner. I give him a look of dismay and turn away. I ask Natalie, the Canadian, the same question and she laughs at me. Perhaps it was Fred snoring, she suggests cheekily. As I hurl unpleasant, almost hateful thoughts at her, doubts begin to creep into my head. I am embarrassed to think about the helpless state of panic I was in not so many hours ago. Am I that much of a sniveling baby? Did I conjure up the whole thing replete with visions of imminent death? Did I really hear what I thought I heard, or have I become a quivering, delusional wreck after just one night in the bush? I am beginning to feel extremely sheepish. Best to forget the whole affair, I reason to myself, lest I start cultivating a reputation for being a paranoid schizophrenic. I stroll toward last night's campfire, which is about 15 feet from our tents. The ground around the campfire is covered with a combination of ash and fine sand. Right next to the campfire are four massive hyena paw prints. I run to my tent and check its outside perimeters. I think I can detect faint prints, but the ground is hard and covered with grass, so I can't be sure. I walk to Natalie's tent about 10 feet away. All around her tent, in the soft sand, are a multitude of large paw prints. Vindicated! Sleeping in a tent in the middle of the Serengeti can be a petrifying or an invigorating experience -- or perhaps, as in my case, a bit of both. Looking back, I am tempted to reel off the usual "man-against-nature" clichés: how the night was a poignant reminder of how completely defenseless we humans really are; how almost anything out there can horribly maim or kill you in seconds, from a pint-sized baboon to the African buffalo, dubbed the "most dangerous animal in Africa"; how nature is so unpredictable and ultimately unconquerable. But I won't. I will mention, however, that given the chance, most animals will go out of their way to avoid human contact. And after my first night in the Serengeti, I give fervent thanks for that. SALON \| July 10, 1998 Rajiv Rao is a reporter for Fortune magazine in New York.