Elephant, Part I

“We're really close, now,” I said, addressing my client, a middle aged polish woman sitting behind me in the game viewer.
“I think you're right,” she replied,”I can smell them.”
We were cruising down Main road in the Nkambeni concession in search of elephants, who I knew were in the area; they had been for the last week or so. Yeah, you could smell them all right, their scent have a tendency to linger for quite a while and the smell of the dung was pretty potent too – and there was lots of it, unceremoniously dumped all over the road.
Even though the Main road is the largest road in the concession it is still quite narrow and high Yellow thatching grass was growing on both sides of the road. By high grass I mean really high grass. This grass can (and usually will) grow to more than three meters high. It felt almost like driving through a tunnel and I was slightly worried about what would happen if we did come across an elephant on this road. Usually, you simply drive off the road and park the car beside the road and let the elephant pass (standard operating procedure) but on this road there was simply not enough room for an elephant to pass; and knowing elephants they have a tendency to make room if needed. So, I was a bit concerned.
“There!” a big bull elephant had just rounded a bend in the road, only about 75 meters in front of us and behind him even more elephants were emerging. He was a nice, big bull with two really impressive tusks, in the prime of his life - a real poster boy. And he was heading right for us.
There was not a lot of space where I stood but I considered going “a little” off road and level some of that grass; not really allowed but it is only grass after all, and there's certainly plenty of it. Besides, I need to make room for the elephants to pass and the two or so meters gained by my off-roading would make it possible for the elephants to, safely, pass me. It's a safety issue I concluded and that would prevent me from getting into any trouble with the management for going off road. So, my mind had been made up: I was going to create enough space for the elephants to pass and at the same time give my client a real treat – few things are as awesome as having an animal the size of a bus pass right next to you!
When I started to explain my plan for my client and told her that she had to remain perfectly still and not make any noises, I heard the sound of braking branches – on both sides of the road. I stood up in my front seat but I couldn't see anything because of the high grass. “That's not good.” I said to myself, a little louder than I had first intended. My client hadn't heard me though, she was preoccupied with her camera; getting it ready for some nice close-ups, no doubt.
If sitting in a car when an elephant walks past makes you nervous (which it should because it is dangerous) doing it on a narrow road where there's nowhere to go while being surrounded by other elephants is simply nerve wrecking. Some would even call it stupid. Elephants have been known to charge cars if they feel blocked in order to clear a path and even flip cars just because the think it's fun. My game viewer is big, a Landrover with room for me and ten clients, but it is still just a car. An elephant would have little trouble flipping it over.
The big bull was getting closer. At this distance I didn't even need my binoculars to see all the signs of an elephant bull in full musth. Oh, come on, give me a break. There's no way this road is wide enough for the both of us. Elephant bulls can be both unpredictable and aggressive when they are in musth and therefore also very dangerous. Their bodies produce so much testosterone that they need to get rid of it through constant urinating; otherwise the level of testosterone will become high enough to actually end up poisoning them. This also makes them smell, and even at 50 meters I could smell the testosterone. This could end badly.
“Right, new plan” I said to my client.”We need to give him more room so we will have to reverse back to a more open area.” I told her about elephant bulls and musth and she did not object to my new plan.
The Nkambeni concession is a part of Kruger park that, in early days, was confiscated by the white government but have rather recently been returned to the local community that it was originally taken from. The local community in turn then let the Nkambeni Lodge lease the land, all in all some 6000 hectares. In short, the lodge has a private part of Kruger park where only cars belonging to the lodge are allowed to drive. As a part of the agreement, the community have the right to every now and again harvest a certain amount of Yellow thatching grass that they use for roofing.
I'm telling you all this, not because I think you find it especially interesting, but rather because after they have harvest their grass they leave about a hectare of open space in the otherwise densely vegetated terrain. I had also told my client all this when we passed one of those open patches, only minutes before we saw the elephant on the road in front of us.
So, the new plan was to reverse back (there was not enough room to turn the car around) to the open patch we passed earlier, park a safe distance away form the road and just watch the elephants pass.
Once we got there we couldn't really see what happened down the road from where we had parked but we would have a great view of whatever passed on the road in front of us.
The plan was good. Elephants don't mind using roads since it is convenient and you don't reach a body weight in excess of 6 tons doing any unnecessary exercise so the chance of the big bull continuing down the road (and thus passing nicely right in front of us) was high.
“Any minute now.” I told my client.
Time passed.
“Perhaps he found something to eat on his way down the road, they have a tendency to think with their stomachs. It will not be long now,” I said to reassure myself as much as my client. Is he coming or not? Shouldn't he be here by now? Did he leave the road and wander off into the high grass?
More time passed.
Like if she had read my mind she asked: “Do you think he walked off the road and disappeared in the grass?”
“It is possible. I think we should have a look and see where he is. To see if he is still there.” This would not compromise my plan too much, if he was still heading down the road I could just reverse back into the open area again.
I started the car and slowly drove back onto the road – ready to put the gear in reverse on a moments notice.

