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Spotlight - Summer 2004
edited by Maggie and Pippa Currey
Luangwa with Joe
by Simon Barnes, chief sportswriter for the The Times
It is always better to see an elephant on foot. If you want to
appreciate the beast, it is good to add that little touch of fear
to the usual delight. But I have never felt the same mixture to
quite the same extent as when I stood in the Luangwa Valley gazing
at an elephant alongside my 10-year-old son, Joseph. It was one
of those for-all-time moments. I had been to Africa many times,
and mostly to Zambia, and mostly to the Valley. But never quite
like this.
"Can I go to Africa, Dad? If you get really, really keen on
natural history, then I'll think about it. So he got really, really,
really keen. Name-dropping dinosaurs, explaining the dentition of
carnivores and the defining features of primates. Can I go to Africa
Dad? Ask your mother.
So we went: and obviously, we went to the Valley. I know it best,
I love it best, I have friends there, I know we will be able to
walk and that by night we will be able to hunt the great spotted
cat, and I was utterly confident that Luangwa was the best place
to start. Besides, I have left a piece of my heart there and it
is good to re-find it every now and then.
To return to Luangwa with my son was, to quote Anthony Powell, to
carve a relatively deep fissure through the variegated seams of
time. It was to see things new again. And it was to re-find the
anxieties I felt at my first trip: would I enjoy it? Would it be
pitched at the right level of seriousness? Would it be safe? Worried
not for myself but for Joseph.
We stayed first at Flatdogs, run by my old friend Jessica Salmon,
and it's a cracking place. The first morning we arrived, the idea
was to rest up. Joseph had a better idea, and explored the garden
-- thrilling at ants, termites, geckos, skinks. Everything. It was
as if he had clicked in the vibe of the Valley instantaneously:
that it's not just about lions and tigers and so forth. It's about
everything.
We went on to Kapani, and then as a great privilege, we were allowed
to stay in the lovely bush camps of Luwi and Mchenja. A rare thing
for a 10-year-old, but they generously reckoned I know what to do
and that a 10-year-old in my care would therefore know what to do.
And rightly so.
Besides, we had the best guide in the Valley, which makes him the
best guide in Africa: another old friend, Abraham Banda. He is a
man of quiet manners and thoughtful mien, and he knows his stuff
better than any one: a deep knowledge and understanding that come
from living, learning, reading, studying the life of the Valley:
and above all, from endless curiosity.
The Luangwa guides all know at least 60 trees by their scientific
names: part of a depth of knowledge you don't find anywhere else.
Thisis part of the tradition established by the great Norman Carr,
and it is one of the many profoundly rewarding things about the
Valley.
I have to admit, I fussed. I wanted Joseph to enjoy this trip: I
wanted this quite desperately, and yet, of course, I was anxious
to conceal this desperation. And occasionally, on a four-hour game
drive, his head would drop a little from weariness. And then I would
see something: Impala! And he would say: wow! A soul-deep exclamation
of delight, nothing less. Every time. An understanding that impalas,
the most frequently seen mammal in the Valley, are the most beautiful
animals in Africa. And he delighted in the mongoose species we nabbed
in the spotlight, in the birds, in the glimpses of scurrying monitor
lizard. And we got lion and leopard and elephant too.
But most of all, he enjoyed the bush camps: that feeling of glorious
isolation, when the only realities are the whoop of hyena, the grunt
of eagle owl, the bleep of fruit bat, the crump of lion and the
handsaw roar of leopard. I had wondered how deep Joe's love of wildlife
went. It went all the way. Luangwa proved it, confirmed it, strengthened
it.
Because, I suppose, Luangwa just happens to be the finest place
on earth. If that's the way love takes you, anyway. So back we drove
over the swallow-skimmed bridge, a farewell peal from the fish eagle,
the last honk from the guffawing hippos. Can't we stay another week?
Sorry. Well, when can we come back? Soon. How soon? Soon-soon. Now
tell me - what did you like best?
Everything.
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