Reliving a Moment In Time

A trip down memory lane... 

The year is quickly screeching to a close and yet it feels like a year hasn't passed at all. Especially when I look back on certain memories that feel sinisterly recent but when I stop to count the months since their happening, I find it much further in the rearview than my mind registers. 

One of these experiences was my trip to Zambia with The Bushcamp Company in August of 2019 (yes, almost a whole year and a half ago now) but to me it feels like mere months ago. Last spring, I reflected on the trip in a personal essay on life and death for a travel writing competition. Admittedly, it was not picked up, and for months it stayed dormant in my Google Drive. As I've been feeling more nostalgic for faraway places, I rediscovered it and wanted to share it with my favorite audience; a moment in time I'll never forget that I hope can capture the adrenaline and seduction and climaxes and silences of a safari—and more importantly, the circle of life. 

The Circle of Life:
A Lesson In The Symbiotic Relationship of the Wild 
 

The engine of the jeep hummed to a silence as we positioned ourselves in front of a lifeless impala hastily hidden in the tangled thick of the Zambian bush. An overwhelming stillness encompassed us. Only seconds prior, we were grinding our way through South Luangwa National Park, throttling more urgently than usual for a morning game drive. 

The commotion began at first light. My eyes were adjusting to the dim room as my hands fumbled for my phone to check the time. Before I could prod my way out of my mosquito net to access the hardwood nightstand, Zambia’s wildlife jolted my senses: a shrill clamor—in that moment I wasn’t quite sure from what—implied imminent danger. Perhaps not for me in the comforts of a guarded camp, but for one of the creatures who I’d spent the last two days alongside; wildlife that for myself and my four safari companions had been the closest semblance to neighbors out here.

On our first day, we were told that witnessing a kill was one of the most requested game sightings during a safari, especially for a first timer like myself. So when my guide asked what was at the top of my checklist, and I replied simply, “Seeing an elephant,” he nodded with a slight smirk, assuring me that would indeed happen.

My third day in and I couldn’t count on two hands how many elephants we had seen—but we’d yet to witness a kill—and based on the uproar at dawn, before being rushed out of our tents and into the jeep, I had guessed we’d barely missed another opportunity. My guide explained that the shrill chorus that spiked my adrenaline prior to sunrise was the warning call from a herd of impala. The predator was likely a leopard—South Luangwa National Park is nicknamed the Valley of the Leopard—and likely it was a kill that triggered that haunting of a ruckus. So we sped off in hopes to catch the remainder of nature’s greatest show.

It didn’t take long for our guide to spot the limp body: its tan hide still intact, slightly bloated, but undoubtedly lifeless. Being a fresh kill, there were no signs of decay wafting toward us, something we felt grateful for as I finally had the opportunity to check the clock: 6.35 a.m. With curiosity peaked, and without scent to dispel, we sat in that eerie silence, waiting and watching for the righteous owner of the kill to return and claim its breakfast.

The thing about safaris is, they’re a test of patience. While some mornings you may spot game at every turn, some afternoons, you may see nothing at all as the heat of the day overpowers. 

That morning, I can’t tell you how long we sat there. Waiting. Attempting to be as still as possible but fidgeting like a little kid in the back of a car. Are we there yet? Trying to be as still, silent, but fiddling with the sunblock as the harsh morning rays crept high overheard. Seconds and minutes blended together. My mind wandered. I thought about all the times I waited for things back home—grocery store lines, traffic, public transport—a lack of patience in tow, but at least a riveting text message conversation between a good friend to pass the time. I looked down at my serviceless cell. The heat. Was I getting burned? I can’t take my eyes off the prey. What if I miss something? Where is the predator? What is the predator? Are we sitting ducks? I darted my eyes around my immediate viewpoint then warily craned my neck in slow motion, as if moving at a less rapid pace would look as if I didn’t move at all. Nothing. Except for a glimpse of one of my fellow safari mates nodding off. I couldn’t relate more.

Out of the corner of my eye, a swift sudden movement snapped my focus back to the kill. My guide was assertively pointing to the left of the impala, and in a whisper, he said, “Just there, under the brush, she’s a beauty.”

My eyes squinted and I leaned forward. I adjusted my 500mm lens in an attempt to distinguish what he’d seen. Peering through the lens, I slowly scanned the foreground: nothing… nothing… nothing… ah! I zoomed in a little further and took my eyes off the lens. A golden outline was camouflaged by irregular dark spots and loose roots, laying down, its breath heaving with an unyielding gaze on the impala less than 20 feet in front of it. 

It was then that I realized our jeep comprised of the last point in a sort of scalene triangle; no less than 40 feet away from this leopard, maybe 60 feet from the kill. 

