At Least Nobody Got Shot

I have already shared some of my original experiences from my African trip, but I have avoided writing about one of my “firsts” in particular. I haven’t left it off this blog because I don’t want to tell you about it. I think I just didn’t want to write about it yet. I’ve decided that the time is right to tell you now. I’ll start off by giving you the short version of the story.

Basically, I got robbed…at gun point! Yes, it was quite exciting. I should quickly say that it turned out as well as can be expected in the end. I didn’t get hurt, or worse, shot, but the whole thing was pretty dramatic. In the end, I think I’m more mad about it than hurt, but I’d say that’s a really good thing. It could have gone wrong. Very wrong.

We were enjoying our first day at Thula Thula Game Reserve, taking game drives and experiencing the African bush like we never have before. We were out in the middle of nowhere enjoying a nice break from the crazy crime that is implied from the massive fences and guards we saw everywhere in the cities. It was truly relaxing and we were having a ball.

Teenie, Randall, Duane, Van and I took a game drive on mountain bikes with Andre in the late morning. We rode a few miles out into the wild to try to find some more animals. I loved the fact that we could cover more ground than we did on our morning walks. We returned to camp just before lunch, so I wanted to change out of my team kit before we ate. I had worn my kit for comfort and because I knew the hi-tech material would keep me cooler in the hot African sun.

As I walked back to the tent along the path they had mowed through the six foot grass and brush, I was thinking about how much fun I was having on the trip. I was also admiring the rock I had picked up on the MTB ride. I had spied it along the trail among so many stones that had been smoothed by an ancient river in the area. My favorite was about the size of a baseball and it looked like it had been chiseled by someone with hundreds of flat spots all over its surface. I flipped it up in the air a few times as I walked looking for monkeys and birds in the trees.

I turned right and headed up the path that led to our individual tent. I could hear activity before I could even see the tent. I heard zippers, so I thought Sam must be preparing for lunch as well. As I approached the tent, I could see someone crouched down over my suitcase near the front door of the tent. For a short moment I thought, “Why is Sam going through my suitcase zippers?” Then in an instant I realized that it wasn’t Sam inspecting my belongings.

As I approached the front of the tent, I saw that the person inside was wearing green pants and I could see the sole of an army boot as they sat sideways on their right foot. That’s when I started yelling!

“Hey!!” That’s all I could come up with at the time as all these thoughts of betrayal and conspiracy started darting through my mind. How could these people rob us when we’re here to pay them money? “What the hell are you doing?!” I shouted as I jogged towards the tent.

The person inside turned to see me coming, jumped up and started running towards the back door of the tent. The sunny skies made it hard for me to see what was happening inside the tent, but I knew where they were headed. I ran down the side of the tent to cut them off at the back door, yelling the whole time. I can’t remember everything I said, but I do know what I was thinking. I couldn’t believe they were robbing us.

“Hey! This is how it works? You’re robbing me?! No, no, no…why are you robbing me? Get the hell out of here!” I’m sure I threw in some other more colorful language, but you get the idea. The green pants had tipped me off that this might be an employee, and I couldn’t believe that this person was robbing us when we were there to pay their salary. Sam warned me to watch out for something like this, but not here. Not at Thula Thula in the middle of the wilderness.

I continued yelling as I ran down the right side. As I approached the back of the tent where a bamboo wall extended out towards the edge of the concrete pad providing privacy for the outdoor shower, the thief bolted right in front of me. He was close enough for me to reach out and grab him, but I didn’t. As he rounded the bamboo fence, he jumped off the concrete pad with his hands up to defend himself. He was stumbling and off balance as he tried to run. That’s when I saw the uniform…and the gun.

He was wearing a green uniform just like the one worn by the security guard that let us into the game farm the day before. He held up a radio in his right hand and a huge rifle in his left. We came so close to each other that he held up his right hand to defend himself against the attack I never made on him. His eyes were huge as he turned to point the gun in my direction. That’s when my focus went from his eyes straight to the end of the barrel. It was just like you see on TV. Once he pointed the gun at me, I couldn’t stop looking at the huge hole in the end of the rifle. He almost tripped as he tried to run sideways pointing the rifle at me.

Suddenly, I realized there was someone else coming out of the tent behind me. I swung around just in time to see another armed man emerge from the tent and run the other way. I was still yelling as I took a few steps in his direction. He too was pointing a rifle at me with one hand as he struggled to run away. He was wearing a white shirt and holding a backpack over his right shoulder, with the gun in his left hand. I only got about 3-4 steps towards him when he stopped dead in his tracks and shouted, “I shoot you!” as he thrust the rifle towards me! That stopped me cold and I didn’t take another step in his direction. I just stood there yelling and focusing on the hole in the end of the gun as he ran off into the thick bush.

Immediately I thought about Sam. I worried that she might have been inside the tent when those guys were in there, so I ran in the back door calling her name. I kept calling her name as I looked through the tent. I looked under the bed. I even looked inside the small cabinet used to hang up clothes. She was not inside.

