Walks with Rhinos

Photo of the week

Highlight of the week: Walks with rhinos

Lowlight of the week:  Farts with beans

Maximum temperature: 42 Celsius

Rainfall: Enough to activate the windscreen wipers

Time travel is possible. We turn back the clock. Rhinos are no longer extinct in South Luangwa. All is well in Africa.

This week’s blog starts in 1996. Keith and I have just finished our first volunteering stint abroad. 2 years in the north of Zanzibar. Voluntary Services Overseas. VSO. Adventure beckons. Rucksacks on backs. Guidebook in hand. Africa is our oyster. Tanzania. Malawi. Zimbabwe. Botswana. Train. Bike taxi. Bus. Hitching. Flying. Whitewater-rafting. Walking. Somehow always on the go.

Time rich. Money poor. No internet. No bookings. No mobiles. Turn and up and hope. Sometimes lucky: An early ride. Bagging the last room. Sometimes less so. Malaria in Malawi. A lakeside campsite our impromptu infirmary. Keith throws 3 sickies in a row. His planned rehab involves 21 hairpin bends. Livingstonia on high, the impossible goal. Keith weakens at bend 7. His thumb raised in submission. A Mercedes Benz seems to taunt him by stalling 20 yards ahead.

Yet, the stall is a false impression. The Mercedes brakes too sharp. The car belongs to Malawi’s own Mandela. After 13 years of false imprisonment, reparations pay for a house on a hill, and a swish car. A kind heart, unaffected by bitter politics, offers Keith an olive branch. A hitch with no catch. The kindness transports us to Livingstone’s Alma Mata. We claim the last room in a much vaunted traveller’s haven, close to heaven. Keith bids farewell to his parasites in style. Doctor Livingstone had blazed this trail for us. I presume.

Zimbabwe is stable back then. Utopian. Yet African. We head for Matobo National Park. White rhinos the big draw. Ha ha! Wide mouthed rhinos to be precise. Misheard by colonial settlers. And forever mis-known. Not white. But a shade of grey. Wide mouthed. Far from black. Not kin to the blacks, but definitely not white. Wide.

In 1990, Kevin Costner is in the ascendancy. Long before Kevin has been dissed by Madonna. We are desperately seeking Sioux names to rival Dances With Wolves. After a close encounters with wide mouthed rhinos, my name is borne. Walks with rhinos. I crouch in the long grass. Mum rhino and calf walk slowly by. My safety assured by a favourable wind and my optically challenged chums.  

Keith struggles to compete for some time. His Sioux name seems elusive. But one night he is afflicted by unfortunate gases. His intestines struggling to adjust to our rich camp diet. And out of left field his name reports in. The peaceful bush night is punctured. The sound of gases echoes throughout the night. Keith’s Sioux name choses him. Keith himself has no part in the decision. Farts with beans. The vibrations resonate to this day. The reason that hippos chuckle each night. The reason that male hippos spray their feculent wares. A vane attempt to compete with Keith.

The demise of rhinos was already on the cards back then. Horns that look like thingys lead the easily-led to believe that their thingys will become rhino-esk with just a dab of keratin powder on the tongue. An Afro-disiac, so to speak. So died the Luangwan rhino. 4,000 rhinos, forty years ago, become none by 1987 Poached to satisfy stupidity. The horn of Africa removed to address Eastern ED. No matter that keratin can only put hairs on your chest.

North Luangwa is now bucking the trend. Rhinos now thrive in protected pockets with a constant guard. Inaccessibility helps. But their guard remains essential, until the appetite for horn is quelled by sense and statute. Remove the market. Remove the trade.

I bring you back to the present day. Keith remains tentative when beans are on the menu. But the flight from Mfuwe to Livingstone mimics HG Wells’ flight. I find myself drawn back to my Sioux alter ego. Mosi Oa Tunya National Park uses tourist money to protect their wide-mouthed rhinos. Resistance is futile. My name no longer Ginny. Someone has to walk with our horny friends today. Their very existence depends on Walks with rhinos.

Today we are up at dawn. A quick breakfast. Then out into Mosi Oa Tunya National Park. Literally The smoke that thunders.  The maiden name for Victoria Falls. When the river is in full flow it produces a legendary spray, which rises over 400m. Today, we glance at the Victoria Wall. Dry. Thunderless. Carved by unseen watery forces. And move on, to support the meagre yet resurgent rhino population.

We reach the park. Game to find game. Not predators today. Hunters have long since emptied this park of apex trophies. Yet, some heavy weights have survived for now. Elephants. Hippos. Giraffes and more. But our quarry is more certain today, than the wild and sometimes elusive wonders of Africa. GPS guides our guide. Our guide guides us to a Park Ranger. Significantly, in the new Zambia, our Ranger is called Cecilia. Cecilia lays down the rules of engagement. And guides us to ensure that we can safely walk with rhinos. And we all adopt my old Sioux name, for our allocated 15 minutes. We are all Walks with rhinos today.

Through the dry bush, hulking grey masses become visible. Shade protects them from the sun. Protection for a crash of wide-mouthed rhinos. Nine in total. Two babies. Two expectant mums. Beautiful. Quiet. Wild and magnificent animals. Used to a stream of visitors. They raise an eyelid. Take us in. And let sleep suck them back into a comfortable oblivion. No memory of man’s bizarre enmity. No memory of any dispute over the rightful use of rhino horn.

The rhinos here are guarded 24/7. A team of 24 rangers watch them around the clock. Despite that, 5 years ago, poachers managed to kill two from this crash. In death both horns stayed put. Dead horn on dead rhinos serves as much use as rhino powder on the tongues of their Eastern executioners. Inert placebo satisfying inert grey matter. Pointless and lacking point.

These poachers were unable to cash in on their bounty. Their apprehension was too late for those 2 rhino. The poachers received no bounty. No reward whatsoever. Jail too good for them. No punishment compared to their pre-existing abject poverty.

Rhinos remain on the brink of extinction. Ignorance and greed driving their expected decline. I dream of the possibility that I might walk with rhinos again after a further 30 years. Meanwhile Keith farts with beans daily.

We are all Walks with Rhinos

Lucy's cub hide-away

Civet 

Victoria Wall