All Your Base Are Belong To Us

It’s not always easy finding people to travel with – and my own major issue is that I don’t really have friends or family who are interested in travelling to the places that call out to me. It doesn’t help that I tend to make decisions on a whim, or that I’ve been told in the past I’m a bitch who isn’t worth travelling with.

Probably understandable, in that this is the major reason I wanted to go to NYC.

But yes, I make odd and sudden decisions when it comes to destinations – in fact one of my favourite trips ever was an impulse trip to Mexico, and I ended up there only because I couldn’t stop listening to ClintMansell’s incredible soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, and I was also playing Tomb Raider: Underworld and was enchanted by the Southern Mexico level. So, I ended up on a Gecko’s tour from Mexico City to Cancún. Now, Gecko’s has a policy that they won’t charge a single supplement on the assumption that if there is another single traveller of the same gender on your tour, you will share a room. After we had to share a giant bed in Mexico City – and this after our first meeting involved watching the riot police line up right outside our window – my roommate Nicole and I got along just famously. Truthfully, I have been on three Gecko’s tours and found the people each time to be wonderful. In particular, our tiny Turkish group made many a happy memory together. 

We also made our tour leader wear a fez. I still doubt he's ever forgiven us.

 I still felt some trepidation about South Africa. I knew that I would be sharing small spaces with a large group of people, and I’m…a loner, by nature. Or by necessity, perhaps (see the “bitch” comment above). I also live alone, so it’s pretty peculiar to go from having an entire flat to yourself to sharing a room with…well, more people than I actually ever counted. I believe it was probably twenty people, in the big dorm? But then, maybe it says something, that I never counted. Because I didn’t need to.

When you first sign up with this trip, you don’t know if you will be in KwaZulu-Natal or Limpopo until about six weeks before you go. I was lucky enough to be sent up north, which is where I wanted to go, though I wasn’t quite sure why (in theory I should have preferred KZN, as my father was concerned about me travelling in South Africa alone and all his contacts are in the Richards Bay area). Excited as I was to be going up there, as I collected my kit I did begin to worry about how I’d survive.

Not my bed in Limpopo.

We arrived in the dark. We knew this; it was made clear before arrival that the base only had generator power and that for only a few hours at a time. The gennie was off when we arrived on our long and dusty drive from Jo’burg, and Andreas thoughtfully warned us to watch out for Zuri – being black as night and friendly as heck, we were likely to experience said friendliness long before we saw it coming. And thus, we stumbled into the welcoming embrace of the staff and current vols, with a few good licks from the base dog to accompany it.

Honestly, in the dark, she's like the bloody Predator. Only with less screaming.

We claimed our bunks by light of many a headlamp – as it turns out, bottom is best, though I ended up on top. Being the middle of winter, the mosquito nets weren’t really necessary, but given Kathmandu had recalled my net just before I left and I went to considerable trouble to get another impregnated one (from Lifestream, who are well worth supporting), I totally put mine up. Actually, everyone did – because while we maybe didn’t need them because of the wildlife, they still gave a little space of one’s own. …kind of like a curtained four poster bed. Only without the silk and delusions of kingly grandeur, I guess.

(Which isn’t to say the reserve itself doesn’t have its luxury accommodation, we just never saw it. The closest I ever got, actually, was sitting in the truck in a driveway…which was a hilarious story in and of itself. After spending a futile hour attempting to change a tyre in the close vicinity of two lionesses and two lions, we were “rescued” by the giant jack brought over from the nearby lodge…who then refused to let us tighten the wheel nuts anywhere near the lions. Frankly, by that point, we were blasé as hell as we figured they’d have eaten us long ago if they actually cared enough to bother. But our rescuers insisted we follow them to the lodge before we actually finished the job properly. And yet no-one was invited in for a stiff drink! I can only but hope they were serious about the whip-round to get the base a few decent jacks, however…)

LION DON'T CARE.

