Sleeping With Elephants

It is the last night of our exploration of remote Zambia, the little-visited heart of Africa, and we have saved the wildest place for last: Ndevu Park, a private game reserve on the lower Luangwa River that has yet to appear on any map. We'd eaten Mexican food, probably the only tacos and hot sauce in a 500-mile radius, and were sipping G&Ts around a mopane wood fire (a hot-blazing hardwood that "burns as long as your passion"). The gibbous moon begins its bright sweep across the southern sky.

Much of the conversation is about how to deal with African wildlife encountered unexpectedly. Unlike Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and other popular wildlife viewing destinations, Zambia allows "walking safaris," — a concept invented by the late Norman Carr — in which visitors can step with the animals. (Other countries allow viewing only from vehicles or secured viewpoints.) Earlier in the day we had taken a hike, probably the first westerners to do so, up to the top of Mt. Shongon — which means "the place no one goes" in local language Nyanja. Along the way we stepped along the footpaths of an array of herbivores and predators. So the fireside talk that night concerned what to do when surprising a beast while wading through high grass or the tangle of thorn trees.

Professor Justin Seymour-Smith, lifetime owner of a private game reserve in Zimbabwe, is our guide and authority on wildlife behavior. He counsels across the flames: "You never know what a wild animal will do. Meeting you without warning on its turf it might turn and go away, or it might charge. There are no shortages of tales in Africa of folks who have been on the wrong side of animal whim. But there are some general rules. If you encounter a big cat, never run. Stare it down, and slowly back up, otherwise it will chase you like a house cat to a mouse. If you chance upon a gorilla, crouch down and bow your head as though praying. If you bump into a hippo or croc or poisonous snake, run … but you don’t have to run faster than the animal, just faster than your companions."

Exhausted from our aggressive wanderings that had taken us from the secluded Busanga Plains in the west to this hidden preserve on the Mozambique border, I announce an early retirement. Before the professor has finished his dissertation, I toddle to my little North Face Lunarship tent pitched on the high banks of the Luangwa River. The others are staying in "chalets," grass huts with beds, showers and flush toilets, but because I am a world-class snorer, I courteously offered to pitch a tent 100 yards from the rest. Besides, I like looking up through the mosquito netting to the Southern Cross.

For some reason, sleep is not forthcoming, and I roll about in my bag for some time. I feel the cold air from the canyon downstream creep in. I hear the sighing of the river, the whirr and chirp of crickets, and later, the voice of an owl, like a dark brushstroke on the night.

Then about 10 p.m. I hear some rustlings up river. I sit up. The moon, in its last quarter, showers the desolate glow of a dream onto the scene. The light on the winding river is luminous as a pale shell and the lineaments of the upstream trees seem to be swaying. Hippos, I think. The night previous I had been awakened when a couple of the river horses were snorting in the shallows not far from the tent. Hippos graze at night, eating as much as 200 pounds of grass a setting, but they enter and leave the river at well-trampled paths and my little tent was pitched a prudent distance from any such corridor.

So, I roll over and again attempt to force sleep. But the crackling continues … and seems to be getting closer. After a time the sound abates. Still, something seems not quite right. I sit up again and peer through the mosquito netting. The ridges of the hills are crowned with a moonstone radiance, melting into a profound blue in the shadowy ravines. Everything — hills, woods, ancient rocks — hang in chasms of blue air; the whole valley is floating, veiled in quivering liquid light. Cloud shadows drift imperceptibly across the sea of trees, deepening the blue to indigo. It seems I am looking at the ghost of a world, a lost world.

I squint and scan the horizon. At first I detect just a gray blur against the dark foliage upstream. It might be a tree. Or a cluster of bushes. But it moves. It disappears and reappears again further down the bank. At last it lumbers out of the surrounding tangle of shrub and creeper and emerges at the edge of the riverbank. It is no longer just a blur but has shape and form … an elephant form. Loxodonta africana, a bull with long white tusks flashing in the moonlight. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it crosses the bank towards my outpost, pausing now and then in order to fan out its ears, perhaps meditating or dreaming.

The jumbo treads closer and closer; my heart begins to pound. Never have I seen a beast so big so close. If life is measured not by the number of breaths taken, but by the moments that take breath away, I am extending my life by a load. About five feet from the entrance to my tent he halts and stares inside. I’m not sure if he can see me through the mosquito netting, but I remain as motionless as I can and look back into eyes like clear brown water. Then a cramp in my leg develops. I try to reposition it without making a sound, but I rub against the sleeping pad, in turn making a squeaking sound. The elephant stretches his trunk towards me, and I can see the symmetric ridges decanting, like poured geometry. He sniffs, then steps back a foot and flaps his ears, the way elephants do when angry or about to charge, or so I think I recall from documentaries and picture books.

