After lunch, we headed for a light snooze and we thought with a bit of luck it might turn into a real nap. But Dusty's radio rudely erupted and broke the silence. The insistent Motorola seemed to think nap time was over! Various pairs of partially open eyes were watching Dusty as he managed to half jump and stumble forward increasing the volume of his radio. It could be the sighting of Wild Dog, Buffalo, Rhino or just about any of a hundred other reasons that had to do with Sango's day to day responsibilities of the ecologist, hunter and guide manager Dusty.SANGO BAYSEE JEU COPY? There it goes again. Dusty, who knows every spot where reception can vary makes his way to the edge of the woven canopy which forms the Great Hall of Sango Lodge and holds the radio towards the open blue sky. We are all up by now and curious.
Dusty's interest and body language was flashing that this time we got a winner. Maruding packs of Wild Dog perhaps? Battling Nyatis or as we know them in English, Cape Buffalo perhaps? The radio held his full attention while walking towards the rack of rifles, he glanced back at us and nodded. The brief conversation ended and he picked up the bigger of his two rifles, his 375 H&H. Looking over his shoulder as I ask him "Whatta we got?", he tells us to get ready NOW as the scouts have spotted and are tracking rhinos. Did he just say Rhinos? One is a bonus, but he is talking about multiples here. "What do you mean Rhinos? I say, "yeah" is his reply "and they are not sure exactly how many".
The rain in the last month in eastern Zimbabwe had been the heaviest for several years and the vegetation had responded in spades. Everything was green and the leaf cover was heavy. A bad thing when you have to keep track of one of southern Africa's worse tempered members of the Big Five. Lucky for us we had some of the best guys in the world doing the hard work for us.
We quickly gathered our kit which was always piled near the door and consisted of camera, binocs and our camo
tracking jackets and joined Dusty who had already fired up the topless Landcruiser. In less than three minutes from the call, we pulled out of the camp and headed for the obscure turn off where Dusty had arranged to meet the guides.There are Scouts at Sango that are partially paid for by the WWF(World Wildlife Foundation) that do nothing but monitor the growing Rhino population. They tag all of the animals and even use radio collars on select members of the population. As we drive down the trail recently cleared of fallen trees from a wind storm and hungry elephants, we pass the two bicycles of the guards sitting against a Mopane.We reduce our speed down to a fast crawl not wanting to make any more noise than necessary. A few minutes more and we see one of the Scouts in his dark green uniform. He is standing in the shade of a tall Acacia tree and signals with hand signs. He immediately puts his finger to his lips to insure that we remain as quite as we can. Dusty stops the engine and we get out leaving the doors open. Joshua as he is introduced to us is one of the stars of the group protecting Sango from poachers. His area of responsibility is limited only by the travel of his precious charges as they wander over the 850,000 square acres of the Save.
We quickly follow him to a larger clearing of an area of perhaps two football fields. Scattered are standing tall trees of perhaps fourteen to twenty inches in diameter and up to 50 feet in height. The clearing is surrounded by small dense Mopane trees and the jumbled up scrub that is this part of Africa. There are thorns here that set the patent for how to poke people. The small ground Acacias with their three inches hypodermics drawn and Wait-a-bit thorns which must have been named by some proper Englishmen. Properly named they would have been Stop-Dead-In-Your-Tracks-or-Will-Rip-Flesh-Off-Your-Bones thorns. Joshua is soon met by Chema his partner in this dangerous chess match they play every day. They are unarmed to insure that they will not put themselves in situations where the Rhinos safety may be compromised.
The five of us gather behind the largest of the two trees and they start to tell us what has happened. Due to the thickness of the scrub they can't be sure of the number of Rhinos but there are at least four of them. We have hit the two-horned jackpot only we don't know where it is. They had followed the radio signal of one big male. The rhinos had come to feed in the clearing when the radio call first came in. After Joshua called us a young Bull Elephant decided to join the party and charged the other animals causing them to leave the scrub. He soon followed suit and we could hear him trumpeting in the near distance of no more than a few hundred yards. Joshua and Chema after finishing their tale of the last twenty minutes action suggested that we start off following the last trail into the scrub. We walked to the edge and just as we started to enter the thickness of the Mopanes, today's peanut packing neighborhood bully decided on an anxiety check by lasting through the air his various victory calls all the while crashing through the smaller trees. Dusty turned at this and looked at us as we brought up the tail end of our group. His rifle, which was at the lower end of acceptable calibers for helping to keep us from becoming the white stuff between an elephants toes, suddenly seemed much smaller than it did in the truck.
He must have read in my mind and even though we had the confidence to follow him to what could be a bitter end, he turned and said that he was not comfortable leading us into what could become more of a situation than we desired. All of this because somebody in a jumbo sized grey wrinkled suit didn't like the way we smelled. We had to trust him when he said that there was no way with one rifle we were going to dance with a combined twelve tons of fun and fury. Fine by us! He instructed the Scouts to go in and recon so we could have some idea of where everyone was positioned. We agreed wholeheartedly and dropped back about 75 meters and took position between another set of bigger trees where we received instructions to make like a squirrel if things did not go our way. Going our way meant that one to five multi ton pissed off bad asses would just stay where they were. There has to be respect of the ground rules.
Joshua and Chema disappeared for about 25 minutes while we waited tucked in behind our potential arboreal fortress. We could hear the young bull breaking off branches to feed on the newest leaves at about then o'clock to our front. We could hear the grunts and squeals of the Rhinos off to our right at about two o'clock. What I would have given for a silent aerial view. Their slightest sounds were still loud enough for us to pick up. The boys came out from just about where we heard the rhinos. They waved us towards them. I heard Dusty quietly open the bolt and check the 300 grain solid tip shell in the chamber. It was Showtime! He held his rifle at the ready across his chest and led ourselves after the scouts. We walked as silent as prey can.
