Schlink Attack: Heja Game Lodge: How NOT to do a game drive

Namibia does game drives well. I love them. I love the excitement of animal sightings and the guaranteed fresh air. I love the scenery and just being able to sit back and let someone else be in charge for a while. When my friend invited me to do a hail Mary game drive before she and the kids took off for the summer break, I immediately agreed. My friend chose Heja Game Lodge for this particular adventure because, a) it's less than 30 minutes outside of Windhoek and, b) she once saw rhinos grazing right off the road. The road being a popular stretch of ruddy asphalt for cyclists and runners.

The lodge has a unique personality: a hiply decorated bar and lounge area that backs to a brown, dull pond stuffed with ducks and swans. Dusty, scraggly ostriches and warthogs linger among the abandoned pieces of junk, whereas the vividly colored metal playground is just begging for children to acquire extra tetanus shots. Their five (5!) conference centers, scattered among the lodging accommodations are filled with fancy technical options along with rows of tables and chairs covered in sheets of thigh-sticking plastic. No matter, we weren't there for that.

I should have suspected our adventure would be sub-optimal when the driver refused to say hello or introduce himself. But with 5 joyful youths and 3 adults to herd onto the truck, I dismissed this as impatience to get started. Maybe he'd perk up once we left the parking lot. If we ever left, he was driving so slow. Going 20km/hour (12mph) we crawled past the greyed, crabby ostriches, past the fake animals used for practicing archery, and eventually onto the paved road where he stopped in the middle to point out a dead, bloody iguana that had its eyes pecked out. He continued on... going 20km/hr and as my patience withered, my indignation grew. Sure, we spied about a thousand warthogs and hundreds of blesbok, which is a southern African antelope with a helmeted look much like the leatherheads from the early days of football, but the road conditions deteriorated so much that no photos could be taken. Even if we were driving... 20km/hr.

I loved the mountainous, shrubby surroundings and could even ignore the hundreds of piles of forgotten piping and rotting hay. But when the driver approached the foot of the mountain that we would ascend, I began to get a sick feeling in my stomach. We trusted him to continue because we were in a 4x4 capable of driving in contentiously rocky conditions. And besides, he'd been driving 20km/hr and promised that rhino sightings were just on the other side. Bodies lurched side to side and I tried to imagine a peaceful place where I had an elastic, flexible spine. Every child and adult clung to the metal bars, eyes glued to the steep grade ahead of us. Sadly, he made it up about 200 feet before the back wheels spun out and sunk into the ruts. Ordering us off the truck, we walked to safety wondering what his next move would be.

Apparently it was to try to drive up without us and we could hike up behind him. That plan failed miserably, with dust and rocks flying down the hill as he gunned it and then watched him maneuver the vehicle Austin Powers style back down. Into relative safety, and he told us that we had another way around to the back side. I took this to mean he'd take the long, flat way around. Nope. He careened the 4x4, kids and all, up another side of the mountain where the vehicle continued to slip and tilt dangerously. More than once I cursed loudly which gained me stink eye from all the kids not mine. As for the adults, we looked at each other and laughed hysterically to cover up the fact that we were truly worried about losing a kid or two. I love a good thrill, but I had never been so scared on a game drive, including the time when elephants charged the vehicle a few weeks ago.

The driver made it to the top, and certainly the view was breathtaking. Had he bothered to stop, I would have taken more photos. Surrounded by valleys and mountains that were on the downside of the rainy season, tones of brown, yellow, and green stretched as far as the eye could see, buttressed against the endless blue sky. Down below we could see herds of animals either on the lookout or on the run, and a short-circuited blue wildebeest bucking his way across the flat spots. And no rhinos, which by this time we didn't care about anymore. Exhausted from hanging onto dear life with no breaks, kids (rightfully) started whimpering and the adults announced that enough was enough: we were done. Of course that meant we needed creep back down the mountain. The truck lurched forward dangerously, forcing our butts off the seats, as plumes of dust and rocks tumbled down the mountainside. More cursing followed along with dramatic near misses of thorny branches reaching inside the truck. The canvas rooftop even split in two.

We finally it to the base of the mountain and drove back to the public road where our guide decided to gun it back home. Blinded by whipping hair and watering eyes, we literally jolted to a stop in the parking lot, harried and bewildered. The driver swung down from the truck and left us to our own devices (normally they assist passengers to enter/exit). My friend and I eyed each other and marched directly to management. Ever professional and calm, my girlfriend factually explained the situation. Ever the emotional exploder, I was at least smart enough to keep my mouth shut on this round. Completely dismayed, the manager told us the roads leading into the mountains weren't part of the usual game drive route and that it shouldn't have happened. They didn't charge us for our personal three hours of hell, and for that I am grateful.

Luckily we walked away unscathed, but I didn't realize how mentally and physically trying the drive was until I got home. The weariness seeped into my bones, and the breath I had been holding was so intense I almost cried as we all laid down for a long afternoon nap. One day later, the tension in my shoulders and elbows from is enough to remind me of the highly annoying day, but it also reminds me that my friend and I were in it together and that we'd be laughing about it over gin and tonics sooner than later.