Animal kingdom

Maun, Botswana
Sept. 19, 2008

(with photos of a lion visit to the game truck and Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania)

What’s the first animal tourists want to see when they come to Botswana?

In my experience, it is a lion. Oh, how the Italians yearn to see a “leee-o-neee,” followed closely by a “leeee-eh-pahhhh-doe,” and not just the tail, thank you very much; we paid too see the WHOLE leopard. (Made me giggle when those words were actually uttered.)

That’s why I gather so many of the guides I’ve met never pick the lion as their favorite animal. Lions laze around for hours. They hide out in the bush sleeping. And the more adamant guests are about finding them, the more often lions seem to take a holiday. The guides are left frantically following tracks and feeling the hot breath of exasperated guests on their necks: “Vee MUST find zee lion before vee fly away!!!”

Guides have their favorite animals, and they list a variety: impala, elephant, wild dogs, leopard, zebra. I haven’t met a guide yet who named a lion.

I’ve tried to identify my favorite, and I cannot do it to any lasting effect. One day it is the elephant, so close to me at the fence at Savute I could look into that soulful eye of his beneath the long eyelashes and imagine that he and I understood each other. Another day it is the zebra, a playful creature of brilliant markings that comprise solely its own calligraphic pattern. Against the pale green grass of Savute Marsh after the rains, a herd of zebra is artistically stunning. Of course, after my encounter with the leopard on my balcony, the leopard jumped to the top of my list. And there was the week in Savute when I had three encounters with wild dogs; that week they were my favorite.

But I am never without reverence for the other creatures I have seen, save the mosquito. One night a lodge manager aimed a torch on the path to the guest chalets. I peered into the dark and saw a shrub that was about knee-height. My glory. It wasn’t a shrub. It was a porcupine – a huge one. All these years I had thought porcupines were small, of hedgehog size. That enormous mass of needles from which a wary eye watched us was a heart-stopping sight.

On another day, the tiny Scops Owl that blended into the nook of a tree, its feathers camouflaged as bark, left me smiling on my way out of Savute.

One night I heard evil growling sounds from what seemed to be under my bed -- or at least under the floor of my chalet -- and the high-pitched shrieks of a dying animal. The sound of hell – truly the scariest sound I’ve ever heard from an animal – went on for the longest time. At daybreak I saw the broad-shouldered culprit muscle its way along the sandy path from my chalet: it was the honey badger. If Hollywood needs sound effects for its latest horror flicks, the honey badger, with its gut-ripping grunts and growls, is the animal for the job. When two honey badgers showed up at the door at dinner last month and looked as if they were going to walk right up to my chair, I instinctively lifted my legs straight in front of me, off the floor, and warned guest to look out! I don’t want to meet a honey badger up close anywhere. It will never make my favorites list, but it has earned my respect, and it has left me with the ability to mimic its horrifying sounds ,to the delight of friends and guests. I’ll entertain you with that newfound skill when I return to the States. (rrrr-eeek-eeek!)

I still like lions, too, despite all the hand-wringing hoopla from guests about ticking them off their game lists. (here's how to be sure to tick them off your list: Go to a zoo.)

I wrote recently about how I encountered lions while I was on foot. A few days later I was seeing lions again, at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. The game drive vehicle allowed us to stand up with our heads sticking outside the roof. That’s how we were standing when these three lions in the photos came calling. When the biggest of three walked straight toward the vehicle, it occurred to me she might leap onto the hood. I sat down in the blink of an eye, which told me I would have run if I had been on foot. Not the response you want around lions. Lucky for Kelly and me and our driver, the lions paraded past, with one hugging my side of the vehicle. The big one you see came so close that she stopped inches from the back tire and looked up at me. (I was standing up again by this time and leaning over the top of the vehicle.) The photo just missed that nanosecond when her face turned upward toward me. Look at her reflection in the window. She is close!

All this to say I remain fascinated by lions and all of the animals I have seen in Botswana and Tanzania, from hippos to crocodiles to bush babies. I don’t have a favorite. I guess I never will.