 Diving
up the crater's edge. |
The Savannah is located
entirely within the impact crater of the world's largest known
meteor impact. The impact was so violent that it pushed up entire
mountains on one edge of the site. Pieter arranged so we could
join a private tour group going on a drive up to the top edge
of one of those mountains at the Vredefort Koepel Meteor Impact
Site. The end of the drive found us at the top of one such mountain
with glasses of wine in hand watching the sun dip to the horizon.
The drive up was so beautiful and it was just a few miles that
I decided it might be a nice adventure to walk down. After securing
permission from the tour guide, I started down. Problem was, I
had not thought this completely through. After sunset, comes darkness.
And darkness on a moonless night in the middle of the dark continent
is very dark. Plus I then remembered the guides talking about
a leopard kill being spotted in a tree just four miles from where
we were. And leopards have been hunting humans for millennia.
And I was walking alone.
I started to regret my decision and wondering how to best preserve
my life. Yell? That might attract the leopard. Be very quiet?
Leopards have better ears than humans. My solution? Flash my camera
in all directions. After each picture of nothing I took, I looked
at the picture to see if I could distinguish eyes. The FCF web
site ran a story making it sound like the leopard was chasing
me. I never saw the leopard but I can't be sure if the leopard
never saw me.
It was a beautiful evening. Since the drive up to the top of the crater was not terribly long, I asked if it would okay if I hiked back to the bus. When I started out, it was still quite light out but after dusk, comes night. And the nights out there in the African wilderness are very dark... and then I started remembering them saying they saw leopard kill just 6km from here. I thought how tasty a lone American walking through the African bush might be to that hungry leopard. To ward off the leopard, I flashed my camera in all directions. When I told my story, it got embellished and published on the FCF site.
