with napolitana sauce dribbling down my chin and a stray strand of spaghetti betwixt my teeth, Shimshon Heifer offered me a front seat on a vacation you can't get at flight centre(cos they never return emails and their deals are never good and they never beat the price)taking a leaf outta burt reynold's book, i Cannonballed it to hoedspruit, i saw acacia trees, velskoene, khaki shorts and 1,5 litres of coke in glass bottles.
Ingwelala, a tongue twister if you're swedish hugs kruger so tightly you can see it. the Heifer home is a round rondawel,it has no corners, nor does it have any fences, its off the grid. gas heats, gas cooks, and gas'll singe your brows if a hyena walks by.
as we sat drinking beer and munching chutneyed chips, beams of light pierced the darkness as bullets penetrating a still pond. the growl and crunch of hurried landrovers, toyotas and rangers busted the peace. hand held lights criss crossed our fire protected space as frenetic as a light saber battle between siths. the radio crackles to life .'unit 16 we have lions'. we pivot and there they were. 6 pawed their way only a pole vaults length from our centre of gravity, we hurtled towards our truck, ignited the ignition.and holy canoli we were on their tail. not in my life as bear gryllsian as its been have i witnessed such.The journey continued to explode and game was in abundance.
with tal beef jerky twersky throwing out his iron anchor, it's hooks tearing at the tar, bringing our hulking vehicle to a screeching halt, there in the thicket the prickled radar ears, dirty darkened face, black inked mottled body, lurked a wild dog. With Heifer at the helm of the rugged, tested, 4 by 4, its rubbered tyres crushing the entrails of the earth. the terrain was easily negotiated.
a spotted beast, looking sexy as lindsay lohan in leopard print. she dangled from a skinny emaciated bare tree unsure that it could support even itself.
she aloft in a blue sky, her viscious gape, her serated mouth, sharper than a shogun. she pawed her way downwards and then she was gone.
Binoculars were radars scanning the skies for feathered projectiles, winged raptors and technicoloured fishers. another existence scours our skies. i now know it.
My unknowing eyes as magnifying glasses, had branded the spongy matter of my brain, leaving a scorched blackened image of unseen animals, never to be forgotten.
The Kruger journey had laid itself down, its carrion lying awaste nibbled at by our vulture-ous thoughts.
My tazz on full throttle was a hollow-point bullet turning swaziland into a fading blur. after a 12 hour jorney, and having sung my whole entire reportoire to myself i landed gently in the ramshakle, simple sudwana bay.
the bear that is Big Al Crouse greeted us, his cherry cheeks and saskwatchian sized mits hugging us like grape fruits.this was a dive trip, i don't dive, but i came for the boat ride. "its a small world after all' was not the theme song.
half zipped rubber suits, the two buxom girls bursting as seeds from fresh fruit. we dreamed of Ursula Andress. they were our dive partners. this was no Disney excursion.
our rubber ducky commandeered by a bleached rubbery aussie, tossing the divers over board like ribs off of a barby leaving me holding tight before i was set bobbing alone in the deap blue.as a lettered wine-bottle i heaved in the undulating seas.my viewport,all but an opening through my gob sprawlled goggles. the vertigo left me gasping, clambering for a railing.
there in the abyss the coralled sea bed, life swimming pastorally and the carbonated bubbles from the divers below. my pulsing body settled, my breathing found structure. i could breath through the straw.
This was a journey unimagined, a journey of new sights and experiences.
Never stop seeing, never stop doing.
The roar of the Bear Hunter, grr raaah raah
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