We spend the rest of the day waiting. Zeb held the VHF radio close at hand, waiting for other guides traversing the various traditional crossing points to call out that the Wildebeest are gathering, again. From our vantage point, we watch the enormous herd milling about the other side, clearly making no move toward the water's edge.
What is the most exotic location you’ve played a game of Kalookie?
We sit in the roofless Land Cruiser for hours under the hot African sun. One Wildebeest steps forward to the edge of the meadow, and we sit forward on the edges of our seats, coaxing him.
“Come on, little guy! You can do it,” Jen says.
“The crodociles are hungry!” Pete says.
Leslie is catching up her log book, Zeb watches intently.
And I have time to contemplate myself and where I am in this life.
I seem to have an oversized need for travel and movement, change, and new horizons. When we left on this sailing trip, the stated goal was to get back to where I started, but encountering hardship, expense and danger along the way. Is it insanity? I am not even trying to find greener pasture, my pastures at home were immaculate. But I had to leave nonetheless. I still have this unexplainable drive to continue moving somewhere new.
Having my ability to travel suspended for 2020 and spending a year in Seychelles, I slipped into a bit of a depression. I have never looked back upon a year and disliked it. I spent a year in a tropical paradise that was safe and friendly, and I was able to maintain my boat and my health. I know that is an incredibly lucky break not afforded to so many the world over. But, I normally run with wild-eyed optimism looking forward to the next day and next adventure. I had never felt this level of confinement before. Even in the years we worked so hard, I never felt oppressed because it was moving me forward to my goals, the sacrifice was intentional and my choice. Over this last year, the deep rooted instinctual pull I have for movement was hog-tied by a pandemic completely out of my control. My body and mind ached with longing to get back to my “normal”. I craved feeling lost, not being able to understand the language and culture, not knowing where I will be next week. I knew the Seychelles so well, I was never lost, people could ask me where things are, and I would know. I hated it. I needed to cross a river full of crocodiles, soon or I was going to lose my mind. When we were finally able to get vaccinated, I could see the smallest crack open in the window through which I viewed my the imaginings of open seas and arrivals in new ports.
Like the Wildebeests, I could smell the rain in Africa!
The zebra travel with the wildebeest and are said to be the smarter of the two animals. The wildebeest gain from the intelligence of the zebra, and the zebra gain from the wildebeest ability to find the rain and therefore the grass. They lead the wildebeest down from the Maasai Mara in Kenya to the shore of the Mara River at a crossing point where they think they will not get eaten. But the Zebra are never the first animal in the water. No, remember I said they are the smart ones in the pairing?
I, on the other hand, seem to be that first wildebeest. I look to the zebras for guidance, but at the moment we stand together at the river's edge they seem to say: "someone has to make that jump, it may as well be you." This always sounds about right to me, and so, I jump off. I am enthusiastic to be free of the bounds set by that bordering river - muddy, fast flowing and filled with crocodiles.
Look at me go!
That first Wildebeest sets the pace, frantically kicking and swimming, hoping upon hope the crocodile won't take notice him. He is pushed from behind, too, by the apathetic grunts and moans of the brethren following in his wake. All of them knowing once they are in the river, it's more difficult to turn back than to forge onward. Never mind that Zeb says sometimes they get to the other side and make the inexplicable decision to cross back. Those Wildebeests are the ones truly lost.
When we finally left the Seychelles for Tanzania - a 1000 mile sail across another Indian ocean expancse - I felt a bit of fear. Not the repressive fear of COVID and its restrictions, but a fear of relying on my self again. The fear that you can see in the wildebeest as it sits on the shore contemplating the central question of its entire life: “Do I want to jump in to get to the other side? Or, do I want to stay in this peaceful green meadow living life just a little longer before I chance an encounter with a crocodile?”
Jump I must, it is in my DNA.
It doesn't really matter, though; on either side of the river there is no true respite. The lions will be there to exact their toll; the vultures there to pick the bones clean.
This line of thinking continues around the campfire that night, and again the next morning when beset with restlessness wondering what we might see if we drive around the area a bit more, rather than waiting next to the river. Zeb takes us into the green rolling meadows where an endless line of Wildebeests move through the grass, sometimes running, sometimes saunering, but always spooling from horizon to horizon.
