Strange Tales of World Travel, Volume 2

Authors’ Note

This book is a memoir. It reflects our current recollections of our experiences over time and the stories we have heard. Some names and details have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been recreated.

We would like to thank the many people we have met on our travels for being generous enough to share their stories with us. We recognize that their memories of the events described in this book may be different from those of others who experienced them. The tales were represented to us as being factual. Whether entirely true or not, each story conveys meaning about a place, how someone has experienced it, and how it was remembered.

Table of Contents

1. Bathroom Break, Tanzania
2. Pura Vida, Costa Rica
3. Where’s Suriname, Suriname
4. Coup d’Chef, Libya
5. Cultural Leftovers, Ethiopia
6. Dirty Needles, Angola
7. Unwanted Visitors, Kazakhstan
8. First They Took Our Guns, Cambodia
9. Musth, Kenya
10. Watch Where You Step, South Africa
11. The Next Victim? Florida
12. Don’t Become a Travel Statistic, Bora Bora
13. Inexplicable Horror, Rwanda
14. Echidna Love, Australia
15. Zebra Fight, South Africa
16. Sinking Boats, Galapagos Islands
17. Unintended Consequences, Tanzania
18. Were Trolls Real, Norway
19. The Roque Santiero, Angola
20. Claustrophobia, Turkey
21. The Marriage Proposal, Guinea Bissau
22. Wine Done Wrong, Italy
23. Baboon Attack, Tanzania
24. The Bathroom Apartment, India
25. Tigerfish Attack, South Africa
26. The Guinea Worm, Ghana
27. Crucifixion Beach, Togo
28. Jack’s Camp, Kalahari Desert
29. Follow the Rules, Tanzania
30. The Towers of Pain, Chile
31. The Elephant’s Closest Relative, Kenya
32. War of the Wolves, Wyoming
33. Ambush, Costa Rica
34. The Giraffe Kisser, Kenya
35. Guess Who’s Coming to Breakfast, Brazil
36. Flying Toilets, Kenya
37. Whale Slaughter, Azores Islands
38. The Painted Wolves, Botswana
39. The Hurricane, Bermuda
40. Score One for the Salmon, Alaska
41. The Rescue, Tanzania
42. Lilac-Breasted Roller, South Africa
43. Dragon Well Tea, China
44. Reciprocity, Iceland
45. Adoption Gone Wrong, Zimbabwe
46. The Boy Butler, Ethiopia
47. The Young Man and the Sea, Pacific Ocean
48. Paternity Test, Tanzania
49. One Man’s Journey, East Africa
50.  Swim Contest, Uganda

Chapter 1

BATHROOM BREAK

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

The Serengeti Plain is what travelers think of when they imagine Africa—endless vistas across grasslands speckled with acacia trees and traversed by millions of wildebeest.  All this food means there are plenty of predators, too.  The Serengeti is home to 3,000 lions, 1,000 leopards, and 8,000 hyenas.

Many of us know the hyena from its lowly depiction in The Lion King.  The reality is that hyenas are formidable predators, reaching speeds of 35 miles per hour, wielding a bite of more than 1,000 pounds per square inch, and killing more than two-thirds of what they eat.  They get big, weighing almost 200 pounds on a frame that is three-feet tall at their shoulders.

Hyenas have often been the villain of stories told in response to our favorite question, “What’s the strangest thing you have seen here?”  A pilot described how he left his plane on the runway only to return and find a pride of hyenas gnawing on the plane’s tires.  By the time the beasts were chased off, most of the tires had been torn apart.

A safari guide told of how a group of trainees was sleeping in the bush with their boots beside their heads. Given the dangers of slumbering outdoors, they took turns staying up.  Unfortunately, one of the watchmen fell asleep before awakening his replacement. At daybreak, all of their boots were gone.  They followed hyena tracks, finding only a trail of shoe debris.  No intact boots were recovered.

Hyenas are even known to prey upon humans.  One guide in Botswana described how a hyena attacked an 8-year-old tourist from behind while she was sitting next to her father enjoying a campfire.  Her father kicked the hyena off of her, but not before it torn her ear off.  She was lucky to have lived. In one district adjacent to Serengeti National Park, government officials reported 24 human fatalities from hyena attacks over a five-year period. In other words, the hyena is to be taken seriously.

