There were folks who had been stuck for words, or on a
single word; folks stuck in traffic, or whose car batteries had failed in
remote spots. Of course stuck in snow and ice cropped up – we do live in
Saskatchewan. There was even an unfortunate younger sibling who had been taken
to the outhouse (biffy, long drop) and had gone through the hole with
near-disastrous consequences! Another sibling had been the subject of a prank
when someone had coated a chair with contact cement!
My effort at a stuck story took me back four months to our
family trip in Kenya. In December we were in the Maasai Mara and having a
wonderful time doing the tourist thing. Part of the experience inevitably
involved a game drive and so off we headed into the park. The rains had been
heavy and I later learned that there had been none heavier since 1961. Luckily
we had a very experienced driver and guide and so the black cotton soil held no
terrors for us. Black cotton is a thick gumbo, glue-like substance. I have seen
combine harvesters stuck in the stuff.
As we crested over s slight rise we saw, in the stream
crossing below, a Toyota van thoroughly mired. Our crew hopped out and went to
chat with the driver. Next thing we had backed out and made a loop across
another, less sticky spot.
We came back to the mired van and after much
discussion, the employment of a towrope and some engine revving the van popped
out like a champagne cork.
While the crew were working away I had a chat with
the single tourist, a middle-aged Welshman who had been on his dream safari. He
said that this was the tenth time he had been stuck that morning and then I
found out why. The van was a 2-wheel drive version. I did not tell him that no
one in his right mind would take a 2WD off-road anywhere in Kenya, let alone in
the Mara, on black cotton, during the rains.
We parted our ways, wishing the Welshman luck and in no time
our guide had seen a lion’s whisker under a small bush. Of course we went over
to take a look and saw a single female with her young cub half hidden between
her body and the bush.
Naturally our grand daughters thought this was “cute” and we
spent some time and several photo frames recording the scene for posterity.
Suddenly the pair of them looked away from us to something
behind our 4WD. Lo and behold the Welshman and his driver were just about up
our exhaust pipe. After a few minutes we headed away and went on the search for
the next excitement. Ben had told us that a pair of rhinos was known to be in
this region of the park. The lion was just a bonus.
We looked back to see how the van was doing, only to see its
wheels spinning in the muck. We did not turn back to pull or push. Not with
mama lion only five metres from the vehicle.
We soon found the rhino, hanging out no more than a
kilometre or so from our lion pair. Of course the cameras got rolling again.
For me it was a real treat as I had put immobilizing darts into something over
a hundred of them in former times, so it was a pleasure to just enjoy the spectacle. To our relief we found that the Welshman and
his driver appeared just behind us. I did
wonder how many more times they got stuck that day.