Calendar Home
Previous Day

September 1, 2003

Next Day
Another day tracking rhino. These beasts are hard to find. James and Isaac perform miracles locating rhino tracks and following them thru bushes or gullies and over leafy, grassy, or stony ground. Other game animals trample the tracks. Sometimes elephant herds force us to take huge detours. We do our best to walk softly and stay downwind. After a full morning treking for 6 or 7 kilometers on the heels of faded rhino footprints, we find our quarry munching in the tall grass. The first thing to do is find an escape route. From our experience a few days ago we've learned that black rhinos charge people with the intent to kill...
How do you wake a sleeping Black Rhino? From a safe spot on top of a hill fifty meters away.
.People have hunted rhinos almost to extinction, however, our guides won't shoot these animals to defend our lives. If the rhino charges (and it will), our job is to get out of the way and climb a tree. Last year one of these ill tempered animals gored a guide.
Rhinos are not the most dangerous animals to walking people. Our guide tells us that when a male buffalo charges, the only thing that will stop him is your death or his. Female elephants with calves are even more dangerous and we always keep our distance from them.