We stop to watch.
We get out of the truck to have a "bush pee" and I watch my brothers running and galloping onward.
“I think I am a Wildebeest.” I tell my friends.
"Makes sense," Pete says, “they have ridiculous looking mustaches, just like yours."
I take off running in the Wildebeests’ direction, hoping they'd let me join the line for a while, but predictably, the line swerves to give me a wider berth. I circle back to my own herd. They have discovered this particular tree good for receiving internet service.
Today's game drive takes us past lion cubs nursing on their mother, their tiny paws clawing her fur, scrambling, to climb up and over her back. She rolls over, bringing with her a wriggling litter of fur and ears each trying to maintain their space.
We find a second group of cubs playing in a tree, one harassing his brother, chewing his tail in hopes of pulling him down from his perch.
We find a Mother Leopard leading two cubs among the safety of the rocks, to watch a group of my Wildebeest brethren in the distance, no doubt discussing hunting technique.
Baboons gnawing on the carcass of a Thompson Gazelle.
“I didn't know babboons are carnivores!" Leslie says.
“Me neither!" Jen says.
“Really, they are omnivorous,” Zeb explains. A baby baboon and a second adult baboon watches the one with the dinner , hoping he will share a few scraps. He doesn't, and instead he drags his kill away from the others to enjoy his meal in peace.
I'm not sure you can come to the Serengeti without being acutely reminded of your mortality. Everywhere we go, there are these reminders of both birth and death. Both strictly inevitable for all of us.
We’ve seen every style of baby imaginable and the plains are littered with wildebeest carcasses in all states of decay. Freshly killed and still being gnawed on by a lion; stripped of all the good meat and surrounded by vultures; fresh stinking bones still covered with bits of skin and flies; white but intact bones bleaching in the sun; and finally, bones scattered and unrecognizable as the animal it once was.
Making the most of a sunny day on the Kenyan/Tanzanian border.
It's a reminder that if you feel must go, you should go. Why stay on this shoreline for fear of the crocodile, when the lion is creeps up to take you on this journey of bones and dust?
“Aren't you cheery," Leslie says, tipping her gin and tonic my way as we sit next to the cooking fire and watch Alex fill the shower tank.
"I'm just saying we should capitalize on every moment we get," I say.
"Yes, yes, yes,” she says. She's heard some version of The Wildebeest Speech many times over the years.
Me, being cheery.
It's midnight when we are wakened by scratching and scrabbling in the campsite. A single maniacle giggle traverses past the back of my head - from my left ear to my right. Every hair on my body stands on end. Leslie grips my hand. “I think something is in the camp," she hisses in a whisper.
"I think it is a hyeena," I say.
"Damn,” she says, "I really have to pee!"
“Not now, you don't." I say.
The grasses rustle, just behind our pillowed heads. A laugh to make Batman’s Joker proud elicits from that corner, to be answered by another just like it, just a little below my left foot. And another...and another... and possibly three more. Soon, there is a chorus of chortling, breaking in rounds, like a group of teenage boys carousing our campsite, punching each other in the arms, mocking and harassing. It is a hysteria that threatens to bring us along with it, Leslie giggles. “They really do sound like they are laughing, don't they?"
Zeb emerges from his own tent and bangs a pan.
The teenage boys disburse and scatter to hide in the bushes until Zeb returns to bed, whereupon footfalls swish past the mouth of our tent again.
More laughing.
“Zeb said they wouldn't bother us inside the tent, right?" Leslie whispers.
Zeb returns with flashlights and more pans to clank.
He’s coming to get me.
There is nothing like sleeping in a tent in the Serengeti and hearing lions roar in the distance or a pack of hyenas laughing just on the other side of your thin tent cloth to make you glad that some ancestor of yours evolved from a grass eating prey into a weapon carrying human. I hope that my bones are many years away from any chance of bleaching in the sun, but I know that every day and every year has its challenges. While this last year has been a challenge globally and personally, despite not being the most beautiful animal around, I have survived to date without being eaten. Even with hyeenas right outside my tent.
And so, I will continue on, following my instincts, listening to my guides and looking for that greener pasture I know is just over the horizon.