Okavango Journal #16
This is a story about an alarmingly quiet twilight, the shadow of an elephant, a poorly timed playback, an unzipped tent and a lion.
Prelude 1 (5pm)
Every day on expedition, research coordinator Götz Neef leads lets a small group of us come along on his spoor survey. He identifies tracks and scat and other animal signs, and we get to venture into the wild with someone who really knows what he’s doing. This time we spotted something quite strange– a tiny mixed set of ungulates crowded together in a narrow treeline. 6 zebra, 10 impala, 2 tsessebe and a wildebeest. We laughed about how they looked like they were hiding from something! Oh, how we laughed.
Prelude 2 (10pm)
We had grand plans for #okavango16 to record a spatial audio walk every night. The sounds out here are incredible; in the evening and at dawn it’s a cacophony of bird calls and frog choruses and fruit bats and baboons alarming and distant lion roars. We record our sound walks with binaural microphones, which record from the ears. This means that on playback, particularly when wearing headphones, the experience is very immersive.
Last night Shah Selbe and I recorded a sound walk together. I had high hopes; about five minutes before we started recording I heard a loud series of alarm calls from a zebra, and some even louder barks from a nearby baboon.
But when I ended the recording, in front of my tent at the edge of the savannah, there was almost no sound at all. A sparse few bird calls, a much more subdued alarm from the baboon, and… nothing. Why was everyone so quiet?
The Opening Act (11:30pm)
I fell asleep around half past ten. Just before I drifted off, I thought about the fact that this was our second-to-last expedition. To tell the truth, I’d camped where I did, at the far edge of our group, because I was hoping for one last memorable wilderness experience.
So I was gratified to wake up an hour later to the sound of heavy, padded footsteps near my tent. An elephant! I was sleeping without a fly cover, and through the top of my tent I could see a small rectangle of stars. A rectangle of stars that became the shadowed head and ear of the elephant for a second as this enormous visitor lumbered past. I listened as his footsteps grew quieter, and smiled to myself. A perfect end to the night. Or so I thought.
Cue the Lions (1am)
Have you ever heard a lion roar? I mean, not at the start of a movie? When I did my first transect in 2014, I was taken aback by the sound. Have a listen to the recording below to hear some lions roaring in the distance. Does it sound like you thought it would?
At 1am, the lions roared. Not, I should mention, in the distance. Very, very not in the distance. At a generous estimate, I’d say they were 50 metres (150 feet away). Loud enough that I could feel the roars resonate in my chest. They roared again, this time closer.I was suddenly quite thoroughly awake, and pronouncedly aware of the situation. There were lions (plural) coming towards me. And I was in a tent.
To the Left of Record is Play (1:15am)
I’m not saying this was a good idea, but my next thought was: I should get a sound recording of these lions as they get closer to me. And then: I should not make any noise, lest the lions decide to investigate. So I quietly (very quietly) reached for my sound recorder, and quietly (very quietly) pressed record.
Except I didn’t press record, I pressed play.
And the first five seconds of the sound walk we’d recorded earlier played. Loudly.
“Hey everyone! Welcome back to #okavango16! I’m Jer Thorp!”
$#%&!
I pressed stop and then pressed stop again. And then I clutched the sound recorder to my chest and listened. Silence. Maybe the lions didn’t hear? Maybe they were already past my tent?
1mm of Nylon(1:30am)
Or maybe they were right outside. I could hear footfalls, and breathing. I could hear deep rumbles that might have been growls. The front door of my tent was unzipped for about four inches, and a bright section of starlight shone through. As I stared at it, a shadow passed. A leg, I thought. A very close leg.
I started to think about that open zipper. Four inches. Enough for a nose to poke in? Enough for an eye to look through? Lions are notoriously stymied by tents, but what if the tent was open? Even a little bit? I had to close the zipper. So I very slowly shifted my body, trying to make as little noise as I could, until I was close enough to close it. But before I closed it, I moved my head forward and looked out.
And saw the lion. Standing three metres from my tent, in the darkness. A huge, terrible, extraordinarily close shadow. It moved. I moved.
Alright, no closing the zipper. And no looking outside. I’d just wait it out.
Four Hours until Sunrise(2:00am)
After a few or a thousand minutes I heard the footfalls move away. The only breathing I could hear was my own. Ten minutes later the lions roared again, still incredibly loud and close, but in the other direction. They were moving on.
It took two hours for my heartbeat to settle but I did eventually fall back to sleep. I woke up again at five thirty, and was overjoyed to hear usual morning sounds of wood doves and coucals. I waited until I saw the tiniest sliver of light and I climbed out of my tent. Warily, scanning the edges of the trees for signs of movement, I headed to the campfire.
As I’m writing this, the lions are calling again, and I’m heading to sleep in my tent. This time, though, they sound far away. And I am very much not hoping for one last memorable wilderness experience.
