Marataba, South Africa Safari Adventure

BY KENDALL HARDIN

My safari would soon end at Marataba in the wild southeast corner of South Africa and tonight marked my last evening game drive departing from the lodge promptly at four o’clock after high tea. Our trek would be extra special according to our guide Helen who was going to drive us far off the grid to the west in search of the elusive leopard. We were going to invade fresh territory.

All week we had traversed the remote bush of Marakele Park, which means “Place of Sanctuary” in the local Steswana tongue. The 580 square miles of the reserve is rougher and more “brambling” than the lush high plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania. But it offers a stark, raw beauty all its own – especially with the Waterberg Mountains towering in the foreground. If the flora were different I could imagine being in the middle of Utah with ancient mountains of red limestone. We are on hallowed primordial ground.

At the center of the landscape the impressive cliffs of the Waterberg Range tower over 1,600 feet above the plains, a relic of the inland lakes which deposited sediment more than a billion years ago. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of “pre-human occupation” in the region. The most obvious modern human evidence is in the form of San rock art some 2,000 years old, as well as iron age sites scattered around the range. As reference points, the cliffs served as indispensable markers to define one’s location and sense of direction in the bush. Tonight we would travel beyond the ridges.

Our massive open-air Toyota Rover followed pathways rather than dirt roads and we had to be careful to dodge branches with long thorns thrashing us as we moved through the wilderness. Without a guide one could easily get lost and disappear without a trace. Where we were headed tonight would be even more raw, remote and possibly precarious. A new adventure! We climbed altitude as we moved closer to the Waterbergs and finally passed the Citadel, the end peak of the range at Marataba. Open savannahs appeared, flush with numerous species of antelope, zebras and wildebeests. Back in the brambles we startled two statuesque white rhinos, stubbornly holding their ground 100 feet in our pathway. Helen reversed the gears of the 4 x 4 and headed onward toward higher terrain to the west.

As we drifted farther from our base at Marataba we witnessed signs of leopards in bush country: multiple kills of antelope deposited high in the trees. Even the elephants had roamed here with dung and upended trees everywhere. But this was relatively virgin territory. Suddenly we spotted a lioness camouflaged in the thicket about 50 yards from us. To our surprise she rose up when the vehicle stopped and waddled slowly toward us, crossing our path into the brambles on the other side. It was easy to see that she was ready to give birth at any moment. Helen explained that a lion will leave the pride to give birth alone in a remote region and she will keep her cubs hidden for several weeks before she takes them back to the family. Like the lioness, we had ventured far from our local haunt into this isolated region.

As the warm sun sank toward the orange horizon we stopped to stretch our legs for the traditional “Sundowner” custom of observing cocktails in the bush as Helen set up a full bar on the front grill of the vehicle, complete with ice, hors-d’oeuvres, and mixers. It is at Marataba that I discovered Fitch & Leedes Pink Tonic Water, which turned my vodka a delicious pink hue in a crystal wine glass. In the colonial tradition of the Brits and Dutch alcohol has endured as a mainstay tradition in the bush. We toasted our last evening game drive together while the sun slipped below the horizon.

As a guide, Helen might as well have arrived directly from Central Casting. She was tall and lithe with long sun-toned legs and arms. Her hair was blond and straight, tied back by a simple piece of rawhide. Her grey safari shirt with rolled up sleeves was embroidered with ”NJ More Field Guide” certifying her graduation from one of the continent’s most prestigious colleges for field guides. Draped around her khaki shorts at the waist was a thick leather belt with slots for 6-inch brass bullets and a pistol. Even without makeup, Helen could have stepped right out of a Vogue photo shoot. She was beautiful.

But what endeared all of us to Helen was her intellect and persona. Raised in Germany, she attended French schools. For college, she went to the United Kingdom. Here was a young woman of 26 who could drive a bush mobile “tank” with one hand, handle the radio with another, and answer questions about geology, animal behavior and native flora fluently in three languages – French, German and English – while remaining totally authoritative and charming at the same time. She possessed a genuine innate graciousness.

On the first day we met, someone asked Helen why she became a guide. She instantly lit up and gestured with both hands toward the vast reserve below the Waterberg Range, “With an office like this, it’s the perfect job.” And she meant it. Getting a job at Marataba was a royal plum. Helen was born to be a guide in South Africa. I silently dubbed her Princess of the Marataba.

As darkness descended it was clear we weren’t going to spot a leopard on this outing. We began our trek toward home. Oddly, we continued toward the west. I asked Helen if we were going to take the freeway home. Everyone chuckled. She turned the headlights on.

As we drove on Helen occasionally got out of the vehicle to remove logs and thorny branches in the way. Rules dictated that guests stay in the rover. Complete darkness had set in. Then a strange noise coming from my side of the vehicle. Helen stopped the vehicle and inspected the rear tire and our situation: five women with a flat tire in the bush at night. Then she gave the four of us direct marching orders.

