The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
– Roald Dahl
That could be a good observation or analogy of a safari. While out on a game drive, most people, binoculars at the ready, enthusiastically scan the broader landscape in the hopes of spotting animals. Others, usually the seasoned safari-goers, focus on watching the trees and looking out for what are (obviously) the perfect branches for a leopard to recline on, or they’ve been converted to Twitchers*. Not me. I scan the ground to the immediate left and right of the vehicle and a couple of meters into the bush beyond. I’ve been spoilt, lucky enough to live in a few National Parks over several years. While I still get excited when seeing another elephant, kudu, lion, buffalo, or even the humble impala, I have been on another mission. I have been looking for something special, hidden, something just a little magical to find.
As the years have passed, my ‘glittering eyes’ and belief that I might be lucky enough to experience this particular ‘magic’ has been sorely tested. For one, bumping down a dirt road in the wilds of Gonarezhou, scanning the numerous bushes, drifts of leaves, fallen trees, and anthills in closest proximity, does make your eyeballs feel a little less glittery and more like they are watching a ridiculously high-speed, dusty game of Foosball꙳. Secondly, it has been years (10, but who’s counting?!) of searching and nothing. Nada. Zip. Squat. Not even a track or a hint.
Then a series of events happened.
One day I set out to drive from the Chipinda Pools Tented Camp, a riverine haven in the North of Gonarezhou with resident waterbuck, nyala and chortling pods of hippo, down to the rocky, winding Mwenezi River in the South – an area known for its buffalo herds and growing wild dog population. On the journey down, I reached a stunning open area – you may know the one – with soft lime-green leafed Mountain Acacia’s and beautiful red soil, and I saw something move off to my left! I held my breath, wondering if this was the moment I’d been watching and waiting for. I slowed down and instead, a gorgeous (yes, from that distance he was granted that adjective – if he’d been closer or I’d been on foot, it may have been something else…) 2-meter-long cobra wound his way across the road in front of me. He slipped over a termite mound, and I could hear him continue on his way, rustling through the leaf litter beyond. Some reassurance for those who would have skipped using ‘gorgeous’ and gone straight to the more colourful, it is not common at all to see snakes when in the bush, and generally, on the rare occasion you do, it is a nice, uneventful sighting like this one. I counted it as a win and continued my drive.
Later that day I reached the Mathuli Mananga camp, which is nestled under some big Natal Mahogany and Sausage Trees that grow along the banks of the Mwenezi. With an ice-cold Mazoe in hand, I found myself a comfortable spot in the shade with a great view of the river. The Sausage Trees were in bloom, and their rich, burgundy flowers attracted a soft hum of insects, and a myriad of birds such as Meves’s Starlings, Black-headed Orioles, Green Pigeons and Brown-headed Parrots sang through the canopy above. This, along with the gurgle of the river as it bubbled over some small rapids upstream, was idyllic. Then, I heard soft rustling again close by! I looked tentatively closer (wondering less if it was my magical moment unfolding, and more if I would have to eat my ‘its uncommon…’ spiel) and discovered it was the first hoodlum from a party of Arrow-marked Babblers, searching for lunch in the underbrush. These are animated, noisy little birds who travel in groups. They are a pleasure to watch due to their complete lack of decorum and the fact that every individual keeps up a raucous commentary of where it is and what it is up to with the rest of its flock, who do the same! The result is charming chaos.

After exploring this rugged and beautiful part of the National Park, with wonderfully named places such as Buffalo Bend, Swimuwini, Mabalauta and Rossi Pools, it was time to start making my way back North. I was in convoy with another vehicle this time, and we were breaking up the trip with one night in the middle sand veld area of Gonarezhou. There are some remote, seasonal waterholes here, and the animals that inhabit this region hardly see vehicles and as such are very shy. However, if you get there early enough, set up camp well before twilight sets in and sit quietly, it pays off and the magic unfolds (I use the word ‘magic’ loosely here of course, not the type I was on a mission to find, but pretty special nonetheless).
The following day, after a night being serenaded by the sounds of elephants quenching their thirst at the nearby pan, the trill of a Scops Owl calling from the Mopane woodland, and the rasping cough of a leopard just as we’d turned in for bed, we packed up camp and continued North. Gonarezhou – “The Place of Elephants” – was particularly apt that morning as we had to stop numerous times to do some road clearing. This involved moving small branches or saplings which had been dragged or broken and left across our path by these great pachyderms feeding the night before. There were many, and eventually the vehicle in front decided to simply drive over a small leafy branch which looked innocent enough, but that got caught under their vehicle. While it didn’t do any damage, it was trapped and dragging so they stopped to remove it. I was about 20 meters behind and when I saw that evicting the stubborn branch was taking some doing, I decided to cut my engine. I sat enjoying the silence but then, as if on cue, came rustling… With interest, I looked into the bush to my right (dutifully following Mr Dahl’s instructions of leaving no ‘unlikely places’ unobserved) fully expecting to see another inquisitive Babbler overturning a piece of bark in hot pursuit of an ill-fated bug of sorts.
Then, SCALES! And NOT belonging to anyone that slithered!
“…the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places…”
Shuffling unperturbedly through little bushes, drifts of leaves, round fallen trees and anthills, just as I’d always hoped and imagined, was a Pangolin. I was out like a rocket and trying to shout in a whisper to the people in the other vehicle to come quick! I was so giddy with excitement that I am quite sure I didn’t even communicate what exactly it was that they needed to come and see, so kudos to them that they did in fact follow a ridiculously hyped, incoherently but enthusiastically murmuring woman into the bush. It was worth it. We spent as long as we could without imposing with this exquisite creature, sitting in humble silence close by and watching her uncurl from a half-hearted ball, blinking soft, captivatingly intelligent eyes, and blowing some endearing little bubbles at us (Pangolin have very sticky saliva, and a lot of it, on their incredibly long tongues which helps them collect their food of termites and ants). After indulging us for some time she ambled nonchalantly further into the bush, while I put my sunglasses back on ‘because of the glare’.
So, cliché as it may be, the moral of the story is keep believing in magic. Even after 10 years, chances are if you keep looking, you could find your Pangolin… Or it may be just another boisterous little Babbler searching for a grub. But the thing is, you never know.
Story by Shayne Templer
Photographs Doug Macdonald and Shayne Templer