Is he about to charge? I wish I had stayed to hear more of Justin's animal escape advice. Should I try to unzip the tent and run? Should I makes noises and see if he will run? Should I shine my flashlight in his eyes? Should I lie down and play dead? I have my Iridium satellite phone in my fanny pack. I wish I could call David Attenborough. Or Justin. Or Simon, a professional hunter sleeping on the other side of camp. But I have no one's phone numbers and am certain the elephant would hear my voice if I did. So I just freeze in a sitting position and watch as the elephant circles the blue tent to the other side and begins to make long siphonings on the sausage tree that spreads above me. Whew. I relax a bit. He is ignoring me.

Then I hear what seems like a sawing sound upstream. I look and see a huge acacia swaying in the moonlight, like the treetops in Jurassic Park before a sauropod appears. Another elephant is rubbing his back against the tree on the camp perimeter. It steps from a palisade of thorns onto the campgrounds following the footsteps of its predecessor, along the rim of the river towards my tent. He is bigger than the last, and the glint of his tusks brighter. With smooth, rhythmic strides he moves to the very edge of my tent, and he too stops and glares inside. His great fanned ears move slowly to and fro. As he alters his position in the moonlight the shadows show the structure of his great body, immensely heavy, slung from mighty backbones, supported by columnar legs. I can’t help but think he looks like a baobab come to life.

Now there is one bull chomping on the tree next to me, and another on the other side starring me down, two oversized rolling bags of horror. And my stomach starts to growl. The Mexican meal is starting to process, and I can’t hold back a sound. It pipes from my tent, and both elephants turn to glower and flap their giant ears. My god, I think, I am about to be stomped to death by elephants. Genuinely frightened, I feel my heart fly around my insides, my mouth go dry as a winterthorn, and my limbs shudder. I think about rolling the tent down the bank into the river, but then remember I had tethered it to the sausage tree so as not to blow away. And besides, the river is filled with crocs and hippos.

The tether rope then makes me quiver. The first elephant is a yard away; if he moves forward and trips on the tether he will fall on my tent, crushing the ingredients. I consider again making a run for it, but then remember how much noise the zipper makes, and know it will cause the elephants even more alarm. Then I hear a sound like Niagara by the tree. My bladder is full as well, and is beginning to howl … too many G&Ts. I am terribly tired. But I dare not close my eyes. The thought of being trampled with eyes open wide is bad enough. But I know if I fall asleep I will snore, and I can think of nothing worse than a squashing while snoozing. So, there I sit, stiff as a log, as the elephants scoff and sniff and chivvy about me.

Elephants can eat for 20 hours a day, then rest the other four. A long night this might be. But after a couple of hours of munching, the two leviathans lie down in a sandy spot below my tent, and go quiet. I take advantage of the respite, and also lie down, commanding myself to not fall asleep. But my eyelids are heavy, and my mind wanders about in a haze. After what seems several hours, the moon completes its arc across the sky and sinks behind the trees. I hear some crunching, sit up and look through the mesh. In the now quite dark landscape I can barely make out a silhouette shambling back upstream. With an unhurried pace it moves back into the shelter of the trees, entwines itself within branches and leaves, and then it is gone.

There is no other sound, save the litany bird, whose call seems to cry, "Good Lord, deliver us." There are no more hulking specters. So I presume both are gone, at last. But a silent presence still hangs in the air. I am about to burst, so I unzip the tent, and leap outside to relieve myself. Just as I finish, there is a basso profundo bellow that rips open the night just a few yards from me. I had stirred the other beast. I dive back into the tent, re-zip it, and hurdle into my bag. There is a subtle spark to his tardigrade pace as he steps up the bank, to the frame of my tent, and fixes a wall-eyed stare. Our eyes lock, and for a second I think I see a hint of empathy.

Then the elephant turns and plods back into the bush. And into a deep and anodyne sleep I fall, returning with the dawn to a less simple, if more demanding, state of grace and order.

When I awake next morning I tell Justin and the others what happened, and they respond with disbelief. Then Justin strolls over and looks at the footprints and the imprints where the elephants lay in the sand. "Big boys," he declares. There is a sudden quiver of understanding that travels from his words to my brain, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension of what might have happened, but didn’t. And in a release of meaning I swallow a threat of happy tears.

“Richard Bangs’ Adventures with Purpose” is airing on PBS nationwide now. Check local listings. And the companion book is available from Menasha Ridge Press.