Baboons on the Bridge

We were still twenty minutes away from the hut as the sun was setting.

The sweat on my shirt was no longer from the heat, but from nerves. Looking at the clock on the dash every five seconds wasn’t helping. We needed to get to our rest camp before 21:00 to keep our reservation. If they closed the gates on us we would likely either be escorted into the camp and fined, or marooned on the side of the road until morning.

There are too many animals roaming around at dusk. The herds are looking for some safety; the predators rising for the night’s hunt. Far too much to see to drive faster than the 50kmh speed limit. It was hard to temper my excitement and simply keep the car moving forward past zebras and antelope, wildebeests and baboons. “There will be plenty of time tomorrow”, I told myself. Still sweating, we arrived at the gates just as the guard was walking out to close them for the night.

Being out in the African bush is nothing short of life-changing, even inside a park like Kruger. Not knowing whether around that next bend there will be a cape buffalo drinking from a water hole, or if you’ll spot a warthog and her piglet running in the grass, is exhilarating. And when you turn the corner and a ten-foot-tall elephant is looking down at you you forget that you’re in a car, because you realize that even being in a car doesn’t truly separate you from your surroundings. That’s the beauty.

On our final morning we had only one goal – to see some lions. We had seen rhinos and even a leopard, both supposedly more elusive than lions. So we left camp early, and whenever there were several cars stopped we slowed down just in case. To the left something caught my eye. Two hippos fighting as the morning sun reflected off the river in front of them. Jaws spread wide they did their dance; the baboons on the bridge paid them no attention. We were embarrassed when, after some time, one of the beasts climbed on the back of the other and we discovered they hadn’t been fighting at all.

We were nearing the outer gate when we decided to stop one last time. There were roughly a dozen cars stopped, each jockeying for position whenever another would leave. A little girl signaled for us to roll down the car window, and in a British accent she quietly exclaimed “It’s a lion, with babies!” My heart leapt. There they were – two females and three cubs – sleeping in the grass just a few feet away.

The car separating us was all but forgotten.