At the Backsberg winery on Sunday, the day that we left Africa, we sat in the shade of an oak tree, eating spit-roasted lamb and sweet glazed pumpkin, sipping their Sauvignon Blanc. A mimic musician sang songs from around the English-speaking world: covers of James Taylor, Dire Straits, Beatles, The Proclaimers, sounding like each one in turn. In the distance, the sun shone on the cradling Simonsberg mountains. At our feet, the black cat with livid green eyes patiently let the crawling baby delightedly touch its nose and back. Cigarette smoke wafted over from the next table, reminding us of one of the true pleasures of Madison: smoke-free public spaces.
“I touched the rains down in Africa,” sang the one-man band. The lyric sent my mind searching over the past two weeks of our trip. Had the rains of Africa touched me? Had I touched them?
For our entire week in Madikwe, the bush was dry. The most moisture we saw was on the coldest mornings when, in breaking light, trying to stay warm in the open Land Cruiser, we passed areas of frost on the ground and grasses. Our ranger, Gareth, pointed them out as rare sightings. As I pulled the wool blanket higher over my chest and gratefully cradled the hot water bottle in my lap, I thought I should be able to see my breath. But the arid air kept that as only a memory of moist Wisconsin.
The not-thick-enough tires of the Land Cruiser sent dry red dust flying in our wake as we drove with Gareth off-road in search of Christy’s giraffe, elusive wild dogs, or absent hippos. 
The loose soil was thick enough to provide plenty of tracks for our Ranger to follow; from the moving Cruiser, Gareth could follow the paths of lion or elephant, or even spy the marks of a porcupine’s long dragging quills. His own tracks would mix with those of the four-leggeds when he left the vehicle for closer inspection, sometimes drawing a circle with his finger around an especially interesting track for our novice benefit.
We saw some evidence of past rains on our game drives – large empty depressions in the red or brown clay earth that had once been watering holes. Gareth explained that in the rainy season, a small depression might catch some water. Then an animal will drink or wallow, expanding the size. More rain would catch, more animals would use it, and there you had the birth of a water hole. We drove around many dry ones; only the largest still had water in them and that’s where we sighted groups of white rhinos: young males, a mother and infant. The first baby rhino we saw was impatient, eager to get going; the second was playful, mixing it up with the young adult males.
The dry rural air gave us glorious night skies. Every night we saw the Milky Way to an expanse that astounded and inspired. Even the large waning moon that tracked our nights couldn’t diminish the number of stars we saw. The constellation I was most eager to see was the Southern Cross and it never disappointed. Ack’s computer constellation program helped us to identify it but not much else. And Gareth, so knowledgeable about all things land and water based, was woefully unknowledgeable about the sky. To appease us after an evening game drive with very few sightings, we sat on the lip of the reservoir and Gareth pointed out Orion – upside down to us Northerners– and told us an invented story about an ostrich constellation.
Madikwe was glorious and moving onto Cape Town felt like a loss – of a land whose beauty we recognized only gradually, of the lifeways that Gareth was teaching us to see, of the night sky that reflected the vast depth of the universe. Transitioning to the grandiose Cullinan, we mourned leaving the earthy design of the &Beyond lodges with its delicious plentiful food, creative competent service, and safe pampered environment.
2 comments:
Lion paw print?
Yes.
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