Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales Of A Botswana Safari Guide Quotes
"Food runs, and there is nothing here that you can outrun anyway."
"The tricky part is figuring out whether [a bird's alarm call] is saying it because of you (after all, humans are Africa’s most abundant predator) or because of something larger and fiercer."
"If a dog attacked... whatever I did, I mustn’t run."
"It’s like we were living in the Old Testament and had pissed off God."
"Maybe it was because I wasn’t nineteen anymore, or maybe it was because I knew that there were worse things that I could be called."
"The badger does have disproportionately long claws. When attacked, the badger aims these claws at the genitals. Anything bleeds to death very quickly if slashed in this area, and the badger has killed animals as large as buffalo that have done something to upset it."
"I’m James Bond. Now finish your muffin or I’ll leave without you."
"The birds dipped, stabbed and waded—a festival of colour and movement. And as we drove through, they would lift up like balloons released at a carnival, settling again behind us."
"It would be like lighting a fire in the Louvre and watching the Mona Lisa burn."
"If the rhinos are gone, maybe there is a dung beetle that feeds only on their droppings. It dies out, so does a bird that feeds on it, and that bird stops spiders from getting out of hand but now has an imbalanced diet and dies out."
"I love all wildlife, in particular elephants, but count cheetahs second. There is something very appealing about an animal that is by far the fastest in the world but cannot defend itself against anything more threatening than a tortoise."
"I am one of these people, I thought, and it didn’t seem such a bad thing after all."
"For no real reason I believe that it is bad luck to look at your tips until the plane is out of sight."
"Perhaps he just didn’t like me. Or maybe, as he’d indicated with his very first, barely heard 'humph,' he was punishing me for being a fraud."
"Paul knew a lot about snakes. Despite this he wasn’t one of those creepy guys who likes reptiles because he couldn’t make real friends."
"While Paul was casually cool, Eugene was one of those people who irritated you, without you ever being able to say exactly why."
"We were enthusiastic that for once we might have something resembling a social life."
"Paul and I had already had a few beers and were getting merry with remarkable ease."
"Then, 'Errrrrrgh!' It wasn’t the right thing to do, but Paul and I burst out laughing at the sound."
"We looked in a book, and it said that necrosis from their bite was rare, so he would most likely not watch his thumb endure cell death and rot off."
"I was as cranky as the local porcupines when they couldn’t get into our bins."
"Well he can pay for the plane we’ll have to send in the morning."
"We’d still have the party! We had to stay up anyway, so we’d have it around Eugene’s bed! Perfect!"
"Eugene’s hand had taken on some remarkably pretty colouration in the night, and his fingers were much larger than they should have been, but otherwise he was absolutely fine."
"The waterways shifted in the delta, as new channels formed and old ones dried up."
"The boat wasn’t very fast, but we didn’t care."
"We whooped and laughed and drank vodka mixed with Okavango water and fruit-flavoured rehydrating salts from the first aid kit."
"I smiled at the sky. I smiled at the wide grassy plains that stretched treeless forever on either side of me."
"We pushed harder and made it to the deep water."
"We were more subdued around the fire than we had been the previous two nights."
"Every guide has a fear of encountering a honey badger on foot because of the animal’s penchant for genital mutilation."
"We left the boat wallowing in a lagoon, tied to a sturdy tree, and started our walk."
"We returned to camp for brunch, which was devoured voraciously despite earlier claims in the stench that nobody was ever going to eat again."
"It was the most sacred experience of my life."
"I cut the carcass free and cried for the first time since learning of Rantaung’s two deaths."
"I ran back—fast—jumped in, turned everything on, and was sure without checking that Dick’s brake lights didn’t work and the rig wouldn’t see us."
"I was exhausted but knew that Maun, where I had friends and a place to stay, was only three or four hours across the Madgkadigkadi Pans."
"I was convinced everybody was staring at me thinking, 'What an idiot. Let’s shoot him in case he breeds.'"
"I had no idea how long I had been driving or how far I had to go."
"And in the morning some driver would find my desiccated form next to Dick, and my gravestone would read: HERE LIES PETER ALLISON. HE WAS RIDICULOUS."
"Come on, this is something no tourist gets to do."
"Nothing is as successful as these guys at hunting. They're like wolves. They just run and run and run, until their prey is exhausted."
"This is one of the few times someone will offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that really is once in a lifetime."
"And you must be Spielberg," I said to the one with all the camera gear, including an expensive-looking video rig.
"If we didn’t reach a destination it could only mean that we had found something better to look at."
"Stop pissing! Stupid animal! Can’t you see I’m trying to take your photo!"
"How do you work this radio, so I can call for help when they attack you?"
"I’ll drive them four miles into the bush and see if they make it back."
"Oh well done genius, what are you going to do now?"