This week last year, I was crouching in the grass to hide from rhinos in Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). During a tour of southern Africa, my group stopped in Hlane Royal National Park. This park offers a variety of roads and trails that allow visitors to view wildlife like lions, elephants, hippos, white rhinos, leopards, giraffes, birds, etc. Our tour had scheduled two activities during our short stay. The first was a simple “nature walk” to view the flora and fauna in the park shortly after arrival. The second was a sunset game drive. While the nature walk sounded uneventful compared to the game drive, no one wanted to fork over the cash to “upgrade” to an additional game drive. Our Tour Guide: Maxwell So, without much complaint, we gathered around the safari vehicle that would take us to the start of the trail. Our guide, Maxwell, introduced himself in a no-nonsense manner, and the group quickly fell in love with his mannerisms. When I remember this walk, it would have been nothing without Maxwell. When we arrived at the starting point, Maxwell ushered us out of the vehicle. He then handed us all beverages to begin the tour. Never in my life would I have imagined marching through the bush with a Sprite in my hand, but there I was. And on top of that, the trail wasn’t much of a marked path. Maxwell had his walking stick and trampled through the bush easily as if he did it every day (and I’m sure he did). But the rest of us blundered behind him, soda in hand, without much coordination. Maxwell leading the tour in Hlane Royal National Park A True Tour of Nature Throughout the walk, he gave us tidbits of information, which I won’t lie were a bit boring at points. The only one I can remember now is when we came upon a bush full of mint leaves, and he plucked a leaf off to stick in his mouth. He mentioned something about brushing your teeth as he gnashed at the mint with his dazzling white teeth, and we all just looked at him a bit bemused, still holding our cans of soda. We plunged on through the brush, and I can’t say I was having too memorable of an experience up until this point. If you ask anyone, hiking isn’t my favorite activity, and the sun was beating down on us. I was more than lost in my thoughts, complaining to myself, when Maxwell’s head turned. Beyond the Bush Maxwell didn’t speak, and he instead raised a hand very slowly to get everyone to stop behind him. He then put his lips to his mouth like a kindergarten teaching, instructing us all to be silent. Finally, he pointed to his left where you could just make out a mama rhino and a baby through the bush. At that point, they were probably 100 feet away from us but drawing nearer. Maxwell was tense, and he knew that our group of 6 needed to quickly disappear. Watching the rhinos’ movements, and moving as they moved, Maxwell began to lead us across a small path and toward a small group of trees and bushes. Later I learned that rhino’s sense of smell and hearing is good, but their eyes are not. As long as they couldn’t hear us and the breeze didn’t give us away, hiding (even poorly) would help us significantly. We crouched for minutes behind a small clump of bushes and trees, snapping pictures all the while. They came within around 10 or so feet of where we crouched and waited with bated breath. Eventually…they turned and went on their way. Hiding from two rhinos (a mama and baby) Back to Camp Maxwell remained tense for the rest of the “walk” back to the safari vehicle. He made several reports on his radio about what we had seen. Others in the group also claimed there were some “large cat” prints in the mud that we stepped over shortly after we encountered the rhinos. Maxwell allegedly saw them, said nothing, and hurried the group along. I can’t confirm if that was true or not (and part of me thinks that the excitement always makes people exaggerate). While the game drive that night was fun, it was nothing compared to our game walk that afternoon. Eswatini, I’ll see you again one day. You, Maxwell, and the rhinos left quite an impression.
