.Unusual Safari Sightings
Recently I went
to visit Niokola Koba National Park, in the
eastern part of Senegal, an eight hours hot and
dusty drive from Dakar. At the end of this long
journey, my friend and I arrived at the park
entrance. This consisted of a small number of
huts and, an officious looking brick building,
the Europeanised version of an African hut. As
usual, it was adorned with an official Senegalese
flag. Getting the inevitable entrance tickets
lead to a long palaver between the men, As a
female counted as nothing more than mere chattel.
After interminable discussions, we had spent
$200, in return for several slips of grubby
paper, which gave us the right of passage into
the interior of the park. A sort of guide hitched
a lift with us to the campsite. As it turned out,
he was a poor relative of the camp cook.
While driving on
the washed out park trail, in a tiny Peugeot not
exactly suited for the task of Bush exploration,
my friend asked our hitchhiking guest how far we
were from the camp. He wanted to know how long it
would take to get there. He assured us it was
only a matter of minutes. After thirty minutes,
the Bush only got thicker and the trail more
desolate and the potholes deeper. We cautiously
inquired how much further it was to the camp. The
stoic and reassuring reply was: "A few more
minutes!". Another thirty minutes went by,
and we had meanwhile clocked up more than thirty
kilometers and still there was no camp in site.
My head felt sore from the many times it hit the
roof as my friend tried to avoid the worst of the
potholes. An eerie silence continued for another
forty-five minutes with night falling fast.
Finally, we turned a corner and there it was a
site to behold, our camp.
It was not
exactly what I had expected. I dreamt of the
sleek safari lodges of Kenya and South Africa.
But what slowly came into my view was half a
dozen round, African thatched roof huts with a
larger communal hut to one side of the compound.
It stood on the bank overlooking the Gambia
River, and some green looking freshwater pond,
which turned out to be the swimming pool. It was
home, at least for the next few days. We checked
in and were allocated one of the thatched hovels.
These turned out to be quite comfortable. Of
course, one had to disregard the columns of ants
migrating across the concrete floor and the three
or four geckos, the small African lizards that
shared our room. The dinner that night was
uneventful but surprisingly good. An exotic touch
added by the snorting of a group of
hippopotamuses wallowing in the river water a few
yards from the dinner table. By ten oclock
the joy suddenly ended when the only generator
stopped supplying electricity and inevitably we
had to call it a night.
The following
morning, we rose prior to daybreak to ride off
into the animal kingdom. We rode on the back of
an old French world war two Army vehicle. It was
still dark when we left the camp and except for
the driver and local tracker, my friend and I
were alone on the truck. Apparently, the few
other guests in the camp had left the night
before. The big attraction in the park was Lions,
who might have been around had it not been the
end of the dry season. They preferred to hunt
along the river banks, and we saw some at a great
distance, straining our eyes, even with powerful
binoculars. The guide reassured us that we could
see them quite close-up, at night, if we dared,
since they had a habit of wandering through the
camp. I began to wonder if the local food supply
was so scarce that even a skinny female tourist
like myself could provide an appetising meal. Our
flimsy hut door did not look as if it would
provide much protection from a large, hungry,
determined cat. What I first thought to be a tall
tale by the guide was confirmed quite vividly by
the big paw print we discovered not too far from
our hut the next morning.
Again, we were
up before dawn to spend another day roaming by
truck and on foot around the bush in search of
the ever elusive game. Warthogs, baboons,
gazelles, antelopes, hippos and crocodiles were
around us in abundance. Looking at some many
animals in heat and humidity exhausted me. A few
hours later we returned to the camp. We noticed a
large number of land cruisers and military
vehicles in the centre of the camp. On entering
the communal hut with the restaurant, we were
informed that the local governor and his large
entourage was making an inspection tour. Not
being too interested in local political
dignitaries I returned to my quarters for a
siesta. In my half-sleep, I heard a lot of noise
from moving vehicles, which I assumed to be the
departure of the governor and his entourage.
Some shouting
woke me up an hour later, and I decided to go out
and have a look around. As I came out of my hut,
I noticed some more military vehicles, which, of
course, I assumed to be part of the
governors group. It was by now four or five
in the afternoon and the heat had settled over
the camp leaving everything covered in a thin
coat of red dust. Suffering from heat and
sleepiness I wandered slowly out and over the red
dust that passed for the camp road to the
communal compound. As I approaching the swimming
pool, I crossed the campsite. I looked up, and to
my great surprise there was a group of about
forty attractive, short-haired, muscular and
sun-tanned men standing near and around the
swimming pool. They were just as surprised to see
me. In fact, I noticed that everyone was staring
at me and that everything had gone suddenly
quite. Then I noticed that every man had on faded
swimming trunks, or so I thought. Every colour of
the rainbow was on display, and just like a
rainbow, as pale and as faded; blue, red, yellow,
green, white and yellow. Then, of course, it
dawned I was staring at a group of forty French
paratroops wearing nothing but their underwear.
And what to do? What could one do? I tried not to
appear too surprised but of course I was more
than surprise. The last thing I expected to find
on my safari along the Gambia river was the
French army! Lions yes, men in only their
underwear, never.
Later they
disappeared and shortly after that reappeared on
the bank of the Gambia neatly dressed in military
khakis. Several officers inquired about my visit
to the park, all the while I was trying to keep
my mind on the topic rather than on their
underwear.
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©2008
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