Earnest? Not this Africa

TOUWS RIVER, SOUTH AFRICA – The old bull ambled through the low brush, kicking up dusty clouds of red clay, doom trailing behind him.

He paused in the African sun as a strange smell drifted toward him. It is the smell of courage, the old rhinoceros thought.

Three hundred yards away, I leaned against the hood of a ramshackle jeep, tracking the wily rhino’s every move.

“He’s a beauty, ain’t he, Jack?” I said.

“He is a remarkable creature,” my diminutive guide replied. “One of God’s great creations.”

I let my steely silence concur. Black flies swarmed around us. The heat was unbearable.

“Right then,” I said at last, “what say we have a crack at him? Grab my gun.”

Jack looked back at me uncomprehendingly.

“Your gun? You understand this is a private game preserve, don’t you? You can’t shoot the animals.”

“Would it be possible to at least … I don’t know, wrangle him or something?” I asked.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Jack said.

The savannah – or pasture - pulsed with tension, awaiting my reply.

“Neither do I, Jack,” I said coolly, my gaze settling on the horizon. “Neither do I.”

This is not your Papa’s Africa.

For those raised on the short stories of Ernest Hemingway, today’s South Africa presents a wildly contrasting image: urban centers with modern museums and trendy restaurants, white-sand beaches dotted with sunbathing tourists, and private game reserves with elegant buffets.

On my maiden trip to South Africa, these images of the easy life left my head spinning.

Where were Hemingway’s rough-hewn white hunters who would rather sleep with your wife than look at you? The hyenas stalking the dying writer? The anthropomorphic lions with critical thinking skills?

And, most importantly, this question: Can one still be a masochist in modern Africa?

In Which We Surf Shark-Infested Waters

I am traveling in South Africa with my brother, a dermatologist who shares my chronic flair for the dramatic. Just weeks before his departure, he announced to me: “If I don’t make it back, tell the world my story.”

At Gary’s Surf Shop in Muizenberg, South Africa, they guarantee they can teach pretty much anyone to surf – even two pale brothers raised in Montana.

In the damp basement of the surf shop, Gary is saying something about the tides, but a weathered sign on the wall has drawn my attention: Support Your Local Shark-Spotters.

Hmmm. Shark-Spotters?

As Gary explains – twice, to ensure I understand it correctly – these men sit on the hills above the beach and watch for the tell-tale dorsal fin of the Great White. From there, the procedure is quite simple: A siren is sounded, a red flag is raised and people calmly get out of the water.

Along the shops of the waterfront, the tourist industry seems at odds about whether or not Great Whites patrol these waters. The surf shops insist the water’s safe; the shark-watching guides, who ferry people to nearby Seal Island, imply otherwise. Neither party seems entirely disinterested.

Nobody else is in the water this morning, and I pause to wonder if Gary has an agreement with the shark-boat operators to chum the waters with a couple of pasty Americans.

Gary assures us the surfing is safe and happily takes our $60.

Before we hit the water, our surfing guides – who, naturally, are from England and Maine – give us a quick tutorial on the beach. Basically, stand up quickly in the center of the board. This is easy money.

They run us through a couple of drills, and we hop up on the board as it sits complacently on the shore. This is probably done mostly for the amusement of the locals, who gather around to watch the land-surfing tourists.

Once in the water, my instructor – who admits to being a beginner who has only been in Africa for three days – barks out instructions like, “Stand up now!” I begin to suspect that I could teach surf lessons.

Fifty yards down the beach, my brother is sailing across the water, gliding gently up to the beach on his board.

As children, my brother and I were so competitive that sporting matches often ended with the equipment being thrown at one another’s head. But we’re older now, more mature.

“Nice one,” I shout to him, and then under my breath, “if you want to surf in the baby pool.”

My instructor doesn’t seem to be helping much. She’s sort of like having your own personal surfing cheerleader, who remains upbeat and peppy even as the ocean coasts to an easy victory over her pupil.

“Now!” she gleefully shouts as a wave crests on my head, turning me end over end. “You’re so close I can taste it.”

All I can taste is salt water. By now, my sinuses have been doused with saline, my arms are exhausted and I fear Gary will have to cough up $60 as I go down in infamy as the only pupil never to stand up.