Minutes ticked on. The leopard exaggeratingly yawned and licked her lips. She stood up. Paced. Collapsed down again. Talk about playing with your food. Trance-like, our eyes were fixed on her every move. What would she do next? As if she read our minds, she abruptly switched her gaze. To us. Eyes wide, on high alert. Petrified, I froze. I thought she was staring me down but our guide turned first. He followed her gaze behind us, to the right of the jeep, where two monstrous herbivores were harvesting their first meal of the day. 

Unphased by the two tonne jeep in the path of their breakfast buffet, the elephants—five tonne creatures themselves—gently twisted their trunks around the narrow branches. Their dull grey ears flapped, weathered with tears and dried mud, as they tugged and released a flurry of foliage atop their mammoth heads. They barely batted a feathered eyelash, mouths agape in an overately humanesque grimace as they too played with their food before them. 

My eyes darted between the stationary leopard and the genial elephants. At one point while the elephants were in frame our guide gestured to a cloud of dust in the distance, and whispered, “There is a whole family… look, look.” 

A calf jogged up to his relatives, not tall enough to reach his own branches, he cleared the ground of the fallen leaves, searching for his share. While the family was engrossed in a slow munch, I looked back to the left—the leopard was now directly in front of her kill, surveying it carefully. Her size—lean muscle flexed before it—offered a new perspective of the limp animal.

To my surprise, the leopard didn’t jump on her prey in the act of a brutal feast; she began an immaculate display of ritualistic dining. She licked the impala clean. Slowly peeled back its hide. Cracked through its ribs. Removed the intestines. Buried them (our guide explained this hides the scent from other hungry predators). I was enamored. Literally, and physically, on the edge of my seat. My guide once again broke the silence, observing that the impala appeared more bloated than usual because she was pregnant, “The leopard killed two for one today,” he said. We watched as the leopard gorged on a meal not even a beast of its size could consume in one sitting. She licked her paws as she ended her indulgence then buried the remainder of the organs she wouldn’t touch nor devour, then dragged what was left of the carcass out of viewpoint.

Speechless. We passed around quizzical glances as we attempted to comprehend the scene we’d just witnessed. It wasn’t a kill but it was certainly a show. We were still digesting, breathing a sigh of relief, when we remembered the elephants and caught them lumbering off ahead of us. Words weren’t even exchanged as the jeep re-started and began rolling along in the subtle dust of the elephants’ trail. We halted under the shade of an ebony tree, where a six-month-old calf stood in the shade of his mother. There was no time to process the majestic leopard and her prey as once again the jeep hushed and a wild silence befell us. For the second time that morning, we were before a mother and her baby; this time, a living-breathing bond between them.

I could hear myself exhale. A heat pricked the corner of my eyes and my fingers were shaking on the button of my camera—I had to press a little harder if I was going to capture this moment. The calf raised his trunk and tucked into the crease behind his mother’s foreleg. It was time for him to eat. I discreetly held my breath so the only thing I could hear was the faint drum of my heartbeat in my ears. Then click. Click. Click. It felt wrong to disturb the untamed silence of the bush with unnatural technology. So I leaned back. Breathed in. And it was enough to trigger my emotions to overflow. A tear streamed down my face. 

Was I crying because it was truly beautiful? Or was I crying for the baby impala that would never see this opportunity? I guessed it to be a cathartic mix; experiencing the beauty of life alongside the proximity of death and unraveling the symbiotic relationships of wilderness—the circle of life. 

That’s the beauty of a safari. In such a short span of time you are reminded of the natural world’s way of coexisting, of evolving long before you or I were on this planet. It brings strangers together, the four of us in that safari jeep were hit with a storm of emotions. It brings you closer to understanding the relationship between life and death. And that in order for some beautiful, majestic beings to exist, another beautiful being must die—not out of greed or ego, but purely to survive. 

I packaged up the experience and brought it back to the U.S. with me, back to my city life. In reflecting upon these moments, I recognized that living in a city, or living any place where nature doesn’t overpower, is when survival turns trivial. It transforms into an abstract vision, something you don’t think about, just as you can forget how much death is a part of everyday life. Thus it became my most treasured memory as I realized I, like my fellow safari animals, am not extraordinary, nor immortal; I am a living, breathing mammal, just trying to survive—whether a conscious or a secondary thought. My basic function—our basic function—as mammals, is survival, and when you witness something as profound as life and death coexisting, the drama surrounding life’s daily routine dissipates to reveal that we’re still surviving, and we should be thankful for that everyday. 

If you made it this far, thank you. As we all spend a little more time offline with the holidays approaching, I'm signing off here until the New Year. If you're looking to check-out some of the projects I've worked on lately from travel to booze, I've linked three of my latest below to keep you occupied until I'm back in 2021. 

Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent Share What They're Drinking This Holiday
Going Off-grid in Wadi Rum
Room Request! Mandarin Oriental, Boston

Happy festive season to you all <3

Xo,
J