Scott’s Story

It was spring 2021, and the Serengeti lodge we were staying at had only been open for a couple of weeks following a nearly one-year closure due to COVID travel restrictions.  We were among the first Americans to return to the Serengeti.  For five days, we drove across the plains—and never saw another safari vehicle.  It was like being transported back in time.  The animals had reclaimed their domain. They came closer to our vehicle than ever before, showing no reaction to our presence.  One evening, we watched a pride of lions kill a zebra walking less just ten yards from us.  Another day, young lions played tug-a-war with a baby baboon, running circles around our land rover.

In these halcyon days of post-COVID freedom, one game sighting led to another.  We didn’t want to go back to the lodge until we had to.  On these long sojourns, bathroom breaks were a necessity.  But the grassy plains are not conducive to privacy.  Modesty can only be preserved in and around piles of boulders called kopjes, which appear as islands on the endless grasslands. Each of these kopjes is covered with trees and shrubs, the perfect hiding place for predators to scout for their next meal—or to take a nap in the shade.  If you’ve ever seen The Lion King, you know what a kopje is.  It’s Pride Rock.

Upon considering a kopje for a bathroom break, our guide first drove in a circle around the rocks, scanning for predators.  Seeing none, the guide then got out and walked around, clapping his hands and peering into the bushes.  On this fateful day, our guide did exactly as trained.  Afterwards, he returned and proclaimed the kopje free of animals.  He directed us to visit the near side of the kopje while he would visit the far side.

I offered Gina first chance, but she declined. I hopped out of the open-sided land rover and found a private spot, out of her direct line of sight. There was a sturdy breeze behind me as I relieved myself in the direction of a large bush.  Just as I was finishing up, though, the bush in front of me began to shake.  This was not the gentle shake of a bird hopping around its branches, but the shifting of something much larger rising from within it.

Before I could fully zip-up, a large head emerged from the bush—only three feet from where I was standing. It was a large hyena. Over many decades of spending time in the wilderness, I had often been told that there is one thing you never, ever do when you come face-to-face with a predator. “DON’T RUN,” they always told me. Doing so triggers the predator’s natural instinct to attack because, what does its prey do?  The prey runs.

Unfortunately, I did not remember these words when my eyes were locked with the peed-upon hyena’s angry stare.  It was fight-or-flight.  So I turned, half-zipped, and ran right out into the open grassland of the Serengeti plain.

“Hyena! Help!” I heard Gina scream as loud as she could, trying to get the guide’s attention.

I kept running, as fast as I could, until I was out of breath and had to stop.  I had gone a considerable distance and was feeling confident that I had outrun the hyena.  But when I turned around, there she was—standing right behind me, staring at me with its head cocked.  Neither of us were moving.  It was a standoff.

Our vehicle was parked off to the right of the hyena.  Gina was still screaming for help.  Her yells attracted the hyena’s attention, and it looked over its shoulder in her direction.  I took this as my opportunity for escape and bolted toward the land rover. My change in direction startled the hyena, and it ran the other way.  When I reached safety, the hyena was standing on a little rise in the distance, gazing in our direction.

Gina took one look at me and started laughing.

That’s how the guide found us when he came back from the other side of the kopje. “What happened?” he asked, looking confused.

“Scott was going to the bathroom behind those bushes, and then I see him running away at full speed. Right on his heels is that hyena,” Gina said, pointing to the hyena watching us from the rise.

Our guide shook his head and got out his pen and notepad and started writing.

“What are you writing?” I asked.

“It’s my list of warnings I give to guests.  I’m adding a new one.  ‘Don’t pee on a hyena!’” he said.

~ ~ ~

Gina and Scott Gaille grew up longing to experience the far corners of the globe. Gina is most passionate about Africa, where she served as a missionary in a remote part of Kenya. Scott’s career as an international lawyer has taken him to more than 100 nations, including many that tourists rarely visit. Wherever they go, Gina and Scott search for extraordinary stories. You never know what you might hear when you ask: “What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen?” When not on their adventures, the Gailles reside in Houston, Texas.