 I never slept particularly well on base, but that’s just me – I don’t sleep well at the best of times, and certainly on the first night we were treated to a lullabye courtesy of the local hyena clan. Though I had had considerable drama getting to South Africa thanks to the absolutely rubbish service provided by Jetstar, and had been unable to get the planned Good Night’s Sleep in Johannesburg, I was more interested in lying awake and listening to the hyena about their evening.

Still beats "sleeping" in Perth Airport when you swore to god you'd never go back again. THANKS, JETSTAR.

But we were up at five or six the next day – I don’t actually remember, being that we would normally be up at five most mornings, although I suspect they let us have a “lie-in” that first morning. But this was how life worked on base: up early to go on first drive, which had a winter start of six. We’d be back by maybe ten-thirty or eleven; second drive would leave at three for a return around seven or so. The afternoon space was usually filled with lectures or perhaps a trip off-base – most memorably to the animal orphanage and bush school at Daktari, though we also visited a local school and it was one of those things you never forget – and the evenings usually involved dinner, a bit of mucking about, and then an early night. This was the ebb and flow of my life in those two weeks, and it was a tide I willingly gave myself over to. 

It’s very different to life at home – but in a way I think that total difference is what makes it easier to adapt to. We were told up front that we weren’t there to have a holiday, and though I suspect this wasn’t what some people had signed on for, everyone on base had a common passion: the animals. Some of us were more passionate than others; I know I felt keenly my ignorance in the face of these brilliant people. In fact I felt a bit of a fake, though I did respond to it by reading some of the many books about the teaching room, and by asking many, many questions – I’m in fact surprised no-one sent me outside to sit and think about what an annoying twat I must have been. Although then again I would go and make a fool of myself quite regularly by running about with Zuri anyway. It must have looked ridiculous: the sleek black dog with the build of a cheetah being chased about the lawns by a tubby little human with no coordination or grace whatsoever. …hell, no wonder I used to hear the hyena laughing.

Or maybe that was just Zuri. I swear she ate so much bone she must have been part hyena herself.

 Still, it was that passion for the work on the base that tied us together. We had this in common, and though we had a large group of people in a small space, everything just worked. I put a lot of this down to good base management, though: the staff had it all worked out, from one job to the next.

And I can imagine it would have been a disaster if they didn’t. The base was not fenced in any way – we were one big building with several small satellites, a driveway, and areas of mown grass. Once you got to the long grass, though, you were back into reserve territory…which was no joke, considering the proximity of the hyena den, and the fact that at least two large male leopards had their territories in the immediate vicinity. Basically, if you wanted to be alone? You hadn’t much choice. Some of us decided that the knobthorn tree in the driveway could be the Fortress of Solitude and if someone was seen to be sitting under it, best leave them to it, but surprisingly enough it didn’t seem to be that necessary. Because there was always something to do.

It’s funny, too, how the simple things can sometimes seem big, but then…they don’t have to be. As I said, there were about thirty of us around, including staff, and at least twenty of us were sharing the same two toilets and two showers – not to mention that despite rumours to the contrary there was hot water, but it was limited. As in, you could get hot water in both showers and in the laundry sink, but never simultaneously. And of the two toilets, one could cope with liquid and not much else. Recipe for disaster, you say? …no. Not at all. In fact, living like that does a person good, I think. I’m one of those assholes who is wound really tight, though it’s not always obvious; I remember once being told in Doncaster that I generally was known to be “so laid back as to be horizontal!” and I have no idea how I got that rep, considering I am usually hell to work with.