I then turned my attention to what was missing. I surveyed our belongings as quickly as I could, all the time wondering what to do next. I felt for my computer and hers. Mine was in my bag, but hers was not. I looked for my passport and money and most of it was still in my backpack. What had they taken? Did they steal Sam’s computer? Then I started thinking, what if those guys came back? What would I do then?

I stood still for a minute thinking, processing what had just happened. That’s when I realized that I had been squeezing that semi-round rock the whole time. I was holding on so tight it was leaving marks in my palm. I looked at my suitcase and realized that they had put some of my hung clothing back inside. My backpack was turned around in a new spot with the zippers in different positions. They had gone through my suitcase and pack, and they were undoubtedly going to take all my stuff out into the bush. I tried to process what was missing, but I didn’t know. I wasn’t thinking that straight and I couldn’t remember what I had where. I knew I needed to go get help. If they did take our stuff, they were still on the premises somewhere. I had been yelling loudly the whole time and nobody was coming, so I had to go get help at the main camp. I took off running back to the cabana area.

The others were slightly alarmed when they saw me jogging up to the main area, still dressed in my cycling apparel. They must have been really surprised when I started yelling for manager Tinus. “Tinus! Where’s Tinus,” I yelled as he stepped away from the bar. I led with the important facts. “Two men with guns just stole stuff out of my tent and they ran into the bush!” That got his attention.

By the look on his face, I could tell that this was not something he was used to dealing with. He relayed the details into his radio as we walked back towards the tent. The others headed for their tents too, so check for missing items. Sam and I went through everything we could when we got back to the tent. They had gone through her bags as well taking things that they valued. I was not missing anything major, but Sam was missing two flash drives, a cell phone and some money. The thieves had taken some jewelry and presents we had purchased and our shampoo. I couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t take my passport and money and computer, etc. Then I realized that I must have disturbed them just in time, as they were preparing to take everything, bags and all.

Tinus was quite distressed by the entire situation and he struggled to keep order as the entire game farm went on lockdown. It crossed my mind that this might be normal for this place, as the poverty stricken villagers robbed the “rich” people coming to a 5-star game reserve. But the actions of the game rangers, trackers and staff led us to believe that this was not at all normal. At one point, after lunch, a police Rover pulled up and uniformed men jumped out with AK47 assault rifles. They were pulling out all the stops to catch these guys and we were really rooting for the good guys.

Francois Anthony (wife of Thula Thula creator Lawrence Anthony) arrived at our camp with her little dog in tow. She wanted to comfort us and get the story straight from the horse’s mouth. I told her what had happened, and she was visibly shaken by the whole thing. She sat there chain-smoking her cigarettes while assuring us that they were doing everything they could to catch the thieves.

In the meantime, the others had inspected their belongings and it was determined that the robbers had stolen some stuff out of Emily’s tent on the opposite end of the tented camp. She was missing jeans, Nike shoes, some shirts and a razor. All of us had lost trust in our security. Emily moved her stuff to a tent closer to the main camp area, and they offered to move Sam and me as well. That seemed silly to me, because I didn’t think those guys would return to the scene of the crime. They were running for their lives and they knew it.

David, the head of Thula Thula security showed up at our camp to talk to me about the incident. He said they were tracking the robbers into the bush with sniffer dogs and lots of people. He explained that when the radio lit up with talk of armed men at the tented camp, he immediately suspected a plot to kill the Thula rhinos.

Even though rhino horns are just dead cells similar to our own fingernails, they are worth millions of dollars to some crazy people in Asia. Poachers are illegally killing the huge beasts all over Africa. With that much money on the line, the criminals are willing to take some substantial risks to get those horns. It’s a huge tragedy and David was not about to let the Thula rhinos be the next victims.

David assumed that the robbery was a diversion to take attention away from the rhinos, so as soon as Tinus broadcast what was happening at the camp, he sent some men to the tents and some to the rhinos. The robbers most certainly could have killed a rhino with the weapons they had, but luckily, they didn’t make an assault on the animals. As it turns out, David had some more reasons for imagining his assassination conspiracy. He explained that just two days before we had arrived at Thula, one of their guards had been beaten up and his uniform, radio and rifle were stolen. Now the whole thing started to fall into place for me.

Tinus stationed an armed guard at our tented camp for the remainder of our stay. The sentry walked us to our tents every night after dinner and patrolled the area after hours to give us a better feeling of safety. To be honest with you, it didn’t make me feel any more secure. I just figured that those guys weren’t going to return to our camp so the whole thing was over for us. I did secretly hope that they would catch them and deliver Thula’s version of bush justice by feeding them to the crocodiles.

I have to admit that this incident was pretty impactful on me personally. Several members of our team continued to check in with me for a couple days after to make sure I was not suffering any psychological issues from the experience. With the exception of a few nightmares, I am fine with what happened. I was a little disturbed by the whole thing, but I have to say I’m really glad that it all turned out well. Sure, we’re missing some belongings that were very important to us, but no one got hurt in the incident. At the end of the day, that’s what really matters most. I’m also left with one hell of a story to tell. Some would argue that I was very unlucky to get robbed, but I’m not looking at it that way. I say I got pretty lucky.