White rhinos, Martians and custard

Cape Town, South Africa

What is it about custard? I just love it. Not cold, you see, but warm, even piping hot. And when it develops that thick, slimy skin on its surface, I immediately enter my second Heaven. It is probably the years spent in boys’ boarding schools thanks to parents who lived overseas, or perhaps even my time in the Army. Yet custard and I are best friends. I simply cannot have enough of it.

So when I came across a vat full of the stuff in a South African game lodge, somehow all those animals I had seen that day faded into the distance. So what that I had witnessed a white rhino have a go at an elephant – and lose? So what that I had managed to stroke a leopard, albeit stuck behind the mesh fencing of an animal rescue centre? So what that a few of my fellow passengers had begun to drive me mad? This was the Aquila Private Game Reserve, two-and-a-half hours’ drive from the heart of Cape Town, and a trip tagged on to a conference where I had delivered an exhausting overdose of lectures. My secretary in England, herself a South African, had felt a game drive would be a good idea and had made all the arrangements.

“It’ll make more a man of you,” she had said when I insisted that my criterion for travelling the 6000 miles from England would be to see a lion in the wild.

It was that which found me in hotel Reception at an unearthly 6.30 a.m. one Saturday. I was sleepy, although not as sleepy as the two Japanese girls, both in their early 30s, who had decided to join the trip, too.

A moustached black face stood by the hotel front door and smiled. “Dr Richard?” it asked. I nodded. “Please,” it continued, “come with me.”

It was a 20-seater minibus filled with hopefuls from assorted hotels in the centre of Cape Town. I was the only white Caucasian male, my six-foot-plus frame squashed into the second single seat from the front. No one spoke, at least not until the four Martians - two husbands, two wives - clambered aboard at our next hotel stop. I will call them Martians in the interests of international harmony. Yet clambered is the word, not climbed. There was nothing delicate about their arrival. They chattered loudly, opened newspapers ostentatiously, dropping loose pages onto the otherwise tidy floor and ate a large bag of crisps noisily as an unshared public breakfast.

“Hello, hello!” one shouted into his mobile, breaking the peaceful silence, while nodding his head in a very Martian way.

A heated argument then developed between one Martian couple, it appeared about their camera. I am hopeless at the Martian language despite visiting their planet more than a dozen times, but it was clear that she-who-must-be-obeyed was fed up that her digital camera did not function. He-who-did-everything-he-was-told, poor fellow, was struggling. Exasperated, the lady Martian leaned across the narrow aisle to me and prodded my right shoulder. We swayed in unison as the minibus lurched round another corner. My newfound, exasperated companion indicated the functionless camera and handed it across. I took it, it felt light, and I turned it over, opened the battery compartment and showed her that it was empty.

I smiled, sympathetically of course, while suppressing an almost irresistible desire to laugh. After all, how could I expect her to know about camera batteries when it appeared that her husband undertook all things practical? My discovery of the absent battery achieved silence for the next ten minutes, until the wife started up once more against her defenceless spouse.

International incidents apart, the trip east-north-east from Cape Town to the Aquila Private Game Reserve was magical. Dawn was rising over perfectly silhouetted mountains while I listened to a playlist of love songs on my mobile phone. I know I am ex-military but on occasion even I go soppy in the head. It was the most wonderful experience, bringing a tear to my eye, as light slowly appeared, and the vineyards of Stellenbosch and beyond flashed by. Signs warned against stopping for robbers on the roadside who might try to sell us stolen grapes, while the number of blue flashing lights from police cars was well beyond what one might see in south London on a Saturday night. South Africa, however attractive, still has some serious politics to handle. There are few places as cosmopolitan as London.

I opted for the sparkling grape juice for my welcome drink as we pulled into the gravel courtyard of Aquila. I was then ushered through to a large reception desk where I took up residence in a queue behind the Martians. They were having problems understanding the paperwork. We had to sign our lives away, you see. If we were gored by a buffalo, munched by lions or attacked by a maniacal black mamba, we could sue anyone we wished but not the game lodge. They would remain blameless for everything. I signed, thereby accepting my fate once the African wildlife had me in its sights. I sighed and strode into the complimentary breakfast. That is on the assumption you can call a stale croissant and synthetic Danish pastry breakfast. To be fair the scrambled egg was good, although the soggy bacon was awful and the sausages well past their best.