Chema had a plastic bottle where he constantly puffed out a small cloud of ash to check the wind direction. Ash is the one thing that will not alert African wildlife due to the regular incidents of wildfires in the prolonged dry season. Everyone who gets to this point of foot pretty much knows that both Elephants and especially Rhinos have bad eyesight. It is their smell and hearing which are well developed and help make up the difference. In our gang of five, each of us were separated by no more than two feet.
Now the game was changing. We no longer had our nice Acacias to scamper up. The scrub, we were now walking in or rather stalking in, was at the widest enough to hide a kitchen spoon behind. If one of the three guys in front of us screws this up we will be real glad we're paid up on that full coverage third world medical insurance. Oh Yeah, and a side order of common sense cause it seemed like somebody was missing some right now.
Chemma puffed his small ash cloud every ten seconds. I liked that. There was no licking of fingers and holding them in the wind to see which way it was coming from. Has that ever worked anyway? We listened intently about how to stand still and how to climb as fast as you can. When do we know the difference? When I tell you, says Dusty. I looked around and figured quickly that it also was easy to calculate especially as we had no trees around us. The scenario ran through my mind of trying to play ring around the Acacia with some huffing prehistoric beast with a nasal hard on trying to skip a step and slide into home with me being the plate. Chema puffed and we slowly moved forward down what was clearly a game trail. Off to our right, there was a tearing noise. Something was ripping up grass. Are you kidding me? We are close enough that just on the other side of some scrub bushes that we can hear eating sounds. Not cracking bones from a Lion kill that can carry across the night air but soft fresh grass being pulled out of the ground.
Walking like this in Africa brings out all the buried senses we humans have and have forgotten to use. W
alking in the neighborhood with big powerful animals that don't really like you brings back some basic instinct on remembering how to listen and sense movement and yeah, we can smell. Now why is it that I don't quite have that lucky feeling right now? Could it be because the last grunting feeding sound has not come from us?Joshua, who is quietly leading the way ever so slowly now steps into a round clearing of no more than 15 feet in diameter. He stays at the edge and moves slightly to his right. He stops suddenly which causes all of us to freeze. Dusty is on high alert. If there was an alarm light to flash it would beeping out full red. Having gone way beyond yellow or orange levels his head twists to look behind us. Oh great, now that would be a scene. To have someone come in the backdoor especially as our trail is a one way corridor through spines and thorns of all types and shapes. Josh now stops moving forward and steps to the side which allows Chema and then Dusty to step into the arena. As my wife steps one foot forward to follow him, he suddenly raises his hand to stop her and me. He slowly points across the flattened opening to some three foot high dead grass under a small Acacia which is no more than two Lincoln Continentals away from us.
As I am stopped on the trail, I crane around and am able to see a pair of torn grey ears that are flipping back and forth like radar. We know deep down inside that eventually they will stop on our group which is now glued together. I see that Joshua's eyes are wide and I take that to mean its not a good thing. He is screaming without a sound to Dusty and is holding his hand palm down parallel to the ground like he is showing the height of something. Dusty turns from his hips to not move his feet and looks me right in the eyes and mouths the words BA..BY. Now I have read enough over the years to know that if you are going to mess with anything in the world we know then don't let it be a mother and sprout. Irregardless what species it is, what country, time of the year etc.. You don't get between maternal instincts especially when mama weighs about a ton and the best part of three quarters.
Dusty's hand is waving us back now and it is seriously apparent that Joshua and Chema have made a potentially fatal mistake. They knew there were several Rhino of the meaner version in the vicinity. They had tracked a couple of males but due to the growth had never been able to see the spoor of the young one. There is also the confidence that when the Bwana or "Boss" is with you and he is armed well then you do things knowing that he will save the day. As I start to turn and move back down the path, I catch a final glimpse of those ears which have now stopped searching and have triangulated on us. I see in the eyes of the Scouts that they now know of their mistake and everyone is trying to move behind Dusty's mystical 300 grain protection. She had us in her sights but she just could not se us. Then she lifted her head from the resting position. She has had enough data now to move to the next level which was to raise that massive horned battering ram head of hers just in case there might be some ass whooping needed. Dusty's hand is moving faster as he mouths GO to us. No Kodak moments here. The guides slip behind him and cover my wife.
Dusty is now slowly heading backwards watching his feet and waiting for her to jump to action. We are seconds away from disaster. If she raises her head four inches more she can see our forms. If he has to fire there would be no round in the air to scare her. This was Mega Mom coming to rescue Baby. We are trying to move as quickly and quietly as we can knowing that more excitement than anyone needs is just around the corner. As if there wasn't enough going on, our friendly Jumbo decides to get in the action and launches his best cavalry charge blast no more than 60 yards away. A lot closer than he was when we entered the scrub. We keep moving another ten yards. Still no sound is made. No nervous laughter. No exhaling of held breath and slapping on each backs yelling out....."ShoooWeeee", that was a close one!". It still is a close one. We managed to move as quickly as we can to cover what is the longest 60 yards in Zimbabwe. Before we get to step into our main clearing, Joshua who has taken point peers to make sure we are not walking into the waiting arms of our rambunctious trunked friend.
The way is clear and finally we all step out with Dusty still watching our back. We walk the 250 yards to the olive drab cruiser and finally can exhale and try and slow down our heart beat. My wife says that was the biggest adrenaline rush she has ever had. Her blouse was actually moving over her heart. What made this such a ride was the sounds all around us and knowing that they came from two of the Big Five. What a day it was !
