Over the past twenty four hours I have had my fair share of adrenalin rushes, In fact if I were to have another heart stopping moment in the next five minutes I think it would do just that, because the gland that produces the adrenalin has just gone on strike. He only normally has to work about once or twice a month unless I am on holiday or something, then he has his work cut out a little more. But over the last twenty four hours he has had to produce enough for my fight or flight on no less than six occasions.
It all started quite innocently enough whilst I was sitting at a bar on the banks of the Zambezi having a few drinks and a chat with some friends when I decided to answer a call of nature. Off I trotted, just out of the fall of the lights and was about to go, when the undergrowth that I was about to pee into moved off sharply to my right for about three metres, then I could see the full size of the crocodile I was just about to pee all over. He was not a particularly big one only about six to seven feet, but enough to give you a very nasty nip. The croc had stopped in the middle of the lawn and the guys at the bar had seen him so came out with torches sticks and pans and gently encouraged our friend back into the river. I returned to join them at the bar, where that little episode was the topic of conversation and the jokes got progressively worse as the evening went on.
I don’t know what it was about that evening, it seemed that everything wanted to come and join us. It was raining very hard as it had been for the last couple of hours. About eight thirty the bar began to fill with flying ants, they are about two inches long including wings. Unless you have ever experienced it you cannot believe the magnitude of the spectacle. Every square foot filled with at least six flying ants and around the lights one for every square inch. Millions and millions of them. The owner of the bar said I hate it when this happens, all the mess to clean up. Then she handed us each a beer mat to put over our drinks so that we did not have to share with our little flying friends. I mentioned that when they were clearing up in the morning I would dearly like to have some for my breakfast. (No seriously, they are very good and if you get the chance to try them, do it)
The evening came to a close as tiredness set in and we all wandered our weary way back to our tents, three of us went off in one direction and the rest went in the other. We were chatting animatedly as we made our way back. When all of a sudden there was a crashing, snorting and sound of much watery movement about 4 metres to our right coming out of the river. I had my torch with me and shone it to where the noise was coming. Three huge, no I lie bloomin enormous, Hippopotami hauled themselves up over the bank, I flicked my torch off immediately and backed quickly back to a clump of bushy trees we had just passed. I dragged Karen and Steve back too as they just seemed to have frozen petrified. Now I have never been up close and personal with a hippo before, let alone three, all I know is don’t get between them and the water No one ever told me what to do if you bump into a trio of them on the way back from the pub. It doesn’t happen that frequently in Troon.
I had no idea how they were going to react whether in fact they had actually seen us, but I can’t see they would have missed the torch, or maybe it just blended in to the flood lights of the bar. I have no idea. All I know is that we stood there motionless for about, well to be honest I have no idea, at the time it seemed like forever but in retrospect it seems like seconds, we waited until the hippo’s had moved off around the other side of some other tents and trees and moved swiftly towards our tents, I said cheerio to the others and shot inside my tent, with great relief.
I thought the incidents would keep me awake all night, but I went out like a light and slept right through.
I woke at 06:00 in the morning and checked carefully around the camp before venturing out. I laid my clothes out for the day and went and had a shower, fantastically refreshing. I dried off and started putting on my clothes, I cussed hard when I realised my nice clean ironed white shirt had fallen on the floor, I picked it up and put my arms in the sleeves and pulled it on, Then I thought that I had better check it was not too dirty having fallen on the floor, I flipped it off to examine it when I noticed a three inch long scorpion just below the collar on the inside. I am petrified of scorpions. This was number three, when the adrenalin kicked in I knew the taste, I took the shirt and contents outside and flicked it into the reeds by the river. I regained my composure and went for breakfast.
I love my English Breakfasts and at this place they do a very good one (as long as you don’t mind what time you get it) This morning I was in no rush as I did not have to be in work at any specific time. Sod’s law, breakfast arrived bang on 07:00 I looked down and I must say I was a little disappointed. Then the waitress came from the kitchen with a cereal bowl of what I was looking for, Flying Ants. Well they were flying no more obviously. At night when they come out and go careering around chasing stationary bright objects, they get tired and fall to the ground, loose their wings then amble off with the first partner in the same predicament to find a new nest and colonise it. Only about 0.001% succeed the others just go and find a light to get mesmerised by, drop their wings and just die, only to be scooped up in the morning by some eager humans popped in a pan and cooked. Anyway they were fantastic, a little more cooked than I would do them myself, these were crispy all the way through, I prefer mine crispy on the outside and more gooey on the inside. But they were very good and put an interesting slant on my English Breakfast.
I packed up the tent, then set off home, briefly calling into the office on the way out to pick up some files.
The rain had eased off and it looked like it was getting brighter though the clouds hung on the peaks of the hills of the escarpment making it look all the more imposing.
The road was quite deserted though I did pass a few lorries labouring up the steep climb in what must be near to first gear as they hardly seemed to be moving though their engines were working hard as the black smoke that belched from their stacks intimated.
As I neared the top of the escarpment I was on a piece of road that had two lanes going up and one coming down, I was doing about 80kph on the inside lane round a sweeping bend when suddenly around the corner came a huge long bonneted American style truck, pulling an empty flatbed trailer, doing about 100kph + and entirely in my lane,(two whole lanes away from where he should have been) There was no point in braking, it would have only put me less in control at the time, I took straight for the drainage ditch and the truck missed by no more than a foot, I got straight back on the road without slowing, and thought how jolly lucky I had just been. If I had been in a more cumbersome vehicle, it would have been goodnight Denzil. It was not till after another couple of km that I started to feel a bit shaken up as my latest adrenalin buzz subsided.
Whilst on the escarpment I had come across a surprising amount of wildlife, mainly primates. I came round one corner to find a badly injured dog half on and half off the road, on the other side. As I got closer I could see it was just moving so I pulled up close wound my window down to get a better look and see if there was anything that I might be able to do.
Good grief !!! The thing leapt into the air half toward me half towards the road and I realised it was not a dog at all but a large baboon, and it was not injured. What I thought was a nasty injury with the skin removed turned out to be its aroused and ripe bits looking every bit like a bad car crash. Well the sudden movement towards me through an open window of what I thought was an injured dog, just about finished me off. I was off down that road like a Zambian taxi driver.
As I came down the other side of the escarpment the road turned back to a normal one lane in each direction type of affair. The rain increased to such an extent I slowed to 40kph lights on with wipers on flat out. Visibility was down to about 50m. It was about now that I cast eyes on the third being that day that deemed it their duty to remove me from the face of the planet. Quite why he thought that it was his divine right in his huge freightliner flat nosed juggernaught, to straddle the white line so thoroughly that everything else should be forced off the road, I have no idea. He was not going to slow down for anything. I could not believe the ignorance of the driver.(I use the term loosely.) Once I had picked myself out of the ditch for the second time in as many hours. I thought how lucky I had been. (Again)
Trust me, I do not go out courting danger, I may not lead a particularly quiet or normal life, but this was a particularly scary 24 hours, and the weird thing is that if you put it in as a film script it would be thrown straight out for being too farfetched.
You may think that I have exaggerated or made this up but I am telling you this is just as it happened.
I am thinking of running totally unscripted adventure holidays for bored Cornish folk with Denzil Bark. You never know what will happen next.
Denzil Bark.
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