Then … it happens. When the wave accelerates me, I move forward slightly on the board and simply stand up in its center, my knees bent in a protective crouch. Once up, the board is remarkably stable and I ride the wave to the shore.

My instructor is euphoric, in part because now, technically, she can wash her hands of me.

Lesson’s over. I surfed.

In Search of Wild, Flesh-Eating Animals

Modern society provides few opportunities to be chased by a wild animal. Eons of knowledge have built up protective barriers between us and the animal world. One – or two – must persistently knock at those barriers in modern society to stumble into a chase scenario.

Throughout our childhoods, my brother and I attempted to domesticate a slew of wild animals – gophers, raccoons, jackrabbits. The fact that we survived those encounters imbued us with a misplaced sense of confidence in the animal world.

And so, on a jaunt to the Cape of Good Hope, we abandon our car and hike down a dusty path in search of the Chacma Baboon, the largest primate in the region. The baboons, which are equipped with “powerful arms and massive canine teeth,” according to our guidebook, can weigh as much as 90 pounds.

The footpath winds through small bushes and rock outcroppings before depositing itself on a sandy beach where the exhausted waves of the Atlantic Ocean rolled to a halt.

It’s picturesque.

“I can’t believe no one else is down here,” says my brother, who seems to have the gift of foreshadowing.

And then suddenly, I see the baboon.

Much bigger than the previous baboons, he sits in repose on the hill, silhouetted against the sky.

He emits a bark-like sound – “Waahooo” – then leans back his head to display his 2-inch-long incisors.

“I think he’s yawning,” my brother says. “Here, take my picture.”

In the photo, my brother stands smugly at the base of the hill, where a sandy trail winds up to the baboon, which now watches with keen interest. It is the kind of photo one sees of intrepid but poorly informed African explorers, usually accompanied by a title such as, “Last known photo of …”

The photos that follow are less sharp, less clear, as if one was running backward with a camera yet still trying to take photos of his brother and the baboon. One was.

As the baboon pursues us down the beach, an image of my father hovers above me, floating serenely like Obi-Wan above the waves. His words of wisdom reach out to me: “Always make sure you can outrun at least one person in your hiking group.”

Still recovering from ankle surgery, my brother is not as fleet as he once was. Also, the resulting lack of exercise after the surgery gives the impression that he is attempting to smuggle a small bowling ball underneath his shirt.

I like my odds. At points like this, one must consider not only the survival of their sibling, but the survival of the family line. If my brother can’t make it out of this one, well … at least we’ll have the photos to remember him by.

“Throw something!” my brother yells.

But throw what? Sand?

I race to a rock outcropping, pick up a stone and fling it a few feet in front of the baboon (I didn’t want to hurt it, after all). The baboon scurries away and perches on a rock.

Then a curious thing happens.

As we pick our way through the bushes in an attempt to reach our rental car, the baboon cuts us off. Among the line of cars, he summits our small red car.

We now find ourselves in a curious predicament: stranded on the African cape as an aggressive male baboon defecates on our car.

The tourists love it. There is, I suppose, if one wants to get literary, a certain irony in this.

After several minutes, we make it to the road and three Swiss people tell us to jump in the back of their truck.

“He will not move,” the driver says, pulling heavily on his cigarette.

For how long?

“I don’t know. Perhaps a few hours.”

The driver backs the truck next to our car and lays on the horn. The baboon seems unfazed.

But this elicits a howl from the tourists, who have now packed the roadway to record our ignominy.

“You are ruining mein photo,” a German tourist yells at our truck.

“But it’s their car, you see,” our driver says. “I want the baboon to disappear.”

“I don’t care,” the German replies. “I vant you to disappear.”

We retreat up the road until we find two park rangers. The ease with which the rangers chase off the baboon – they themselves charge, whistle and throw rocks – would normally shame us.

But we are well past shame at this point. We have indelibly left our mark on the Cape of Good Hope and in the pixels of a thousand digital cameras. There is no shame like shared shame.

I can only imagine what the tourists thought as they watched the baboon pursue two pale-white Montanans down that Atlantic beach, along one of the most beautiful and historic capes in the world.

Perhaps they thought: “Those white boys sure can move.”