All alone in camp with a leopard

All alone and the sun is going to go down soon...

Like a character in a Herman Charles Bosman story, I was once alone in camp with a leopard. I was at Leshiba Wilderness in the wild and far flung heights of the Soutpansberg in northern Limpopo. “You gonna be ok alone?” asked owners Kath and Pete. Sure I replied. I’m a bush gal, I know some tree names in Latin and I’ve shot beer cans out of dry river beds.  

I poured a generous whizzo and sat on the steps of the camp’s main rondavel for a sunset view of Hamasha gorge and its sideways cliffs covered in green and yellow lichen. Then I opened the visitors’ book. Awesome leopard sighting said the last entry, dated from the day before. They saw a leopard? Right here? Yesterday? 

The Soutpansberg has a high concentration of leopards

It’s only impalas I said sternly to myself when I heard sounds of puffing and snorting a little later. Still, it was getting dark so I went inside and closed all the windows and doors, put on some lamps, and decided to cook inside rather. I poured another whizzo. I mean, the Soutpansberg does have a very high concentration of leopards you know.

I made pasta, not my best one ever, and then emboldened by the whisky opened the door and went a short way outside for a peek at the night skies. I was staring at Orion when I hear a leopard growl in the gorge – that unmistakable rumble that cut through the night. I dropped my glass and fled indoors, panting like a fat suburban Spaniel.

I had more whisky in a fresh glass. I checked all the windows again and tried to read the magazines to distract myself but every page I turned showed leopards: leopards chowing impalas, leopards licking bloodied haunches, leopards yellow teeth… 

Oh my oh my, my imagination took flight. Wild flight. 

I am the hapless impala

What a terrible, terrible night. I could hear the leopard sniffing at the rondavel door, eager to crush my little pasta pot before advancing upon the bedroom where I lay, a hapless baby impala. Snuffles, grunts, claws against the door, the window pane misted up with meaty leopard breath. I lay still and tried not to make a sound which is a hard position to hold for a night and as the whisky wore off my mouth got dry, but I daren’t move lest the leopard had somehow slipped in and was waiting in he shower or the bath.

“Oh Lord I made it”, I let out a long, relieved groan at first light. I was frozen rigid with cold and fear. I massaged the pins and needles out of my extremities and decided to leave at once. “You did it girl”, I said weakly to myself and gathered my bags and camera and headed for the car which was parked next to an acacia tree. I opened the passenger door and my heart stopped.

Lying on the passenger seat was a leopard.

I dimly recall the wild gorge of Hamasha echoing back my screams as I flinched in anticipation of the first bite to my jugular.

Yiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Loving your fake leopard skin, doll 

I was still hanging on to my camera bag when I opened my eyes. And the leopard was still lying there, somewhat limply in fact. I looked again and I hate to admit it but the leopard was actually my Marianne Fassler designer leopard print jersey that I’d casually left on the car seat the afternoon before.

I took some time to regain my composure, and I was still rather wide eyed when I went to say farewell to the good people Pete and Kath before I headed, perhaps a little hastily, back to Joburg.

“All cool at Hamasha Camp on your own last night?” They asked.

“Wish I could stay another night”, I replied, tossing the leopard print jersey nonchalantly over my shoulder. 

The road to Vhutuwangadzebu

Clever people will see the mystery d 

You may be forced to answer some soul searching questions when traveling deep in Vhembe, the land of legend. Such as should you take the road to Vutuwangadzebu or the road to Vhutuwangazebu? Both left and right led to the same place it seemed. “Do you think all roads out here lead to Vhutuwangadzebu?” I asked my traveling girlfriend. “Or is it a circular drive?

Her attentions were focused on the enormous surreal baobab tree ahead of us. “When you see a fork in the road”, she replied wisely, “take it”. So being the driver and from the Robert Frost School of Roads Less Traveled By (read his famous poem The Road Not Taken) I decided to turn right to Vhutuwangadzebu, and as Frost himself would have said, that has made all the difference.

The road to Vutuwangadzebu 

It led into the heart of soul country, a long way away from the cellphone-e-mail-Internet merry-go-round, into remotest rural Venda, past brilliant green tea estates, ancient ruins, sacred lakes and holy forests. The road to Vhutuwangadzebu led us on a slow sexy drive into the cool green heights of upper, upper Tshixwadza, past hillside villages that cling onto the mountainsides, where the schoolchildren waved and the tinkle of cowbells delighted our ears.

We had spent the previous night at a thoroughly charming place called Madi a Thavha, in the foothills of the Soutpansberg mountains, south of Louis Trichardt. The Soutpansberg or Tha vhani ya muno (mountain of salt) gets its name from the salt pans here which have been spicing up life here for centuries. Madi a Thavha is a guesthouse and gallery dedicated to promoting traditional arts & crafts; and having given us a night of warm hospitality, they then gave us a divine breakfast and a map of the Artists Route, a self-drive route which takes you to the studios and workshops of various potters, sculptors, weavers and fabric makers.

Makhambani tea estate

But being artists ourselves, and magicians and storytellers, we ended up instead on the road to Vhutuwangadzebu, immersing ourselves in the names of the places around us, those with a different soul and psyche: Mufungudi, Mutshindudi. Phananani. Phiphidi. Fondwe. Fundudzi. Tshamanthatshe. We ended up knee deep in amazement in the heart of bright green tea estates, delighting in the sheer spectacle of it all. I photographed the reflection of tea slopes in silver dams, from a million angles, and the baobabs that stud the mountainsides.

Change your relaxing style 

 We bought Zamaleks from the Speakeasy Bar (Don’t change your lifestyle, said the billboard outside, change your relaxing style!) and we drove on and up into the land where the pythons still dance and the drums still beat under the water in the pools at Mashovhela and the holy forest is protected by Nthathe the supernatural lion. Yes people, the road to Vhutuwangadzebu took us far, far away from this wearisome global village… And knowing how way leads onto way, I doubted if we should ever come back. 

I doubted if we should ever come back