I’ve seen the “T-Rex chasing the jeep in Jurassic Park” scene debunked a number of times by dinosaur experts, but I’ve now had real-life experiences that aren’t too far off that mark.
Twice it’s been elephants, who in fact damage and destroy cars in Southern and East African reserves now and again. In this photo, it’s two juveniles who were horsing around as our game park vehicle approached and instantly decided that we were not welcome. I had meant to photograph their mock wrestling and instead I got the beginning of both of them charging at us, and it wasn’t at all mock. Our driver beat a hasty retreat.
More nerve-wracking was an incident in Kruger National Park, where my father and I were in a rental car, with him behind the wheel. A bull elephant in musth came out on the road ahead of us suddenly. We both knew we had to get out of there, and it was a narrow road, so a three-point turn seemed like a bad idea. My dad had trouble getting us into reverse gear for a moment, and the elephant started moving toward us, picking up speed. Right about when the story seemed like it might end with “and then he stepped on the engine”, the car jumped roughly into reverse and we went merrily backwards at 25 mph for at least 5 minutes. The bull fortunately decided that was enough of a lesson for us and lumbered off into the brush.
However, the scariest incident of this kind was on a hybrid walking-and-driving tour in Zimbabwe. The professional guide that myself and two other people had been walking with was armed, but we hadn’t had any real issues—we saw elephants but kept our distance. We got to the flat-bed truck (it had a couple of roll bars over the back, but otherwise was open and pretty unadorned—we were sitting on cushions rather than seats as such) closer to sunset than the guide would have preferred and he was plainly a bit nervous as a result. We started slowly down the rough dirt trail and the guide stopped any effort at narrating so that he could keep a close watch on our surroundings.
As it turned out, his caution was warranted. As we merged into a larger path, the other fork in the road revealed two female lions and a pair of cubs sitting quietly just up the fork. As we passed about twenty feet away from them—an accident that the guide and the driver couldn’t have prevented—one of the two lions decided that was absolutely not to be tolerated and took off like a shot for us. The driver immediately pushed the accelerator to the floor, even though the road was rough and rutted, and the guide unlimbered his rifle. He’d told us earlier in the day that you never ever wanted to use it if possible, not just because of personal preference, but because would trigger an investigation and very possibly a loss of your guide license. When the lion got within about five feet of the very open and very leapable back of the truck, I could tell he was pretty close to using it. Fortunately right at that point, the lion felt she’d made her point, slowing down and then turning to go back to the cubs. That also I didn’t have a camera ready for (not that my ancient point-and-shoot camera back at that point could have dealt with the circumstances.
I’ve talked before about how I’m slightly embarrassed by African nature and animal pictures. I suppose it’s partly that they go with stories like these, which I’m often reluctant to tell—they feel familiar, already known, and in a sense, intentional. Guides don’t want cars crushed or tourists mauled, mind you, but there is a way in which the entire genre of the safari is about abrading against an ecosystem that contains genuine threats to human observers. Lions and elephants do kill people every year, but it’s usually not paying guests in reserves—it’s farmers trying to protect crops, or people trying to cross (sometimes illegally and at night) through areas with lion prides in them. Or sometimes it’s poachers or rangers, where frequent contacts up the risk.
But, as I’ve also said before, I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy going on game drives. It’s consistent with my interests wherever I travel, but the nature of encounters with animals in Southern Africa is of necessity pretty different.