Tourists who are warned about certain dangers are driven by a sense of curiosity to disobey the rules and leave the safety of their safari car to take pictures with animals.
Watching the pictures of a woman attacked by a tiger in a Chinese Safari park, and before that the video of a four-year-old boy dragged by a gorilla in an American park, and many more such incidents, revives in my mind a true story that I luckily live to tell.
Many years ago we made a trip to Kenya where my parents-in-law had a beautiful farm in the town of Nakuru. One day we woke up determined to have a Safari in one of the national parks, and we chose mount Elgon National park.
My father-in-law had a four wheel drive car, the right vehicle for the occasion. They also had tents and safari chairs. Lots of food was packed in the car and all was set and ready, all except the know-how of an African safari.
Arrival
At the entrance of the park, the gate keeper asked us if we needed a ranger to guide us, and both men in our car decided that it was a walk in the park and that they would find their way around!
The first shock hit us when we got lost in a hilly area with a very narrow path and it started raining buckets and we saw our car slipping and it was through prayers that we managed to pull through, reaching the safety of an abandoned camping site when it was almost dark. We had a quick dinner and went to sleep.
I woke up in the morning and looked outside to see my husband near the tap fetching water. He was surrounded by what he called ‘wild cows’ and he was even shouting at them and chasing them away. Even when I wanted to answer the call of nature and feared the ‘wild cows’ he assured me that they were harmless. Well, the animals kept staring at us from a distance and decided to leave.
A few days later, when we were showing the pictures of our adventures to some locals, we learnt the bitter truth about the ‘ wild cows’ and that they were actually Africa’s most dangerous animal: buffalos.
Tales of others
A doctor who was among those present, congratulated us on escaping from this incident unharmed, he further elaborated that just a few days ago he had to attend to a French tourist who was attacked and badly injured by a buffalo in a nearby park!
Now, I often think about that day, and how ignorant we were, how arrogant we felt when it came to hiring a ranger who knew his way around, and above all, unlike European tourists who would read, study and research every step of their trip while abroad, we seem to be guided by the wind, that will sometimes take us to danger zones.
Of course, even the same tourists who are warned about certain dangers, driven by a sense of curiosity, would disobey the rules and leave the safety of their safari car to take pictures with animals.
One such incident happened just an hour before we reach a certain location in one of Kenya’s national parks, this was a place where a herd of elephants were moving , an American tourist who saw a baby elephant wondering in the bush, jumped off the safari Jeep for a quick photo, little did he know that where there is a baby the mother is close by. He was attacked and lost his life for a photo.
IN THE PARK
A family row at a safari park ended in a mum being mauled to death by one tiger as she went to rescue her daughter from another. A young woman got out of her car in the Siberian tiger enclosure to berate her partner in the driver’s seat. One of the tigers quickly pounced at Badaling Wildlife Park in Beijing, China. An older woman, believed to be her mother, then also got out and went to her rescue. But she was then attacked by a second tiger.
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