By a truly weird twist of fate both our cars are in the panel-beater's yard at the same time. Sandra's got bitten by lions and mine got reversed into a donga. Only in Africa.
I'm not kidding about the lions. When the insurance person read the claim form I think she allocated bonus points for entertainment value. She must hear tons of tall tales but this one, I'm pretty sure, stood out from the crowd. And it's true.
What do you do with overseas friends who don't have time to go to a game park but want to see lions? Lion Park. It's ten minutes from our house and they have lions in various fenced camps. I don't know where they go to from the camps, but I've heard it may be to Limpopo province for canned lion hunting. I hope not. But if that is their sad fate, it's at least less damaging than shooting male lions in the wild.
Wild lion prides are ruled by an alpha male. Shoot him, and a wanna-be alpha male is likely to replace him - either from within the pride or from another pride in an adjacent territory. In order to ensure his gene dominance, one of the first things a new alpha male does is to kill all the cubs in the pride, along with any lioness who tries to defend her cubs.
So think about that next time you see a male lion head on some dick-head trophy hunter's wall: that one head equals about 15 deaths in the pride.
Anyway, there we were driving the tourists around showing them the lions:
These guys were pretty chilled. Adults. Seen it all before.
Then we drove into the camp where the young lions were being kept, and they literally mobbed our car.
I'm not sure if it was the branding on the car that made us look like an overgrown zebra, or whether someone in the car smelled like antelope, but we became an instant lion-magnet.
Then the car started rocking. The buggers were chewing our tyres and tyre-fenders! I think it was the branding. 'Dude, it looks like zebra - sorta - but it tastes kinda weird.' 'Ya, dude, I know - try chew here, man. It's also weird, but in a different way, like, know what I mean?' 'Ya, dude. Fully.'
I couldn't drive away because I didn't what to cut short their already short lives by running them over. I hooted and all that did was make them attack with more spirit. 'Dude, it's bellowing. I think we've finally got it. Bite harder.'
Eventually through a gradual build up of speed we were able to thread our way through these delinquents, except for one whose forepaws were on our back bumper. 'It's trying to run dudes, but don't stress, I've got it's hindquarters.'
Our final dash out the camp was with a young lion in hot pursuit, clinging to our back bumper, sprinting human-like with his rear legs while his front paws and rather large jaws attacked our rear windscreen-wiper. Eventually diesel power won out and he abandoned the chase.
Our foreign visitor had been permanently cured of any further desire to view lions, thanks to his rear seat position which had afforded him an extremely close encounter with lion claws and canines.
The other car's damage was not as interesting - we returned from filming baited shark dives off KZN, and we reversed into a donga when dropping off the cameraman at his house out in the bush at the end of a really long and bumpy driveway. Shit happens.
So there we were, two cars in need of repair. First one to go in was Sandra's and our insurance allows for the provision of a hired courtesy car. She got a 1400 Toyota Corolla. Not bad, but underpowered. Really underpowered. A few days later my car also went in and I got a 1400 Hyundai i20. Car of the Year last year, and I could see why. Now we both make a beeline for the i20. Even though the Corolla is bigger, a sedan, and from the outside looks more upmarket. It's just kak to drive compared to the i20, which I can't believe has the same capacity engine. Far more power, a much more solid feel on the road, actually feels bigger inside, and much more efficient air-con, which in November in Joburg you really learn to appreciate. My car's a gasoline guzzling 4.2 litre Chrysler. I feel like asking the panel beater to hold onto it and let me keep the i20.
Moral of the story? Beware of young lions if you drive stripey cars. And don't judge a car by what it looks like. Drive it first. Sometimes the ugly duckling is the swan.
I'm not kidding about the lions. When the insurance person read the claim form I think she allocated bonus points for entertainment value. She must hear tons of tall tales but this one, I'm pretty sure, stood out from the crowd. And it's true.
What do you do with overseas friends who don't have time to go to a game park but want to see lions? Lion Park. It's ten minutes from our house and they have lions in various fenced camps. I don't know where they go to from the camps, but I've heard it may be to Limpopo province for canned lion hunting. I hope not. But if that is their sad fate, it's at least less damaging than shooting male lions in the wild.
Wild lion prides are ruled by an alpha male. Shoot him, and a wanna-be alpha male is likely to replace him - either from within the pride or from another pride in an adjacent territory. In order to ensure his gene dominance, one of the first things a new alpha male does is to kill all the cubs in the pride, along with any lioness who tries to defend her cubs.
So think about that next time you see a male lion head on some dick-head trophy hunter's wall: that one head equals about 15 deaths in the pride.
Anyway, there we were driving the tourists around showing them the lions:
Then we drove into the camp where the young lions were being kept, and they literally mobbed our car.
I couldn't drive away because I didn't what to cut short their already short lives by running them over. I hooted and all that did was make them attack with more spirit. 'Dude, it's bellowing. I think we've finally got it. Bite harder.'
Eventually through a gradual build up of speed we were able to thread our way through these delinquents, except for one whose forepaws were on our back bumper. 'It's trying to run dudes, but don't stress, I've got it's hindquarters.'
Our final dash out the camp was with a young lion in hot pursuit, clinging to our back bumper, sprinting human-like with his rear legs while his front paws and rather large jaws attacked our rear windscreen-wiper. Eventually diesel power won out and he abandoned the chase.
Our foreign visitor had been permanently cured of any further desire to view lions, thanks to his rear seat position which had afforded him an extremely close encounter with lion claws and canines.
The other car's damage was not as interesting - we returned from filming baited shark dives off KZN, and we reversed into a donga when dropping off the cameraman at his house out in the bush at the end of a really long and bumpy driveway. Shit happens.
So there we were, two cars in need of repair. First one to go in was Sandra's and our insurance allows for the provision of a hired courtesy car. She got a 1400 Toyota Corolla. Not bad, but underpowered. Really underpowered. A few days later my car also went in and I got a 1400 Hyundai i20. Car of the Year last year, and I could see why. Now we both make a beeline for the i20. Even though the Corolla is bigger, a sedan, and from the outside looks more upmarket. It's just kak to drive compared to the i20, which I can't believe has the same capacity engine. Far more power, a much more solid feel on the road, actually feels bigger inside, and much more efficient air-con, which in November in Joburg you really learn to appreciate. My car's a gasoline guzzling 4.2 litre Chrysler. I feel like asking the panel beater to hold onto it and let me keep the i20.
Moral of the story? Beware of young lions if you drive stripey cars. And don't judge a car by what it looks like. Drive it first. Sometimes the ugly duckling is the swan.
No comments:
Post a Comment