The braai and the fight for dinner

Today we spent the day on safari in the iMfolozi area, at the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park; it was the first time that we visited this part of the park and we really liked it, both for the landscapes and for the sightings, also here there are fewer visitors and, throughout the day, we met only two cars.

We returned to our tent at the Mpila Campa little earlier than usual, we want to enjoy the last sunset in the savannah with a Spritz prepared with Aperol and the Chrdonnay by Casa Montini, that we brought with us directly from Oltrepò Pavese.

We stand on our wooden terrace and relax and, since it is our last evening in the savannah, at least for this trip, Silvano dresses up for the occasion and wears his kilt, like a modern William Wallace of the Po Valley!

We enjoy this moment of relaxation and the sunlight that is setting, we can see it among the trees; this is one of the best moments of this trip.

When it starts to get dark we prepare the wood for the braai, in the distance we see the light of the fire of our "neighbors" even if, with all the plants, we do not see anything else.

The braai is not on the terrace, here it is all wooden and perhaps it would be too dangerous to put it here, so it has been placed on the ground in front of the terrace; the Mpila Camp is not fenced, it only has an electrified wire about 2 meters high, to prevent the elephants from entering, but all the other animals can enter without problems.

When we checked in yesterday they advised us to never leave the braai unattended, as hyenas often steal the meat; very well, we are ready to defend our rib and our sausages, let's see who has the courage to challenge us!

While we light the fire to make the charcoal, suddenly, from the bushes we see a spotted hyena, passing pretending nothing is happening and at a safe distance; it seems to be patrolling the area and the situation, disappearing into the bushes but we expect it to come back.

Meanwhile, the charcoal is ready and we place the meat on the fire: while Silvano cooks on the braai I look around with the torch, we would not be surprised by the hyenas or other unwelcome guests.

At one point we hear a rustle coming from one of the bushes in front of us, we immediately think of the hyenas and light with the torch but, suddenly, comes a bushpig, a sort of wild pig that lives in wooded areas here in Africa.

It is usually very difficult to spot it during a safari because it is a nocturnal animal and it is very shy and therefore it tends to run away; tonight, however, most likely, the scent of our braai wins over its fear.

The bushpig does not approach, but passes not far from us and seems not to notice us, but we know very well that this is a technique and we expect it to come back; in fact, shortly after it returns, but now there are two of them, though even in this case they pass without looking at us.

Silvano continues to cook while I monitor the surroundings and the bushpigs come back, now there are four, but what are they doing? At each lap they double?

This time they look at us, but they continue straight and enter the bush but soon after they come back and they are eight; this time, instead of passing, they come towards us and, even if they are a little hesitant, they get closer and closer.

We try to clap our hands to frighten them, we beat on the ground with a stick and try to annoy them with light, but it does not work, in practice they have surrounded us, and now?

With their snout they try to get to the braai grill where the meat is, but don’t they get burned? The structure of the braai is very hot.

We can just grab the grill and lift it out from their reach, but they do not leave; while we think about how to finish cooking our meat, I try to touch the ear of one of the bushpigs that is there near me, this frightens it and makes it escape into the bush ... without any intention we found their Achilles' heel: the ears!

So we put the meat on the fire and we are ready to counterattack: if they get too close we touch their ears so they run away; it's too ridiculous, we're bent over laughing, it's a shame we cannot film it!

They continue their attacks combined from several fronts, but now we have the secret weapon to defend ourselves and, even if there are many ears to touch, we can keep up until the meat is cooked; at that point we take our grill and go up to the terrace: bye bye bushpigs our dinner is safe!

While we have dinner, they are persevering and lurking beneath our terrace, where they cannot climb because there is a wooden gate; they look at us and we take some pictures of them.

At one point we hear our neighbors screaming and shortly after we see a hyena run off with a steak in its mouth, we start laughing because it is too comic a scene but I guess our neighbors are not having so much fun.

Seeing the hyena the bushpigs flee and we enjoy our grill.

Later on, and on several occasions, both the bushpigs and the two hyenas and even a large-spotted genet are back; hyenas and bushpigs are closed outside the gate but the large-spotted genet is very skilled to climb, so we could find it at our table in a second, but it does not seem very interested and goes away.

When we have finished dinner, while we are drinking a little bit of Amarula, the bushpigs come back again and so do the hyenas, the latter were a bit of a disappointment, they just missed the times tonight, or simply preferred the steak of our neighbors; the fact is that we have defended our dinner very well and Wallace-Silvano has cooked a perfect braai!

See you next time!