Our safari guide, Surprise, slung a rifle over his shoulder and beckoned us to follow him along the gravel path. We’d arrived at the lodge, Chitwa Chitwa in Sabi Sands, South Africa, in the early evening in time for a game drive. We had returned in the dark, and required an escort across the compound.
“You must never go out at night,” Surprise warned. “Call the main house if you need to, and I’ll come get you.”
There was a single electrified wire running the perimeter of the grounds. That was insufficient deterrent for some of the local wildlife.
“Have you had animals on the lodge grounds before?” Tim asked.
“Mmmmm,” Surprise intoned, nodding in a deeply philosophical way. “We had a leopard in the gift shop.” I fervently hoped that they sold pants because if I encountered a leopard near the ceramic mugs, I’d need a new pair.
“When was that?” Aidan asked.
“Last week,” Surprise said. We all scrutinized the darkness to either side of the path. At the door of our private residence, Chitwa House, he said, “I’ll come for you at 5 am.” To us late sleepers, it sounded like a threat, not the start of a day seeking the Big 5: lion, elephant, African buffalo, leopard, and (not pictured) rhino.
We locked the door of Chitwa House behind us in case opposable thumbs weren’t necessary to turn the knob. It was the most luxurious lodging in which we have ever stayed: two bedrooms separated by a great room the size of a baseball diamond; a deck with couches and Persian rugs, loungers and a private plunge pool overlooking the watering hole. You can catch some glimpses of the amenities in the short video Faith made at the time, below:
The following afternoon, Tim and I decided to use the gym while the kids stayed at Chitwa House chasing molecules of Wifi to enjoy their electronics. We were gone for perhaps an hour. On our return, we noted that all of the windows and doors were shut tight. The drapes were drawn.
We used our key to enter and found no sign of the kids in the semi-darkness. We called for them, but there was no answer. My heart ticked up a few beats. “I’ll check our room,” I said. Tim jogged across the great room to the other side of the house.
I did a sweep of the bedroom and the cavernous bathroom. Nothing. Across the great room, Tim was still trying the door to the second bedroom. “Are they in there?”
Tim banged on the door. “Faith, Aidan, let us in.” About ten seconds later, the door swung open. We entered with caution.
“You guys all right?” I didn’t see them.
Two heads popped out from beneath the queen bed and blinked up at us. “There was a lion outside.”
“We heard it,” Aidan said, “so we closed up everything and hid.”
Tim and I looked at one another with one part alarm, one part skepticism. “How do you know it was a lion?” I asked. “Did you see one?”
“We heard it,” Aidan repeated.
“We were going to sit on the deck and watch the animals,” Faith said, “but then we heard this rumbling sound and got scared.”
“Why did you draw the curtains?” Tim said.
“We didn’t want him to know where we were,” Aidan said.
Tim and I went about re-opening everything to take a look. There certainly weren’t any lions about now. The kids shimmied out from beneath the bed with reluctance and followed us to the deck.
“There it is!” Faith said. I froze. “Do you hear it?”
There was a low vibration. An occasional rattle. It wasn’t a terrifying sound, more like a low jittering purr. Tim opened the door onto the deck. Both kids followed, hunched, like something might drop on them from above at any minute.
Closer to the edge of the deck, the noise got louder. When the pool filter stopped for a moment, the quiet overtook us. We didn’t hear a footfall, or anything breathing. Then the pool filter switched on again and the rumbling sound returned. Tim lifted the top off. Two round nuts jiggled in the container.
“There’s your lion,” I said with a tone that conveyed complete confidence, whether or not it was true. The next afternoon, we skipped the gym. Best excuse I’ve ever had.
Free Reading
For a sense of life on old-school safari, I recommend “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway. I’m not usually a Hemingway fan (The Old Man and the Sea should be used as general anesthesia before surgery), but this story has it all—sex, violence, power struggle, self-actualization.
It’s a classic read. Not a classic in the eat-your-lima-beans-they’re-(disgusting) good-for-you kind of way. The kind of classic that’s a great story told well. It lingers and reveals more of itself the longer you think about it.
Several Collections of books to check out this month below:
Beautiful words and pictures - and gosh, I was on the edge of my seat until the end there! 🤣 Fabulous! 😘
What a cool video! What an cool life!