by Peace Merab Nakiyemba
PureTravel Writing Competition 2023
We had talked about going to Murchison Falls for a while, two years before we took it out of the chat group ‘Park Tourers’ – my mother’s brainchild – and that year, providentially, it was so high on my list, I was ready to make the trip alone.
Our first day marked the pace of the trip, incredible sights and unpredictable situations. Our experience is pretty much on par with what is advertised, monkeys that welcomed us into the park, the winding road that lent to the viewing experience and the grasslands that stretched over several kilometres of nature unchained.
The expectation in the tour van was infectious. We stayed our eyes on the windows, determined not to miss a thing; dirty hippos and warthogs, towering giraffes with their eyelashes, antelope for miles and miles, a scattering of elephants, birds showing off their expertise.
After we had seen the confident animals, we drove round in circles trying to catch the big cats, or in this aspect, the lions. Our tour guide had assured us that those were the epitome of the park experience. In fact, we did everything to maximise their peak hour, when they came out to roam their pridelands. But they proved elusive.
We still chased every flicker of possibility though. Phone calls bounced back and forth between the guides, asking for any sighting and we found ourselves looping through the same dirt roads. But the hours dragged on and we were getting weary. We kept convincing ourselves that we at least had another full day to roam around. We had kept up with our pursuit too long.
It got dark, we had been in the car for more than 8 hours, and we were about the only ones on the road for a while, then we turned the corner and there it was!
Smack right in the middle of the road, in all its thick brown-greyness glory. Closer than a stone’s throw from our car.
At over 3 metres tall, with a trunk as good as a hand, and easily weighing more than a bus, elephants can be elegant. They know how to carry their weight and own their features. On a tour trip, they will most probably remind you that elephants are peaceful creatures, very content to mind their own business.
But with the animal standing in front of us and showing no signs of moving, all that was going through my mind was the video I had seen just before the trip of the elephant that rolled over a car like it was a simple ball.
We stopped where we were, knowing full well that we were in need of mercy. We couldn’t turn back the way we came and there were no clear corners to cut through.
Our guide told us to sit and stay calm. Even though it was a photo-worthy moment – revert thinking of people raised in the 21st century, he urged us not to. No lights or flashes or strange sounds. So, we shut off our headlights and waited. Tantor was absolutely not in a hurry to get anywhere like we were to leave. Everything in me wanted to jump out, at least then I wouldn’t be a sitting duck. But sit we did, in awe and wonder and mostly paralysing fear, hoping the elephant would be well on its way.
Then it swayed in the road! As though it was coming our way, as though it wasn’t. Like a predator toying with its prey, teasing us into ill-placed panic. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It wasn’t hard to imagine how easily those tusks and body weight would crush us if they so chose. It didn’t help that the tour van behind us did not have the instructions we heard and they tried to shoo it away with torchlight and noise.
Noting that the elephant wouldn’t go about on its own, our tour guide sat in his window and tried to prompt it away with a rhythmic clap. I doubted it at first, especially when it turned our way. But the elephant finally moved on and we cruised on through and called it a night.
A lot more happened on that trip, at least as much as can be packed in a three-day excursion – as should happen for any travel trip. Yet, whenever I think of Murchison, I’m first back there. In the back of a tour van at nature’s mercy, overwhelmed by how something so powerful can be so gentle. Then I’m at the falls, our last stop before we left for home, marvelling at how something so beautiful can also be so dangerous, and the trip ties itself together in a neat bow.
