Lion in the Lamp Light

For independent “hippies” touring the game parks of East Africa in 1973, the experience was inexpensive, largely unregulated and unsupervised. It was possible to rent a vehicle and travel where, when and however one wished. We were required to show a permit at the entry point to each park, but the boundaries showing on our maps had no actual physical demarcation.

Penny, her sister Candice and I planned our multi-park tour to coincide with Candice’s vacation from her teaching job on Vancouver Island. Penny and I greeted her at the Nairobi airport as she stepped off her long flight from Canada with a cheery spring in her step. We were all excited to be setting out to see the ‘wilds of Africa’ together.

For months we had planned a circuit that would take us to all the major East African game reserves. As usual, Penny had done her research well and we were armed with maps and a list of all the key places we would visit – the Serengeti Plains, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Etosha Pan, Lake Naivasha and Amboseli National Park as well as Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Mt Kenya.

We bought an Olympus OM1 SLR camera complete with zoom lens, rented a VW Beetle complete with sunroof for wild-life viewing, and set off with two tents, sleeping bags, cooking gear and ample food supplies.

On day two, the VW blew the main engine oil seal, which required a full day of repairs. I soon discovered the likely cause of the problem. While having the engine oil checked by a gas station attendant a few days later, I caught him red handed at a crafty sleight of hand. As he withdrew the dipstick he ran his finger and thumb down the stick, wiping the bottom half inch of oil off the stick before holding it up for my inspection. The dipstick indicated that we needed a liter of oil. Having caught the trick, I asked him to dip it again. Realizing he’d been caught, he didn’t try the trick a second time, and of course the oil level showed full.

We could well imagine the cost of this little confidence trick to any number of motorists, particularly foreign tourists driving rental cars. To individual gas stations employing the trick, it would mean the sale of an extra liter of oil. But for who knows how many unwitting tourists taken in by the scam, it would add up to severely overfilled oil sumps and the resulting blown main engine seals, thus nicely padding the profits of the local mechanics. For the rest of our trip we always checked our own oil!

Shortly after leaving the limited paved roads, our cream coloured Beetle quickly took on the appearance of a true African Safari vehicle, the lower half covered with emblematic red dust and mud. In park after park we cruised slowly and carefully in search of wildlife, gradually checking off all the wild game of East Africa – the great elephant herds still roaming at that time, giraffe, buffalo, wildebeest, springbok, zebra, hyena. Especially exciting were the big cats - lion, leopard and cheetah.

Candice had brought a lightweight orange hiking tent from Canada. Penny and I had bought our slightly heavier cotton canvas tent in Kenya two years previously. Although it had no fly, it was reasonably rainproof as long as we didn’t touch the sides. The damp-proof floor was made of a robust plasticized material. By the time of our game park safari, it already had two repairs of foot-long slits made by would- be thieves. On two separate occasions during our southbound overland trip in Tanzania, thieves had cut through the tent fabric close to our sleepy heads, hands reaching in in search of the valuables presumed to be under our clothes-bundle pillows. Fortunately we were too cunning to fall victim to the trick, sleeping with our valuables deep in our sleeping bags.

At the time of the second robbery attempt, I woke to either the sound of the knife cutting through the fabric or the cool breeze blowing through the gaping hole. I yelled a warning to Penny, struggled naked from my clammy sleeping back, fumbled for our tiny hatchet by the tent entrance and stooped blindly through the low entrance into the blackness of the African night. Fortunately the would-be thief had slipped silently away, leaving me cursing but safe from a machete slash or worse.

We felt lucky to have avoided any losses save the damage to our tent. The tent bag was made of the same fabric as the tent, and we eventually had both rents professionally repaired with fabric from the bag – lasting reminders of our near misses with knife wielding thieves preying on vulnerable tourists.

On our game safari, we would pull the Beetle into East Africa’s version of campsites. These were generally marked with a simple “Camp Site” sign, and perhaps an outdoor latrine. Occasionally there might be a picnic table, but no fence, no gate, no attendant and no fee! To complete the African wilderness experience, we rarely encountered any other campers. We soon realized that while travelling by day we had the relative protection of the thin sheet metal of our trusty Beetle, but at night the only thing separating us from every wild beast in Africa was the flimsy fabric of our tents.

Having settled into our respective tents at the end of a particularly long day, the sisters exchanged a few muffled words before dozing off. Meanwhile, I lay awake listening to the distant cackling of a pack of hyenas. I’d once read that hyenas could actually be more dangerous to humans than the big cats. They had been known to drag campers out of their tents, leaving just a pile of bloody bones. The ominous creepy cackle of the pack grew steadily louder and closer. Pretty soon it was obvious that they were very close by. Personally petrified, but worried that Candice was alone and also fearful in her tent, I called to reassure her. Unfortunately she had slept right through the arrival of the hyena pack and was awoken only by my call. The three of us lay nervously in our sleeping bags, unsure if we’d make it safely through the night. Fortunately the pack tired of our campsite and eventually slunk off, muttering sullenly to each other.

The following night was to be one of the most terrifying of my life. This time we were alone in yet another un-fenced and unguarded campsite. We were carrying a tiny red kerosene lantern, and, after our experience with the hyenas the night before, decided to rig it on a string between the two tents with the idea that it’s feeble light might keep wild animals at bay.

How wrong we were! In the twilight after supper, we heard the deep, deep, throaty rumble of a male lion far off in the distance. By this time on our safari we were becoming accustomed to the varied night noises of the African bush and thought little of it. Once again we climbed wearily into our tents – Candice alone in her light- weight hiking tent, Penny and me in our twice-slashed blue canvas tent. Ours actually had a large triangular mesh vent at the end opposite the door, with a canvas flap that could be rolled and tied to one side. On this hot humid night, we had the flap tied open to give us some extra ventilation.

All three of us lay on our backs for over an hour, listening to the deep rumble of the lone male lion. Contrary to our notion that our lantern light might keep animals at bay, this old lion seemed drawn to the flickering light. The rumble grew louder and louder, closer and closer, until I was certain he had come right into our camp-site. Slowly and carefully I rose up on my knees to peer out of our mesh vent, and there in the flickering lantern light stood the majestic king of beasts! My throat was tight, dry and hoarse, and my heart pounded so hard that I swear the lion could hear it. I made a “Shush” sign to Penny and pointed in the direction of the lion. He casually paced right between the two tents, directly under our warning lamp light. I’ll swear I didn’t breath for a full two minutes, fearful that at any moment his claws might add multiple gashes to our already tatty tent.

As our luck would have it, this was not a man or woman eating lion. Either that or he had already eaten that night. We survived our second night of wild African mid- night visitors, but the memory of my terror that night remains with me to this day, undoubtedly the most alarming experience of my life!