/ J

Assessment

To become a legal guide in southern Africa there are a few things you need to do. First of all there is a theoretical test that you can sit a few times each year and if you do a course through an accredited institution, like we did at Bushwise, you get a special sitting at the end of the course. This we did in late November and we both did pretty well. The exam covers everything that we’ve been reading about on the course, from ethical guiding to geology, grasses and animal behaviour.

After you've passed the written exam you need to be practically assessed. We did this in the same game reserve where we had been training for five months, Makalali. You head out in one of the game viewers with the manager of Bushwise, Mark, who's assessing you and five or six of the other students, acting as guests... asking more or less helpful questions.

Group A

Group B

Anja's drive
I was the second student to be assessed and on my drive I was seriously nervous (and had been for two days). Mark decided that he was a Russian guest called Vladimir Smirnoff who wanted to shoot animals and drink vodka... apparently you need to be prepared for anything as a guide and be able to handle it nicely. Before you go out on your drive you greet the guests, give them something to drink and introduce them to one another. You also brief them and lay down the rules (stay in the vehicle, don't smoke, etc) before going out.

I didn't encounter many interesting animals on this windy and overcast November afternoon but that didn't stop me from talking constantly. I guess you should be able to talk about things, even though you don't see any of the Big Five. So, I did my best with three zebra bums, a couple of hornbills, a termite mound, cheetah tracks and trees, assisted by the many questions from my “guests” (among others an arguing couple on honeymoon...). When it was getting dark they were served coffee and Amarula, which was much appreciated, before heading back. We also stopped to talk about the moon, rocks and weather as you have to try and incorporate most of the subjects from the course in your drive to avoid having to do a written project on a certain subject afterwards (which I managed). You get feedback directly after the drive and that was a good thing, since I could finally relax again after a couple of days' anxiety.

Jonny's drive
Jonny's drive was in the morning and turned out to be a very interesting drive. He did a good job talking about everything and anything, as you are expected to. When you later work as a guide with actual guests you don't stop for everything and tell the guests everything you know about, for instance, impala. They would find it boring and also there wouldn't be anything to say the second or third time you stop for this abundant creature.

Before we had even entered Makalali we saw two male cheetahs! The two brothers frequently hang around by the gate and have on occasion sneaked out of the reserve, but usually come back in again if the gate is left open for them... maybe they are looking for a new territory or can smell a female close by? After that we did see quite a few of the most common mammals and birds, which of course is a step up from zebra bums! But what made this a really interesting morning were all the reptiles we encountered. In one of the dams we saw two crocodiles and a little later a pretty blue tree agama that was kind enough to sit on a tree right next to the vehicle. We also managed to spot a leopard tortoise that Jonny estimated to be around 25 years old from a distance. Mark asked him to get out and count the rings on it's back... and there were 26! Just as with trees their shell grows one ring each year. The coolest thing this day was a snake though, a beautiful Boomslang (my favourite snake) that usually spend most of their time in the trees. They have huge eyes and seem to be able to actually spot stationary prey. Other snakes can only see moving objects. This one was on the ground and had to our delight caught a frog! Since it was busy swallowing this large prey it did hurry off as the snakes that we had encountered this far had done. So, we sat there for a few minutes watching it as it enjoyed its meal and then readjust its jaw before slowly making its way into a nearby bush. Happy we later enjoyed a light meal of our own, some red wine and pepper steak pie that Jonny treated his guests to. Needless to say Jonny also passed his assessment without any difficulties.

After passing everything you need to register as a guide in your area, which for us is “Kruger park and surrounding game reserves”. To register you need proof of passing the tests, a First Aid certificate and a PDP (Professional Driver's Permit). To get a PDP you need a South African driver's license and a police clearance and you have to have one to be able to have more than three passengers or goods in your vehicle... tough if you have a big family.

Another day, another drive
Other drives were sometimes interesting and sometimes not, but we did sees some good stuff once in a while. You have previously been introduced to the Foam nest frogs (toilet frogs) which are quite cute and nice to have around. One day we came across a number of them... and learnt why they are called Foam nest frogs, they are rather disgusting actually. The female produces a liquid while laying her eggs that she kicks with her hind legs, churning it into a foam, while a bunch of males try to fertilize the eggs. Two curious hyena cubs had for a while been the Bushwise favourites, with the clan moving between a couple of known dens. Quite often we asked to go by the dens to check on them. As there aren't too many cars coming through Makalali I don't think they were very disturbed by this and the cubs usually came up to the car, sniffed it and ran back to the adult babysitting them. After having been reassured by the adult's calm, they frequently repeated this until we drove off, once sniffing Mark's feet when he was sitting in the tracker seat. One day, late in November, we got a glimpse of the newest addition to the clan... a teddy bear look-alike little cub. The mother was very protective of it and didn't much like the two youngsters playing their rough games too close.

/A