That Day

I can now retire a happy camper. Not that I intend to. I enjoy my job too much to go that far just yet, however the experience I had on the second of March 2005 will never happen again, and that I guess is what makes guiding walks in the African wilds of Loliondo such a trip.

Sheryl and Steve Radcliffe, Jane Nettesheim, Philip Durkee, John Maeki (Maasai) and I set of a bit late from camp, as happens on the first morning in Alamana. We drove in an open safari car across the short grass plains to the base of Irkumeishin hill. As we were running a bit late I decided to start walking from the middle of the ridge in a northerly direction along the ridge.

It was hellish windy, clear and cool. On the windward side hats were blowing off and it was hard to steady binoculars as the whistling air buffeted us, but the leeward side was calmer with a breeze in the opposite direction up the slope into the vacuum created by the strong constant easterly.

The wind worked for us all morning drowning out our heavy footsteps over the uneven six hundred million year old rocky slopes of the Irkumeishin ridge. However all the birds where hanging on to swinging twigs in the middle of the Three Hook Thorn and not budging, so ornithologicaly it was a bit dry. We had an exciting time trying to creep up on a large heard if Zebra and had good sightings of Klipspringer, Chandlers Mountain Reedbuck and Eland.

With the cool weather we walked further along the ridge, by about a mile, than we had ever managed to previously. When we came up to the last little valley before the northern end of the ridge, where the old buffalo bulls always lurk, I asked if everybody was ready to continue and complete the ridge, or if we should call it a day and use the valley to walk down to the car. Sebastian and Bill Streby, who where patiently waiting to collect us, where content on the plains bellow watching Cheetah. After some discussion where nobody wanted to poop the party it was realized that we were not the sort to give up near the end and would have to complete the ridge. That was a very lucky realization.

Guiding walks in areas where dangerous wildlife is common, is as you can imagine, a stressed occupation. One must exude a confident pose in order not to let on just how out of control the situation is. So ensuring that the naive, relaxed clientele remain just that, and are not too jumpy to enjoy the magnificent vistas. It is vital to remain a little on edge, with senses on hyper alert, because the bush law dictates, the minute your guard is down something will happen, good or bad.

We where in a place where John and I have encountered Lion on several occasions, suffice to say, I was looking carefully around. The northern end of the Irkumeishin ridge offers a stunning view. The ridge itself divides into two little rocky parallel ridges, separated by a fifteen foot deep depression, that slope at about forty five degrees down to the flat open wooded valley below. There are a few scattered Acacia, Buffalo Thorn, Lannea and Commiphora bushes about and as I walked around one of these a pale tawny coconut rose out of the grass in front of me, or as Steve Radcliffe put it,

“Leaning into the 40kph headwinds near the end of a six mile game hike, we crested the Irkumeishin ridge. I was immediately perplexed by the presence of a huge golden object 35 meters in front of our party. Being tired and accustomed to seeing rock outcrops of varying colors, it took me a second to realize that this hairy and faceless mass was not a rock and that in the deafening headwinds, we had inadvertently placed ourselves in the dangerous position of surprising something very mean.

Just as it dawned on me this was the largest male lion we had seen on the trip, Philip quickly turned to us with his hand in a “claw” position and motioned for us to move backwards slowly to the slight rise behind us. When we reached 50 or 60 meters distance, (I sat down to enjoy the moment and steady my hands, just for a few seconds, at this point), we stopped to enjoy the moment as the lion was intent on the valley below. We then edged closer below the opposite ridge and came up still a little higher than the lion and across a small dip.

Philip said quietly, “We are going to let him know we are here get ready for a photo.”

My immediate thought was” Now why the hell would we do that?”

But it became clear that we needed to show him who the dominant “animal” was in this locale. As we held our breath in this surreal situation, Philip yelled “Hey you. Yeah I mean you!” The lion, which must have been sleeping and totally unaware of our presence, turned his huge maned-head quickly and with a startled, wide-eyed glare, decided that he just didn’t have the advantage at the moment. He bolted from his rocky perch and headed down the ridge. As if that wasn’t enough excitement, when we approached his resting site seconds later, still looking for him, an unseen female companion exploded upwards from the brush looking away from us for the danger. She was very close, just a few feet away. Philip shouted again, raising his rifle, and she in a single fluid movement, glared at Philip, and then disappeared down the hillside. We had not seen her until then.

The cool professionalism displayed by Philip and John, his Maasai partner, really never made us feel threatened. But then we were new and naïve to the African bush.”

I doubt that I will be in a position to experience lion again with the terrain advantage in my favor to the extent that retreat was his only option, let alone have a picture to remind me. He does appear to have a black nose showing him to be mature and is in his prime. I did not really get to look at him with much appreciation at the time, and I now can. I was concentrating on keeping his attention on me, hence the vocal greeting. I was concerned too that we would have had to walk a mile back along the ridge to the nearest reasonable way down, that little valley that has an old bachelor buffalo or two in it. I looked at Jon who was looking at me and suggested we would have to move the lion and he agreed.

Past experience has shown me that backing away from a lion can serve to bolster lions confidence, encouraging them co consider you as a gastronomical option.