When ‘babs’ attacked

Bastard baboons. Bloody bugger bugger bastards!           

Another campsite note to remember: When you book a campsite and turn up only to find no one at the reception gate, no one appointing you to a specific site and no one giving you grief for parking in their spot, you should ask yourself this one simple question – “Why?” 

We thought we had found the best spot. Nice big trees surrounding us like a beautiful forest, the ground wasn’t too bad and we had all the space in the world. 

Then, we noticed it stank. Like shit.

 We didn’t ask ourselves “why”.  But we should have.

Once my tent was up, and we had our portable housing arranged accordingly, I sat in my ‘hotel room’ reading (lies, I was watching yet another addictive episode of 24) for only about15 minutes. This pungent smell was creeping into my nostrils more severely than before and I couldn’t handle it much longer.  Finally, I cracked. I headed outside and sniffed around my tent area, then branded our spot ‘The shit pit’.

 At the beginning we just thought the drastic smell was the result of that big pile of elephant waste by that tree over there, and didn’t really take any notice of the almost human-like droppings scattered all around the site.  

We soon found out we were the uninvited guests at the house of one of our long-distant cousins.  AKA, the baboon.

 Our first sighting of a cheeky looking babs scoping out our camp setup (fair enough, I would too and so would you) was amusing. Fiver and I were so impressed with our stealth tactics; hiding up in the roof tent, spying on the fowl little creature whilst cracking up at cunning and witty Facebook status ideas we could submit if we had data roaming. “Fiver is: stalking an unsuspecting baboon from the roof tent, Jack Bauer understudy here I come”.

“Merryl is: in the roof tent, rocks and sticks at the ready for any overconfident baboons.”

 

Things escalated rather quickly from there.

Dinner time was nearing, we were getting organisied for another great camp feast. I had a pile of heavy sticks and rocks within my reach, just in case, but had no idea we would need them so desperately. At first, two little ‘babs’ came at our site from different directions, so we threw some ammo at them, only to threaten them and keep them at bay. The intimidating stalkers barely flinched! They would follow the poorly aimed rock , super wide-eyed, then stare at it flat as it landed right in front of them, totally not phased. Then, just to really get on our nerves, they carried on sitting, watching and waiting.  Items have been thrown at these guys before that for sure, they really only moved if they were hit, and for anyone who knows my Waterpolo form, or cricket ball throwing for that matter, would know just how shit my aim is, and would also be able to imagine how rage-face I got at these stubbornly unresponsive baboons.

 Big dog alpha babs suddenly showed up.  Ooooo he was foul.  He freaked me out, the way he sat there and scratched his nose, just like I would scratch my nose. It was one of the hardest thing my brain has had to compute in a long time.  Gasp! He just sighed a long and heavy sigh, just like someone waiting in line at subway…He is NOT human! Shock Horror! He blinked and squinted his eyes at the blinding sun, just like you and I do at the beach…He is NOT human! My word! Now he’s sitting there in the dirt, just like a kid sits on the mat at school; legs stretched out front, back hunched over, fidgety fingers picking at the fraying carpet instead of paying attention – He is NOT human!

 

Then, things got a little outta hand.

I threw a thick stick at alpha-babs (missed of course), but this time it was a little closer than normal. In other words, I pissed him off.  Fiver and I were standing near the back of car when he lurched straight for us.  Worst mistake I ever made: flinching, slash yelping and bolting for safety. Fight or flight syndrome right? Rule number one, in fact, the only rule to remember when experiencing an encounter with a sticky fingered, ill-tempered, adamant baboon – do not show any sign of weakness. 

In other words, do not run, because he’ll run after you.

My cowardly actions showed alpha-babs who the weakest link was of us 3 – me. After that, Five and Stuart were hording him off with whatever weapons they could reach under the circumstances. Five was clutching at a camping chair attempting the ‘shoo’ method . Stuart sourced a glowing branch from the campfire, waving it around all Indiana Jones like.  Five and Stu put up quite the fight, and in the end it was the power of the torch that won us the match. Note to self, baboons do not like 1million candle power torchlight blasted into their retinas.  

What was my contribution to aiding Five and Stuart in the battle, you say? Well, lets just say that even though I may have been the one that started it all, I was forced to take cover in the car just in case alpha-babs came after me.. uh again.

I was in the front seat of the landy, sipping my ‘Savana’ cider anxiously (skulling nervously), watching the saga through the safety of the rearview mirrors.

The next day we met up with some other campers from third bridge during a morning game drive break, and got talking about the baboon issues. The people told Fiver and Stuart how they heard of two courageous people who were forced to fight off aggressive and vicious baboons with a camping chair. Five and Stuart will go down as heroes in Moremi wildlife reserve history… I will be the cub in the car drinking cider.

Here is an image of absolutely nothing to do with the Baboon attack, but is the sunrise of the next day.  This is what people do to blatantly show that they didn't get any footage of the real encounter, and then they put such a caption as this: 

A long awaited sunrise after that fateful night when the three brave campers were attacked by viciously rabid baboons just the previous dusk..

oooo