“Hurry, you don’t want to miss this.”  Our guide, Octavus, dressed in Khaki,  spoke quickly.

I ran down the steps of the truck, heard a thud as my foot hit the hard African earth and raced towards the viewing deck.  Everyone was oohing and ahhing, but I couldn’t see a thing. My Finnish friend, Tuomo, positioned me in the right direction, and still nothing.

He asked, “Do you see them? Look, there are five of them.”  

“No,” I responded wondering what the fuss was about. He pointed and handed me binoculars and told me to look at the watering hole.

It was then I understood. Five lionesses were basking in the sun, clearly content and relaxed, because, as Octavus explained, they must have had a nice lunch; meaning they killed some animal and chomped it to bits.

Now this was no zoo I was in, but the real deal, the African bush. I was in South Africa’s Balulu Nature Reserve.

A moment later Octavus said with his smooth Afrikaners accent, “We’re so lucky; I haven’t seen lions at the watering hole for over two years now. Now let me show you to your tents.”

I looked around me – there were no gates, no fences, no borders – and I was going to sleep in a tent, in Africa? I’ve never slept in a tent in Arizona, or anywhere for that matter.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I muttered under my breath and then I turned to Tuomo, who convinced me to go on this safari, and I said to him in no uncertain terms, “I’m going to kill you. I didn’t know we were sleeping in tents.”

A wicked grin spread over his face and he said something about not reading the fine print in the catalogue.  

I was panicking, yet no one else seemed to be the least bit bothered. This was apparently as normal as a walk in the park.  Meanwhile, I wanted to call my mother and hear her reassuring voice.

I thought, ‘I can’t freak her out.’ So, my sister Audrey would be the lucky winner and get to hear my quivering voice. The possibility of being a lion’s dinner did seem to be a life or death situation. I dialed my South African cell phone praying for reception.

The phone started to ring.

“Hello,” a friendly voice said from the other side of the planet.

“Audrey, I’m so glad you answered.”

“How are you?  How’s Africa?”

“I’m sleeping in a tent and there are five lions outside and I’m scared.”

“What? Masada, I can’t hear you. I’m in Costco right now. Can I call you back?”

I shook my head in amazement, but little did I know sleeping in a tent with the lions roaming around was tame compared to the next day’s adventures.

Our group went hiking through the bush with a tracker, to see the lions. No weapons allowed. Apparently, it was time to be one with nature.

I stared in Octavus’ brown eyes and said, “I’m exhausted, and was thinking to sleep in tomorrow and skip the nature walk.

He replied with a serious tone, “I can’t leave you all alone at the camp, it’s not safe.”

The nature walk was designed to see the little creatures, such as spiders, scorpions, ants, termites and animal prints.

Octavus, sensing my fear, said, “Generally speaking the animals see, hear and sense humans long before we can see them, and they run away. You don’t have to worry; we’ve never lost a client on safari.”  Octavus grinned at me.

That’s a huge relief.

We walked single file; nervously, I stayed close to the front. The tracker showed us animal prints, zebra’s, lion’s, and monkey’s. Simply by looking he could tell how many hours or days ago the animals created the tracks.

Nature’s clues are everywhere, even in the shape of giraffe dung; one can tell if it was from a female or male. (The female dung has pointy edge while the male is  rounder.)

Octavus dug up a baby scorpion and held it with a little branch. Then he picked a Golden Orb Spider off her web, and she seemed to dance on his arm. A moment later, she was crawling on my arm; her long legs tickled as she moved.

This four-inch spider is black and yellow. Once she is done mating, if she’s still hungry, she’ll eat her mate.

We marched on, finding huge elephant prints, colorful birds, and much to my happiness and the others’ chagrin, no lions, rhino’s, hippo’s crossed our path.

Suddenly, a long majestic figure was spotted in the distance. We walked quietly until we reached a clear area and a young giraffe looked at us inquisitively.

She stared at us as much as we gazed at her; after all we were treading in her world.

Gracefully she maneuvered through the bush and seemed to guide us to where we were going next, the watering hole where we had seen the lions. All I could hear was the crunch of the leaves. She stopped to eat, and nodded her head, as if to wish us well with our journey.

A few hours later, I was finally relaxed.  I didn’t care if I all I saw was bushes on the driving safari. The truck bumped up and down. I was sitting on the window seat, and since there were no windows, Tuomo kept his arms around me, pushing the prickly tree branches away and protecting my face from getting scratched.  

Just as I was feeling settled, everything changed. Marjolein, a cool Dutch woman, yelled, “Elephant, to your left!”

In the distance a grey elephant appeared. I wished we were closer. We drove up a dusty pathway and then our tracker spotted another elephant, this one right in front of us.

This grey, wrinkled elephant with huge tusks seemed to be annoyed with our presence in his space. He quit eating the leaves and came walking towards us as we kept driving forward slowly. He kept moving towards us as if to show us who was in charge.  

Suddenly, all I could see was the back of the trackers head with huge elephant ears flared out in front of him.  

Octavus slowly backed the truck up and the shaking tracker left his seat in front of the truck and breathlessly slid into the passenger’s seat.

Surprisingly, we drove forward again towards the elephant, who seemed downright angry. Just then the engine on the truck sputtered.

This was like a bad movie gone terribly wrong. The truck wouldn’t start and the elephant was literally in our faces. This wouldn’t be so shocking if I was watching National Geographic, but this was the real deal.

I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body, yet I had no idea what one does when arguing with an elephant.   In my head, I named him “Rocky,” he was a fighter, and I just hoped we were not the ones going down.  

We seemed to stand there for what seemed to be hours. Finally the engine roared, but the standoff wasn’t over.  Rocky looked as if he was ready to push the vehicle over. Octavus kept revving the engine and acting as if his plan was to move forward.

Just then, Rocky decided he had enough of us and slowly walked to my side of the truck. He was so close I could reach out and touch him.

The tension in the air broke with peals of laughter and general disbelief as everyone started speaking in their native languages.

I relaxed my grip on Tuomo’s leg, and could see red marks. He hugged me. Everyone was relieved.

We drove to a clear area and piled out, every smoker in the group immediately lit up, those who didn’t reached for a beer.  

Octavus joked around, yet the tension was still on his face. When asked why we didn’t turn around, he explained.

“If you let the elephant think he is in control, then he will become more aggressive, either with us or the next time he meets up with humans. So I needed to show him who was boss, because if he does attack, the park will find who he is and kill him. So really it’s for his own good.”

I raised my eyebrows, “For his own good, huh?”

Octavus winked at me, “It’s good to feel alive, right? That was just a seven-ton elephant arguing with a one-ton vehicle. I haven’t had an experience like this in years; you are on one lucky Safari, lots of action and excitement.”

After watching the sun splinter into hues of oranges and red over the African wild, we welcomed the aqua blue night sky and continued with our drive, seeing small animals and watching giraffes gallop through the brush.

Then a call came over the receiver. We were in for a surprise if we could get back to camp quickly. Octavus seemed to grow lead in his foot; the truck roared onwards, until we returned and he slowed down and quieted the engine.

We piled out, only to find that an elusive leopard that had been spotted at the watering hole, had slipped back into the cover of darkness just a moment before our arrival.  I was disappointed, but not really. I might have missed the leopard but I didn’t miss the lions!

Masada Siegel, otherwise known as the “Fun Girl Correspondent,” is a freelance writer living in Scottsdale, Arizona and can be reached at [email protected]