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Sausages that go bump in the night

17 October 2019 by Simon Barnes 7 Comments

Sacred Combe Safari IV

Day 2

Our guests were now all settled in the splendid riverside accommodation at Tafika. Chris and I were in staff quarters, but this time we were sharing a small house, and it was great. The walls of the separate rooms didn’t reach the top – there was a metal roof high above us — so room-to-room conversation after lights-out was not a problem. “Hear that?”

A pause.

“Wood owl!”

It’s a welcome-back sound: welcome back to the noisy African night, welcome back to the Luangwa Valley and its mysteries. These birds have a contact call that sounds a bit like Frankie Howerd looking through a keyhole: oo-oo-ooh! Then the territorial call: mnemonic: now then, whoooo’s a naughty boy? And so to sleep.

I was awoken twice in the night: the first time by a hysterical, not-quite-human screaming. It takes a day or two for your brain to make the necessary adjustments for the bush, but before I was back asleep I knew it was a bushbaby, to be precise, a thick-tailed galago. It gave me a slightly smug feeling about being back home.

I was rather less smug an hour or so later when a bomb hit the place.

It didn’t actually explode, but the sound on that tin roof was apocalyptic. I jack-knifed up in bed wondering if the Four Horsemen were galloping across the savannah with the zebras. It wasn’t until morning that I worked it out: it must have been a sausage. No, really, titter ye not, as Frankie would have said. 

The house stands under a sausage tree, a tree so called because it carries sausage-like fruit. A tree-full looks like an Italian delicatessen, immense cylinders handing down all over the place. This is Kigelia africana, a rich and generous tree that can produce fruit weighing 12 kilos, 26 pounds. Useful tip: never stand under a sausage tree. 

A nocturnal sausage had hit the roof in the manner of a torpedo, with a sound like the clap of doom. Well, morning now and no damage done. Time to look for elephants.

http://www.wildlifeworldwide.com/group-tours/sacred-combe-safari

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Comments

  1. Pat Leighton says

    17 October 2019 at 5:14 pm

    Jealous, moi? While we have mild, misty mornings and the leaves on the trees gently turning to gold, why would I be? The jungle is probably not my comfort zone, but your unfolding story is beautifully told.

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      30 October 2019 at 6:04 pm

      Chacun a son foret!

      Reply
  2. Angela Hewitt says

    17 October 2019 at 6:27 pm

    Perhaps that is where, many, many years ago, they got the idea of the April Fool “Spaghetti grows on trees”
    PS I was only 2 at the time or am I lying, can’t remember

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      30 October 2019 at 6:03 pm

      I believe that was Panorama, I can just remember it!

      Reply
  3. Anthony Bird says

    17 October 2019 at 8:26 pm

    Under penalty of being called a boring old man, I believe that Pat L has it absolutely correct!!

    Reply
  4. Alan P says

    18 October 2019 at 3:53 pm

    A sausage tree… I’ve learned something new today then. I did check to see if it was April 1st though :). Pure Frankie Howerd so a tittered greatly! Must be a great thing to see.

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      30 October 2019 at 6:01 pm

      They are a real tree of life in the bush… just don’t linger beneath them!

      Reply

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