The restaurant was filled with tourists from throughout the world, although no Brits. I suppose it is a blessing that our various nations behave so differently. What is customary to one can be intolerable to another. But why is it that natives of a certain global power feel obliged to announce their plans for the day at maximum voice volume so the rest of the world can hear? I know it is fun to take a game safari, go for a jog, take a plunge in the ice-cold lodge pool and visit Table Mountain all in one day; but perhaps best share it quietly with each other and not with a restaurant filled with fellow travellers. But then the early start, the battle with the Martians and the lacklustre breakfast had not lifted my mood. Call me Mr Grumpy that morning and you may well be right.

Sebastian was our guide and clearly set for the stage. He mentioned at one point that acting had been his first choice of career but somehow he had ended up as a safari guide. The logic of his career path escaped me but he could handle his audience well, knew his animals, and kept us out of trouble. This is fairly important when you are up close and personal with a full-on young lion. For the Martians, nothing appeared simple. Within minutes of entering the game reserve, one wife had lost her straw hat. It blew off and landed beside a mound of rhino dung, missing it by a squeak. Patiently, Sebastian made a wide U-turn in our open-sided four-wheel drive, brought us to a halt, and handed the rescued hat gracefully to his client.

The lodge aimed to offer its guests the so-called “Big Five”. These are the elephant, rhinoceros, leopard, lion and buffalo. We saw them all, apart from the buffalo, although we had seen a sad-looking beast by the road 20 miles before reaching Aquila. Yet we saw other beasties, too – springbok, giraffe, hippo, wildebeest, oryx and ostriches by the dozen. Sebastian regaled us with tales of near misses by guides the world over and how a close friend had been killed by a single kick from a giraffe.

“Buffalo and black rhino will never give you a warning signal,” he advised in a low, almost threatening voice, his forehead deeply furrowed.

Furtively I glanced around, hoping my companions would not see my concern. Buffalo? No, thank Heaven. Black rhino? No again, just a couple of young whites, one with a broken horn. Rhino horn stories are both sad and fascinating. Such tales abound on safari as rhino poaching continues to this day. Sebastian made me worry for his sanity when he declared what he would do to any poacher that came his way. Something about hanging, drawing and quartering with unanaesthetised castration thrown in.

These stories ensured that we kept intimately close to Sebastian as we penetrated ever deeper into the game reserve. When he suggested a brief walking safari it was no surprise that many, the Martians included, refused. The Martian women never left the vehicle for the entire safari but sat on the back seat, hands across their mouths, as if they were terrified of inhaling what they saw as dusty, contaminated air. Dusty it may have been, even to this lonesome Brit, but contaminated it was not.

I stuck to Sebastian like glue. My footprints matched his, when he looked left so did I, when he blinked I blinked and when he breathed I inhaled deeply, too. I certainly did not wish to show too much interest in the large white rhinos in case I was next on Sebastian’s castration list. In fact, it was very safe, and Sebastian made sure that it was. Yet somehow he held us on the edge of alarm without spilling over into full-blown panic. When we reached the end of the game drive, three hours later, we were injury free and regarded Sebastian as our saviour from some horrible, agonising death.

Having taken little exercise but nonetheless exhausted, we each staggered from the vehicle once our safari was complete. Even the Martian ladies had to move. Yet Aquila had done us proud and Sebastian even prouder. He smiled broadly as one by one we stepped onto the gravel courtyard. Wallets appeared, handbags were opened and numerous tips appeared in Sebastian’s palm, as if by magic. Then with one last wave, he turned on his heel and walked towards his animals, his mind for all I knew still on poacher castration. I turned on my heel too, thinking of the waiting minibus that would take me back to Cape Town. Let the struggle begin once more, I thought. It was back to war with the Martians.