Still, I found on base I just…let stuff go. I’m not sure what it was. I remember being really freaked out about the idea of base duty, because in our second week the new vols were put on the roster; I was on with Elena, which I had no issue with because she was always good value and we got on. I was concerned, though, because base duty involved not only cleaning – which I can live with – but also cooking. I am a lousy cook. I mean, a couple years ago I went off my nut and baked almost constantly (my workmates were ready to smother me, I think; I tend to bake very sugar-rich things and though I couldn’t eat them, they sure did), but I can’t cook to save my life. I also generally dislike cooking for other people, because I tend to screw it up and then feel embarrassed for the next three days because people had to suffer through my food instead of having someone good cook them decent food.

I have developed kind of an obsession with Tennis biscuits, though.

 Still, the recipes were purported to be idiot proof (cold comfort to a career idiot like me). Even then I might have got over it, until I realised – we had to make bread. I was terrified. I mean, I know how to make bread; I’m known to do it for fun. But making little bread rolls for thirty people who I’m sure already realised I was a bit of a special one? Oh, lord.

With that said, Elena had never made bread, but was a very good cook – so I guided her through lunch, she guided me through dinner, and things worked out just fine. Which, really, was what life on base really boiled down to. We were different people gathered together for the same reason, and that link kept us together. And besides, I didn’t mention the best thing about base duty. 

I was washing the showermats in the big stone sinks on the veranda when I noticed Zuri sitting by the door. “What’s up, girl?” I asked, wandering over as I dried my hands on my trousers. Her tail thumped on the floor – once, twice. Her ears twitched to match, acknowledging my nearing presence. But she didn’t look away. When I took my place next to her on the step, I saw it: in the garden, a herd of impala meandered through the long grass. 

I was told they are the McDonald’s of South Africa, ostensibly because of the distinctive black “m” on their rumps, but more likely because everyone likes to eat them. They’re also pretty (understandably) skittish, and a right bastard to count on Impala Week. Yet that morning, this herd of maybe twenty or thirty individuals grazed peacefully in the garden while Zuri and I sat in the doorway, watching them. I had work to do – Zuri didn’t, unless she gets paid for something I don’t know about – but I could take a break just to watch. It was a gift, and one I felt I didn’t deserve. …which naturally didn’t stop me from grabbing it with both hands. 

Of course, I later stuck my head into the office, spotted Jamie, and said: “If I tell you there are impala in the back yard, are you going to tell me to count them?” and got the reply of: “Unless you’re standing on the driveway, it doesn’t count!” so all was well. Because otherwise I was totally playing the “dumb vol is dumb” card and claiming they were kudu or something.

IF I SAY THEY KILLED SIMBA'S DAD I DON'T HAVE TO COUNT THEM, RIGHT?

 Life on base was pretty chill, all things considered. There was always something to do – and even in the calm moments, it could change in a second, such as the evening of Pangolin Pandemonium (best not mentioned to You Know Who), or my last night when we came careening in on the truck to a) shut Zuri in and b) pick up our base manager because two male leopards were posturing all about the base area. I just find it incredible that a person like me, so very used to her solitude (and often very deserving of being left to her own devices), was so easily accepted into the life of this place. There’s just a feeling of acceptance that seems very suited to the area – because we humans, we’re just guests on the reserve. We say we gave it to the animals, but we live there by their grace and generosity. And you don’t forget it, not when you look up from reading Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk To Freedom to see a giraffe gracefully stretching its neck across the volleyball court.

Our base manager asked us on our first full day to remember that while we were just passing through on a working holiday, that for many of the staff, the base? Is their home. And within a few short days I knew what a privilege it was – for them to live there, and for us to be allowed to share in it. And even when I couldn’t sleep for hyena and snoring and sleep Tourette’s (…don’t ask), I wouldn’t have changed it for anything.

Although you have to see the funny side of it, that the best night’s sleep I had was when we camped out near the hyena den in a dry riverbed. Even with the braai encouraging the hyena to come investigate their new meat friends and having to be woken for an hour’s watch, I slept like a baby. Note: shouting “MUFASA!” at hyenas makes them run. It makes them run good.

Ask us how we know.

That’s just the kind of people this place attracts.

Also: KEROSENE.