From the travel diaries: my scariest travel moment

Before the days of family travel, toddler-road-trip-coping-tips and mamahood survival, there were all sorts of other travelling adventures! I’ve decided to dip into the travel diaries and reminisce over some of my favourite tales – first up: my scariest travel moment. Clue – it involves a wild animal….

One achingly hot Zambian afternoon, my husband and I left the shade of our tented safari camp, and braved the unforgiving African sun to hunt down a rumoured, but elusive WiFi connection in this remote part of the South Luangwa National Park. A beautiful spot, by the banks of a river teeming with wildlife, it was just a short walk from our tent down a dusty path riddled with monkeys to reception.

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We had been warned that giant beasts occasionally made their way into the camp, indeed it didn’t seem unlikely given their overwhelmingly apparent proximity – beady crocodile eyes gave away their basking positions in the muddy waters just metres away from our tarp-ed dining table, and families of elephants sauntered across the river numerous times, each time never less mind-blowing than the last.

We’d also heard them at night – the deafening crickets, caterwauling jackals, screeching monkeys, distant roar-offs between elephants and lions, hippos bellowing their Frank Bruno-esque laughs. In the darkness, distance perception was lost and every croak, grunt and squawk seemed frighteningly close. The canvas of our safari tent seemed incredibly flimsy compared to the power and size of the animals around us. Occasionally, wild flashes would illuminate the tent, the night guards’ hushed voices betraying some urgency as they frantically tried to discern the source of a new mammalian sound. A long silence…then sleep… and then we would awake to another blood orange sunrise.

But never did we dream how close we might actually get to one of the perpetrators…

So, on this one boiling hot afternoon in search of long-lost internet, us newly-weds strode along the track under the trees in blissful ignorance. The air was roasting, and the pair of us had drenched a sarong and kikoi with cold water under the tap and wrapped them around our heads for cooling purposes. Monkeys cavorted by the roadside, and I found them delightfully distracting.

As I turned to Doug to enlighten him with tales of the monkeys’ deeds, something else caught my eye. Lo and behold, looming but six feet ahead of us, the hefty grey bulk of a young male elephant – tusks and all – hacking away at a tree. Nothing separated us, no vehicle shielded our bodies, no game warden wielding a sleep-inducing dart to race to our rescue. In fact there was nobody around, such was the heat at this time of day. Doug fiddling away at the material on his nogging remained unaware of our plight, until I grabbed his arm and heart-pounding, rooted to the spot, informed him of the startling predicament we now found ourselves in:

“Errrrm Doug, there’s an elephant”.

From the travel diaries: my scariest travel moment

No sooner had I uttered these words, the elephant too became conscious of our encroaching footsteps. We had unwittingly startled him and roamed way too far into his territory. His chosen course of action: to ‘mock charge’ us.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been ‘mock charged’ by an elephant, but if you have, you’ll know that the ‘mock‘ part of the phrase is largely irrelevant. It simply feels as if you are being ‘charged’ at by an elephant.

Unaccustomed to the enormity of the most evolution fight-or-flight situation, I was uncertain how to react:

A) remain motionless and hope the four-ton body mass pelting in our direction suddenly recognises us as a pair of non-threateningly honeymooners? A more difficult feat when aforementioned four-ton body mass is scuffing the ground with his giant, bone-crushing elephant foot while mulling over your impending fate.
B) shout, wave and generally go berserk to scare off the creature?
Or, C) the most attractive-option, RUN FOR OUR LIVES.

It’s only in hindsight that I managed to think of these options. At the time, I didn’t dwell for very long in the face of this head-shaking, ear-flapping and now apparently angered beast. Instead I followed Doug’s quick and efficient advice:

“Harri. Run!”

Quick off our feet we scarpered, jelly legs pounding the earth. Checking back to see if our marauder was gaining on us, we were rewarded with the sight of him ignoring us once more, happily munching leaves. Relieved and brimming with excitement at this most narrow of escapes, we abandoned the search for WiFi and staggered back to the safety of the camp.

“Did you really think we could outrun an elephant?” I asked Doug nervously. “I didn’t have to, I only had to outrun you” he lovingly replied.

A slightly too-close encounter with one of these magnificent beasts.