Safari MIS-Adventures

It all began with an invitation to go on a bus tour to the Pendjari Game Reserve in northern Benin. The trip was short-notice, but since I had no plans for the upcoming weekend, I decided to chance it and signed up with two of my Beninese friends. The bus tour was organized by a local radio station, and for a cost of only $20 USD the overnight trip included meals, water, lodging (tents), transport, and a full safari tour at the park – what a deal! I’ve been on enough safaris in West Africa to know that these trips are usually less about seeing wild animals and more about the time spent with your traveling companions, so I was quite content to go along for the ride, thinking that this would be a great opportunity to get out of the city, visit with my friends, and maybe see a few wild animals along the way.

I knew that this safari would be slightly different, but I thought it would be interesting to experience a truly “local” safari, not the typical high maintenance, tourists’ safari. Quite honestly, I have always been under the impression that Africans don’t like camping or going on safaris. My Nigerien friends always thought we were crazy when we talked about our camping treks into the hot, dusty, remote bush, just to take a few blurry pictures of the stark landscape, and if you looked close enough, you could identify the silhouette of some deer, gazelle, no wait, a goat(?), on the dusty horizon. However, this time I was going on a local safari with my Beninese friends, and I knew there would be no air-conditioned 4x4, no fancy tourist bungalow, and probably not any cold drinks or picnic lunches. I didn’t really know what too expect, but I packed my overnight bag with a few basic essentials, including a first-aid kit, bug spray, lightweight sleeping bag, dried fruit, coffee, and 2 liters of water. I figured I would be the only foreigner on the bus tour, so I should pack light and be prepared to put up with whatever the eating/sleeping arrangements might be.

The bus was scheduled to leave at 5:30am, so we arrived at 6:30am because my friends assured me that Benin time is always at least 1 to 2 hours behind real time. I was surprised to see a group of four other white girls waiting for the bus, but as my African friends pointed out, they must be tourists because they had showed up at 5am thinking the bus would actually leave on time! 7:30am, the transit bus (ie: greyhound) pulled up and everyone quickly jumped up to push onto the bus and secure their seats. I should have suspected from the moment I registered, but this trip seemed destined for disaster from the outset. No one had receipts or tickets for the trip, but that didn’t matter because the organizers weren’t even checking passenger names or seats, I don’t think they had even counted the number of seats available, so it was really a first come, first serve. Thankfully Noelie was quick to jump in line and save three seats, because it was soon “standing room only”, and even then some late-comers were forced to stay behind because the seats, aisles, and stairwells were full.

Pendjari Park is typically a four hour drive; we arrived in just over eight hours. I was a little tired at this point, traveling in a hot, crowded bus, in the heat of the day, squashed between two other equally warm and sticky bodies, but I was still smiling and enjoying the ride. There was already a slight wrinkle in the plans, as the tour organizers announced mid-route they would not be providing food or water and we would have to purchase our own along the way (so much for the all-inclusive). I was a bit curious as to how we were going to tour the park, normally you travel in 4x4 Land cruisers, or a 15 passenger mini-bus at the most, because the condition of roads makes them very tricky to navigate with anything larger than a mini-bus. Well, it was when we nearly got stuck in the entry gate of the park that I realized that this large, 60-seat bus was going to be our safari vehicle! Yes, the bus was too large to fit through the cement archway, but thankfully the driver found a detour and off we went rumbling down the dusty road into the park. At this point, I was certain that the only thing I would be seeing for the next 24 hours would be the back of the seat in front of me…

but then my neighbors quickly cheered me up by informing me that they had a wild animal I could photograph!

La petite souris was the most exciting animal I saw for the first couple of hours, but as the mid-day sun cooled, we saw many deer, gazelle, monkeys, and various other wild animals from the discomfort of our bus.

We arrived at the camp around 6:30pm, and the bus driver informed us we could get out or ride to a nearby lake to watch for the animals coming out at dusk. We were all exhausted and feeling somewhat sick from spending the day in the hot, sticky, airless bus; so my friends stayed the camp, but since I was armed with my camera and had come all this way to see animals, I was going to stick with it to the bitter end. I was thankful I did, because we came across two female lions just a kilometer outside the camp! Unfortunately the dusty low light made it difficult to get a clear picture from the safety of the bus, but if you look closely you’ll see the blurry outline of the lion in the grass.

That completed the trip as far as I was concerned. I had photographed gazelle, deer, wild ox, baboons, “Pumba” (wild pig), birds, crocodiles, hippos, elephants, and a lion! Safari mission accomplished, now let’s go home.

Not quite home time, we arrived back in camp and it was already very dark. I wandered around trying to find my two friends, but they seemed to have disappeared into the dark night, so I joined the other “baturi” (white folk) in the thatched-roof restaurant for a fantastically cold Coke (ah, the pause that refreshes…). I discovered that the four French girls were not tourists, but rather physiotherapy students from France finishing up their six week practicum in Benin. This was there last weekend in Africa so they jumped at the opportunity to go to the game park and see some wildlife. As I mentioned earlier, the “all-inclusive” bus tour was no longer providing meals, so we decided to enjoy an over-priced meal at the camp restaurant, and then we’d worry about finding the tents and showers.