“Everybody out of the vehicle and stand guard at all four corners,” she calmly ordered. “Use your night vision. If you see anything, everyone back in the rover.” She moved to the front of the vehicle and unsheathed the long rifle that rested on the dash and retrieved a headband light from the dash compartment. Then she dislodged the spare tire and rolled it to the side, pulled out the jack and a large X-bar to dislodge the lug nuts. Helen worked like it was a timed drill to qualify at guide school. I wanted to assist but knew that liability issues prevented any guest from intervening.

My father had trained me to change a tire when I was 13. I knew the steps, but this was a colossal monster tire on the Rover. What she did next surprised me. After jacking up the vehicle, she affixed the X-bar onto one of the nuts and jumped on the bar’s handles to dislodge it and proceeded to do this until all the lug nuts were off. Then she commanded, “Everyone step back!” as she pried the tire from the rim with a big bounce. She rolled the flat and lodged it into the undercarriage.

She then rolled the spare into place, sat down on the ground, and use her legs and feet to help hoist the huge tire onto the rim. As she started reapplying the lug nuts my attention returned to “night vision” and leopards. We had half a moon that night but the dense bush was pitch black and mysterious I looked around for long tree branches knowing that stealthy leopards often pounced on prey. They can carry a kill six times their weight up a tree. And they are rarely sighted because they blend into the bush so well. Survival skills kick in. You instinctively focus on any kind of movement and sound. The night seemed eerily too quiet.

I calmed myself knowing that guides like Helen must prove proficiency in survival training, as well as in mechanics and marksmanship. I am relieved to see that she is jumping on the X-bar now to tighten the nuts on the spare. Once done, she allowed us to board the vehicle but kept the long gun handy along the windshield.

We all laugh when one of the guests tells Helen she is now promoted to ”one badass girl guide.” Helen fires up the vehicle and puts us in gear. Another natural survival instinct in the bush is one’s sense of direction, and mine is puzzled. The “L” word looms in my head. This is new territory to Helen. Could we be lost? Surely, she would radio for help if that were the case (or are we beyond radio range?). Time is relative in the bush. Wandering takes forever or so it seems. I can’t see my watch anyway. All I know is that we seem to be searching for a pathway to take us east. For a way out.

We finally dead-end onto a rough dirt road (the bush’s version of a freeway) that paralleled one of the biggest electrical fences I’ve ever seen. I mean the high-tech government kind they put up around plutonium plants and other off-limit trespassing sites with warning signs. Even though an elephant can bring down a tree, none would dare challenge this fence. Is this a hunting range, a bio-sphere research facility, or an endangered species breeding ground in the middle of nowhere? Whatever it is, Helen’s not commenting, and we trudge onward toward Marataba. Finally, we cross a bridge that even I recognize from two days ago. We’re coming home.

But not so fast. I hear a strange noise on my side of the bush mobile and lean out over the edge. “Helen, we have a problem,” I warned. “It’s another flat!” She pulls to a stop. This time five women in the bush in the dead of night without a spare. What are the odds? This time she immediately radios ahead and pinpoints our location for the dispatcher. The lodge is sending out its two African trackers with a new tire to rescue us. “They’re on their way,” Helen assures us.

With the motor off, we can’t help but nervously giggle and twitter, as we’re getting tired and slap-happy. But we can also hear an entire herd of elephants just a stone’s throw away breaking trees apart and communicating with low trembling sounds along the ground. A jackal runs across the road in the headlights. Movement way down the road is hard to make out. Could it be that small pride of lions we saw lounging yesterday that have turned into a pack of killing machines by night?

“Let’s be still and listen to the elephants,” suggests Helen, knowing the herd’s proximity is an asset to us. “They know we’re here.” Snorts, cracked branches and low rumblings continue all around us. Occasionally, a mother or aunt will trumpet to admonish one of the youngsters. We barely breathe.

At last, we see the trackers’ headlights. They pull up and insist in their native dialect that Helen trade vehicles to drive us on to camp while they switch out the tire on Helen’s Toyota. God bless them! As we roll into the courtyard in front of Marataba’s Lodge, one of the workers meets us with wet towels and profound concern in his eyes. “All fires gone and worried big.” Explanation: the wood fires in the massive caldrons set every night had completely burned out and five of us were still missing. What a lovely and reassuring way to mark time at night – with fire!

The cooks had been summoned to serve us a full dinner, but I could hardly eat the full-course meal and wine set out before us on the terrace. One of the natives escorted us with a flashlight to our tents overlooking the vast grassland between us and the towering Waterberg range. A herd of small impalas shifted quietly nearby and the vervet monkeys were all asleep in the trees. The atmosphere gurgled with rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning, signaling that the rainy season would arrive any day now. The bush would soon be transformed into a lush version of itself. Animal life would be reborn. The continuum of life would reassert itself, even though I would be 12,000 miles away when the first downpour deluged Marataba. But this world is indelibly imprinted on my soul. I can re-visit it in my mind for the rest of my life.

As I curled up in bed, my last thoughts were of Helen, who would have to patch two tires before tomorrow morning for our final game drive at 5 am. Another day, another leopard? Bring on the adventure, oh Badass Princess of the Marataba!