Peter Allison - Whatever You Do, Dont Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide

Whatever You Do,
Dont Run

My Adventures as a Botswana Safari Guide

My Adventures as a Botswana Safari Guide

PETER ALLISON

First published 2007 in the United States by The Lyons Press, a division of The Globe Pequot Press, Guilford CT USA. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. This Australian edition published 2007

Copyright Peter Allison 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for is educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

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Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Allison, Peter.

Whatever you do, dont run : my adventures as a Botswana safari guide.

ISBN 9781741753196 (pbk.).

1. Allison, Peter. 2. Safari guides Botswana Biography. 3. Safaris Botswana Anecdotes. I. Title.

916.8830432

Cover designed by Darian Causby

Typeset by Blue Rinse Setting

Printed by McPhersons Printing Group, Australia

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to anyone who works to protect wild places and the animals within them, but in particular to the safari guides who taught me so much.

My particular thanks go to Chris Greathead, Devlin Foxcroft, Iain Garrett, the Marais family (including Sally), Helen Dewar, Duncan Menzies, Alpheus Mathebula, Titus Indloovu, BK Setlabosha, Lloyd Camp, Clinton Cliffy Phillips, Grant Woodrow, Mike Myers, Lex Hes, Richard Field, Paul Allen, Colin Bell, Russell Friedman, Chris Kruger, Julius Masogo, the late great Rantaung Rantaung and the sadly missed Nandi Retiyo.

Everything I know about animals I learned from this group, so any mistakes in this book are their fault.

This book couldnt have been written without the able assistance and encouragement of a wonderful group of women. Without Flavia I would never have had the courage to start this book, let alone finish it. My sister Laurie was subjected to some of the earliest drafts without visibly wincing. Without my magnificent agent and friend, Kate, I would never have found a home for the book and met Catherine, Clare, Richard (okay, he is clearly not a woman, but thanks anyway) and Kelly at Allen & Unwin. To all of you I give many, many thanks.

When I was nineteen, after two years in a job that was going nowhere, I bought a ticket and set off for Africa, with the intention of staying for only a year. I went to Africa for two reasons. The first was that I wanted a challenge. The second was that all of my life I have loved and been fascinated by wildlife.

After six months of backpacking I had spent much of my money, and the rest had been stolen in a Malawian camp ground. This helped fulfill the criteria of a challenge. Kindly fellow Australians offered to drive me to South Africa, where I could arrange for more funds, and during our journey we stopped at a game reserve.

At the end of two astonishing days which I had spent in a state of euphoria, my enthusiasm was rewarded with an offer to run the bar at the camp. Happily putting down my backpack and cutting off my long hair I accepted.

Living in the bush was more than I had ever expected was possible. I had grown up in some of Sydneys most sedate suburbs, and in my own mind had none of the qualities you would expect of a rugged bush man. Im markedly uncoordinated, cant repair vehicles nor understand how they work, I dont like guns, and I sweat profusely when nervous or excitedwhich is exactly how most animals make me feel.

Nevertheless, over time I advanced in position, and became a guide, then a camp manager, then a teacher for others who wished to become guides. My short holiday to Africa has been keeping me busy since 1994, and I dont foresee it ever ending.

These are the stories from the life of an unlikely safari guide.

The first place in Africa that employed me was a camp called Idube. The people who came there, like the people who came to every camp where I have ever worked, loved a thrill, something different. So we took them out to dinner.

Not far from our main camp we had a small setup, inventively called the Bush Camp. It included a teepee over a toilet and a clearing where a fire could be built. Around this, chairs and tables were set, ready for the delighted guests who would be brought in the dark for their meal. Firelight is romantic and makes everyone look beautiful, just as it did for the Bush Camp. With lanterns lit and a beaming staff, the place looked perfect. But during the day it was only a sorry patch of earth, and the teepee was filled with spiders. The guests loved it, and the nights were cheap for the camps owners, so they insisted we run them at least once a week.

The staff didnt like these dinner nights in the bush. Setting up meant that the usual quiet time, when all the guests were out of camp, was suddenly filled with frantic activity. The one spare Land Rover, a decrepit and spluttering machine called the Skorokoro (which means too old to work in Shangaan), would be loaded with firewood, lanterns and a chef named Wusani, whose bulk always made the ageing suspension creak ominously. Wusani particularly disliked these bush dinners, as one afternoon after being dropped off she was unpleasantly surprised. Shortly after she lit the cooking fire, a lion roared, according to her description, closer to me than a baby is to its mother. Lions often walked in the soft sand of the dry riverbed that flowed beside the Bush Camp, to enjoy the shade or maybe to startle an antelope that had been lulled to sleep by the cool and tranquility of the surrounds. This lion was not hunting, or it would not have roared, but that didnt make it any less terrifying for Wusani.

When the Skorokoro and its driver returned that day with the tables and chairs, they found Wusani improbably perched on the outermost branches of a long-dead tree. When told it was safe to come down, she would not, because she could not. Adrenaline had fueled the climb, and now she only had the strength to cling on and beg for a ladder that the camp did not possess.

Finally gravitys pull resolved the issue. Despite her substantial weight and the height she fell from, Wusani was saved from serious harmperhaps by her ample padding. But she would never stay at the Bush Camp by herself again, and she warned me against it when I started working at Idube.

My job for bush dinners was simpler than Wusanis. I had to transport sufficient amounts of alcohol to the Bush Camp to last the night. I hadnt been working at the camp long, and as barman I was probably the most lowly staff member after the gardener, who watered the lawns that the warthogs promptly dug up. This gave me last priority when it came to loading the Skorokoro.