A 1 hour day trip evolves into a very black night

In this world I sometimes find the conflict between the outer reality and inner imaginings so intense it almost stops my heart in its tracks.

We set out on a "1 hour" trip (Dominik's words) to drop Rangers at the palm forest.  My first off-road drive in the cream Landrover, the loving work of a LR frantic with homemade dashboard full of customised switches and special effects with reinforced steal plates here and there giving it an armadillo factor  - it slightly overheads but that's nothing compared to vehicles of the past. 

As we bump along L on my knee there is an extraordinary sight in this tangled forest, a Landcruiser coming towards us.  (I always register Landcruisers with a green tinge - we once had one and it was the toughest thing on 4 wheels not phased by the most sticky situation.  But the vehicle turned out to be stolen property and we had to give it back to the seller, a large oil company!)


We meet a truck in the middle of nowhere

The Rangers all sit up with wide eyes - fortivo? park? But it is neither - a cattle rancher from Pemba trying to locate the water source for his land with two trackers and the land registry.  They are lost.  D guides them back out of Mareja and in the process much is revealed.  New tracks of a large truck and then new roads, well entries hacked into the forest.  Rangers are sent to investigate and they quickly discover a timber operation. The beautiful blackwood called Zebra wood has been targeted.  They have felled medium sized trees at least 15.  They are prized and as with all big trees anchor the forest and its species composition - holding the soil in place, providing shaded nurseries for other shrubs and a home for may associated birds, insects, small mammals, reptiles.  A tree doesn't quite pull at the heart like a dead elephant but I find the roughly sawn stumps that reveal the beauty of their deep brown core, very moving. The tree was full of vitality and now it is useless and inanimate.



Beautiful zebra wood

This trip becomes very different to its initial purpose, as is often the way with D at the helm.  Heading down slashed paths and investigating on a goose chase.  The forest closes in on me without an end in sight and I begin to feel panic settling on my chest - so reliant on this cream beast.  At one point we are exploring one of these timber tracks and D leans out of the window and lights the dry grass  - part of his controlled fire programme (that on occasions doesn't feel very controlled).  As the fire springs to life and crackles loudly I say "but wont we have to drive back that way"..."What, no, why" he says tetchily "its a circular track.."  I am not sure why he thinks the timber loggers would bother to make a nice circular track for their extraction.  But on this occasion I was right and it was linear.... we had to drive over the fire.  Which he does confidently saying diesel engines don't ignite.  I don't know much about engine combustion but I am sure ignition features somewhere even with a diesel engine.  Nothing blows up and we continue.

We go on and on and suddenly are at the rangers waterhole out of Mareja but still deep in forest.  A ravine and pool of water below, meagre but water.

It has now been 3 hours - L has eaten all the 3 'sharing biscuits' I bought. Anyway another 2 hours later and we arrive back, (L starving and strung out, my legs dead and brain close to desiccation)  The rangers were left in an unplanned location to assess the timber operation.  But word has it that 2 of the rangers have been paid off to keep quiet.  The usual confusing picture.

Strangely the cattle ranching crew appear at Mareja that night.  The rumble of a car always makes me very alert - people only arrive here with great intent.  I offer them a coke as they look hot and its a chance to embrace hospitality and marvel at the old, gas-fired fridge - (an icy cold coke in the bush is a thing of sheer luxury).  D on my instruction gets the number of one of the guys as they live in the town the truck would pass through to access these new timber tracks.

At 9pm D rings the guy to explain he would like him to be a scout and he says in fact the truck has just gone by.  (This is were the inky night and the loss of my black phone collide creating something quite hard to describe - but not pleasant.)

D goes to try to apprehend them with 2 rangers.  In the dead of the night Laurie screams loudly perhaps a dream.  D hasn't returned and like the low chatter of insects outside my mind begins to whir. 'Where is he? What has happened? Will be return? What if he does not? I have NO phone, NO car...' My mouth goes dry.  The black night does something mysterious to me I feel captured by it, as if its made of molasses that makes movement and even breathing much harder.  And there is a sense that it is not my realm anymore it has been claimed by the animals, the stealthy night hunters.  Darkness is their medium not mine.  And I am literally miles from help  3 hours by 4x4 if you can navigate the hidden holes and sunken drainage.

I comfort Laurie and just sit glued to the bed and wait and wait.  Eventually I lie down and fall asleep and then wake with the cockerel's noisy call at 4 am just before dawn.  D has returned and the night it lifting, at last I can breath again.