ESCAPES
Walk on
the Wild Side
ANIMAL INSTINCTS
Kudus and baboons run
wild in South Luangwa
National Park.
Akhil Sharma, author of the award-winning novel An Obedient Father,
explores Zambia’s wildlife-rich Luangwa Valley on foot, an adventure of
which Hemingway would approve
The ranger with the gun went first. Tall and lanky,
he walked across the yellow plains, holding the
rifle against his chest, loosely with both arms,
like someone embracing a bouquet. This was in
Zambia, in South Luangwa National Park, a place
so dense with wildlife that locals call it “the crowded place.”
Behind the man with the gun walked my wife and I. Behind the
two of us was our “catcher.” The catcher was supposed to stop
us if a lion or other wild animal charged and either my wife or I
panicked and tried to run, creating a perfect target.
The man with the gun stopped. About 150 yards away from us
was a herd of about 30 pukus, Zambian antelopes with orange
coats. There was only one male, and this male, nibbling grass
and watching his females, had high, ridged horns as sharp as
scimitars. The females were delicate, loose-limbed creatures. As
we watched, one of the females, grazing at the edge of the herd,
crossed some invisible boundary. The horned male set off from
the herd’s opposite edge in a blur.
The female panicked and began running in our direction. First,
I was amazed at seeing this graceful creature racing toward
me. Then I thought, What a nice treat to see something so wild.
Then I thought, There is a large creature racing toward me…and
an even larger creature with horns racing after the first one. All
these thoughts occurred in the slow-motion way of a car crash.
The female raced past us.
And then whipped around us.
The male raced past us.
And then whipped around us.
The female ran back toward the herd. When she reached
it, the herd, which had bunched up, shot apart like pool balls
struck at the start of a game.
We crouched together, and the antelopes zigzagged across
the plains, eventually regrouping. This kind of intimate, wild
experience is what I had hoped for when I signed up to go on a
walking safari with Abercrombie & Kent. I had wanted to capture
some of the spirit of the first explorers of Africa, explorers who
