Danger: Wild animals
For me, seeing wild animals was my biggest motivation to go and cycle Africa! It's just fantastic being on a safari, on which you’re not separated from the animals by windows like when you’re sitting in a car or through cages like when visiting a zoo.
On a bike, you encounter the animals sometimes breathtaking close! And you better inform yourself before you enter a national park what dangerous animals you can expect and what to do if that animal appears too close in front of your nose!
Well, in general, the danger of being eaten by a lion, a leopard or a wild pig in Africa is even smaller than being struck by a lightning! If I would not have had some dangerous encounters with several man-killing animals, I would even advise you now that wild animals are not a danger at all! In reality, Africa is not any more a picture-book, with zebras and elefants under every tree, so you will only encounter the animals in National Parks – the human specie has already occupied all the territories around the parks and there’s really not too many places with the opportunity to see some wild creatures outside the parks!
My advise concerning wild animals is based on my personal experience and on many talks I had with local people. Unfortunatly, I'm not a wildlife-biologist and so may be some of my advises could be wrong. But it gives you a little idea what to do and what not to do.
Don't forget: The most dangerous animal is still the anopheles-moskito which spreads Malaria through many parts of Africa! But we better talk about the big ones:
The most dangerous animal is – believe it or not! – the hippopotamus! I was almost killed by one male at Fisherman’s camp on Lake Naivasha near Nairobi. Never ever get close to one with a rudder-boat, or your boat could sink faster than you realize what kind of monster is attacking you from under the water! Hippos normally eat grass, but human creatures often end up as slices of meat after hippo-attacks. Hippos kill more people than any other snake or lion or whatever big animal in Africa! They attack you when you approach them in the water or if you're standing in their way when they want to escape back to the water. So stay out of their way!
I saw a lot of elephants in Kariba town (ZW) during dry season (november and december), the only time I met elephants during my bike-ride! It’s an unbelievable experience to see them walking around between the houses! If you do get too close to them, they will attack you, and like this every year about 5 people are being killed! Even I was chased by them many times and always escaped somehow into a house or somewhere.This was probably the greatest fun I had in Africa...
The only two places with the chance of encountering lions on the main-road was between Nairobi and Arusha (the aerea between Amboseli and Massai Mara National Park) and in the Mikumi N.P. (TZ).
About lions you should know:
- In general, during daytime, lions are not chasing, so you should be safe when you're crossing these places in the hot daytime. I met some belgium cyclist who encountered lions under a tree in Mikumi just some feet next to the mainroad. The lions didn’t even watch at them!
- In general, lions are more dangerous outside the parks. In the parks, they have enough food.
- In general, only old, lonely and probably hurt lions, which are not able to hunt by themselves, kill people, the so called "man eaters".
- In general, there’s not one single report that a group of lions has ever attacked people! They’re probably more afraid of people than people are afraid of them! In Europe, people start learning slowly that the wolf is only dangerous in stories! May be one day people will learn the same thing about lions, too!
- Anyway, if you ever encounter a lion in front of you, you two might be very surprised and the lion could get out of control. Watch at him and walk backwards slowly, never turning your back towards him! You should have good nerves for doing this, and always remember that this method works much, much better than running away!
- But the most important point: Nobody knows better than the local people if a certain road or area is lion-safe or not! Always ask many different local people before you enter a lion-area!
Other dangerous animals are the rhinoceros, especially the black rhino! I met Some Rhinos with a baby in Matopos (ZW) about 50 meters away from me, and they just walked away slowly. However, a friend of mine was attacked by a rhino one day later in the same place and only a jump to the side in the last moment safed his life! What he did was correct: If a rhino attacks, jump in the last moment!
If a buffalo attacks, don’t jump! Either you run onto a tree or lie down in a bush! If there’s neither a tree nor a bush, lie down on the ground! Buffalos have very bad eyes! Buffalos are very dangerous, but only the lonely males! One day, during a morning-cycle-trip, I found myseld suddenly in the middle of a buffalo-herd near the Victoria Falls. They blocked the road and were just all over around me! I was scared to death, but all the 50 buffalos run away! If I would have encountered a lonely bull, with 100 % he would have attacked me! Lonely bulls are old males which are frustrated that they have been thrown out of a group where they had dozens of females! So be aware of them!!
Last, but not least: Ostrich! In a private Game Reserve in Zimbabwe I was attacked by a big male, defending his nest which was about a half a kilometer away from me! I escaped in the woods, run for my life. Later I heard that this certain ostrich had killed a guard just two weeks before... by kicking on the chest, many times stronger than any karate-kick...
Snakes. Well, I've only seen five snakes in 7 months! Except a spitting cobra, which I almost knocked down during my cicle-ride in the Lake Bogoria National Reserve, I only saw very small, harmless snakes. Similar to lions, snakes are very much scared when they feel the vibrations of people approaching and dissapear quickly. So you will never know that just some seconds before, where you put your foot now, there was a snake having a sunbath!The only very dangerous snake, which is not dissapearing, is the puffotter! You should really take care when you walk around in dry river beds, in the woods or in high grass. This snake is not even one meter long, but it's very well camouflaged. The teeths are up to 4.5 cm long and the poison is very, very dangerous! Statistics say that hundreds of people are killed all over in Africa each year because of stepping on a puffotter! The only one I saw was under a balcony, just next to a big swimming-pool with hundreds of tourists around, in one of the biggest hotels north of Mombasa!