It was 11pm before we realized that we were not going to have a tent. After several extensive and somewhat threatening inquisitions by some very tired and irritated white girls (who me..?), the bus tour organizers sheepishly admitted that they had only brought a few 4-person tents (for 60 passengers!!) and not only could they not figure out how to set them up, but the tents were filled with scorpions. Hm. That presents a problem. Two of us went back to the bus to scout out the situation, only to discover that all the other passengers were already soundly asleep either on the bus, or on the ground around the bus, and sleeping on the tent canvases as ground mats. The tents were no longer an option. Normally I have no problem with sleeping on the ground, however remember that we are in the middle of a wildlife park, with at least two lions circling the open camp, it is pitch black dark, with various creepy crawlies on the ground, and we are many miles away from medical attention for scorpion/snake venom treatment. I’ve had enough close encounters with wildlife, including snakes, scorpions, and large carnivorous cats, so I vetoed the idea of sleeping on the ground in the dark. Where were my two friends that I came with? Good question, I assumed that they must have already gone to sleep, but I couldn’t find them among the dozens of dark sleeping figures in the night. So the five of us tent-less baturis banded together and set up camp on the couches under the thatched roof – at least it was well lit and off the ground (no scorpions or snakes!).

I got maybe 1 or 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep as I kept waking up to suspicious noises around us; I couldn’t tell if it was a person or animal sneaking around, but there was definitely something in the bushes over the wall!! We woke at 4am per the bus drivers’ instructions that the tour would be leaving at 4:30am. The bus did not leave until 7am, giving me plenty of time to prepare the one necessity item I had brought with me: a hot cup of Tim Horton’s coffee.

Ah, this day was off to a good start already, I was once again revived and feeling good about the trip ahead.

Oh, and we found out in the morning that the “suspicious sounds” were in fact the two lions that decided to come visit our camp – they had been seen circling the pool just 20 yards from where we were sleeping!!

The bus felt much hotter, perhaps because I was pinched between the hot bus panel which was burning my arm, a warm body on the other side, and the sweat continued to pour, like an internal spring. My water supply had been graciously used up by the other bus passengers during the night, so now I had only half a liter of water for the remainder of the day. I wasn’t too concerned because the bus driver had assured us we would be out of the park and in a city with water by noon.

At 11am the bus finally succumbed to the abusive driving of the chauffeur and refused to move. Everybody climbed off the bus, and the driver and several other amateur mechanics began to work on repairing our only ride to safety. A sign indicated 44km to the park entrance, or 94 km to return to the camp. At this point, we had no food, no water, tempers were flaring, and the passengers’ patience was running low. We sat in the shade of a tree for nearly two hours and watched as the rear wheels were removed, rotated, lots of banging with wrenches and crowbar, etc. It was certainly no Indy 500 pit stop, but whatever they did was enough to coax a few more kilometers out of the tortured bus.

The dirt trails in the park are not designed for high speeds or a large bus, but that did not seem to deter the driver as he maintained a branch-snapping speed, careening off the sides of the trail, bouncing over rocks and logs. The best way to describe the bus ride would be to imagine popcorn kernels in an old-fashioned kettle over the fire, with oil… Yes, it was hot, bumpy, and I’m still recovering from the whiplash. Oh, and when someone would happen to catch a glimpse of a wild animal in the distance, the driver would slam on the brakes, everyone would lean out the windows with their cameras ready, only to be engulfed by the billowing cloud of dust following the bus and obscuring any photographic opportunities.

The bus protested at every hill, and so we were frequently herded off the bus and forced to walked to the bottom of the hill to meet the bus as it sputtered and jerked its way over the top, or sometimes backed down and plowed a detour through the valley. The driver did not seem familiar with the concept of “gearing-down”, so at every hill the bus would continue to climb in 4^th gear, with the engine jerking and complaining, until finally it would come to a stalling halt. We spent much of the afternoon walking down the long dusty trail in the scorching sun, in the middle of a game reserve, miles from water or shelter. The French girls flagged down a passing motorbike and gave the two men instructions to alert the park authorities that we were stranded 20 km from the park entrance, without water, food, and a broke-down bus. Much to my surprise, the park authorities arrived just an hour later with jerry cans of water for the bus passengers, hurrah! If you’ve ever seen video footage of humanitarian agencies distributing food in refugee camps or in famine-stricken villages, you’ll have an idea of the ensuing chaos as 60 passengers scrambled and pushed to fill their water bottles from the limited water supply. I shouldered my way into the masses and managed to procure a liter of water for myself; and relieved to finally have hydration, I gulped it down, not even hesitating to question the source or quality of the water I was consuming.

It was only a short few hours later that I began to regret my decision to drink the cloudy water from who-knows-what-stagnant-pond. Yes, I had come down with every travelers’ worst nightmare – diarrhea. In all my years of traveling and living overseas, this is the first time I have suffered from this unpleasant illness while travelling; I now understand why Imodium is such a popular medication for travelers. Every time the bus stopped, I had the great displeasure of searching for suitable bushes and walls to give a bit of privacy for my “condition.” Have you ever tried to find a quiet corner in a bustling African city?! Public restrooms consist of open fields, garbage piles, alleys; really it’s just a “go-where-you-please” policy in most towns.

Finally the bus arrived in Parakou at 2:30am, in spite of the driver’s best attempts to kill us all with his suicidal tactics of dodging pot holes and other motorists at high speeds. There were no taxis to be found at this time of night, so I walked the kilometer home armed with my canister of pepper spray. I debated using it on a couple of drunken teenagers that were harassing me, but then decided that it probably wasn’t worth the trouble. Maybe another night, but for now all I was thinking about was my toilet, a cold shower, clean water, and my bed – in that order.

Check out my picasa web album for more photos of the safari, http://picasaweb.google.com/rjevans99/ParkPendjariSafari

I don’t think I’ll be going on anymore safaris in the near future, unless they are in Kenya or South Africa, but I’ve experienced enough of the “great outdoors” for now…