After all the emotional drama of the previous chapters, it's time for a lighter one. So let me tell you about a safari Mikey and I took to Zimbabwe in September 1999.
My mate Pete Becker was doing extremely well by this stage. He'd taken over Entramarc, his dad's engineering business, after his father passed away, and the company was thriving. Unlike me, Pete had kept his passion for hunting alive, and now that he had the means, his trips had become more ambitious.
Every year, the Zimbabwean government auctions off hunting concessions in the Zambezi Valley. You have to be a Zimbabwean resident to bid on them, so Pete had worked out a clever arrangement with his Zimbabwean mates. They'd bid for and secure the concession, he'd pay them in South Africa, and they'd all go on safari together. It was win-win: the Zimbabwean farmers got money out of the country, and Pete got to hunt at rates unavailable to foreigners.
One evening over beers, Pete said, "Why don't you come along? You could bring Mikey—it'll be a huge adventure for him." We couldn't shoot anything since all the licenses were already allocated to Pete and Paul Ferraris, who was going with Pete's sister Karen. That was fine by me. I didn't want to shoot anything anyway, but the fishing in the Zambezi is incredible—tiger fish, bream, the whole prospect was amazing.
"Great, count me in," I said.
Terry was initially hesitant about letting Mikey go on such an ambitious adventure, but eventually agreed on one condition: she wanted to take Angie and Olie down to the Natal South Coast for a holiday of her own. With Mike down there too, this wasn't exactly music to my ears, but she promised it was all over between them and she just wanted to get away with the kids.
So I agreed.
Given the remoteness of our destination, I took preparations seriously. The furthest you can drive on tar is near the Kariba Dam, then it's three hours of dirt road to reach the hunting camp—we'd be completely isolated. I kitted Mikey out with a sun suit and wide-brimmed hat to protect him from the merciless sun, loaded camping equipment into the Discovery (which was going through a rare phase of actually working), and hired a satellite phone in case anything went wrong.
We set off on our big adventure, Mikey buzzing with excitement. Our first stop was an overnight stay at one of Pete's farming friends' place outside Harare. The operation reminded me of my Unusual Night in Zambia—a massive, beautifully run farm. This was 1999, and while Mugabe was in power, he hadn't yet started kicking farmers off their land. That horror was still to come. I remember there was huge hope at the time that the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would oust Mugabe. Not only did that not happen, but the crackdowns by Mugabe when he saw he would lose would devastate the country as all the white farmers were driven off their lands.
The next day we headed to camp, and what a setup it was. They'd shipped in provisions, generators, cold storage—everything needed for two full weeks in the wilderness. We were only staying five days, but Pete and the rest would be there the whole time. It was impressive to say the least. There we were, literally in the middle of nowhere. Even though it was September—early spring—the heat was still blazing, and the Zambezi River was as wild as you can imagine.
The Zimbabwean farmers had brought trailers with boats, so we could get out on the river. My goal was to catch a tiger fish on fly, which I eventually managed, though it wasn't particularly impressive in size.
But certain moments stand out vividly. One evening, walking along the banks with Mikey and Meg Becker, Pete's girlfriend, we suddenly heard this tremendous crashing. We'd gotten caught between a hippo and the water, and this massive beast came thundering through the undergrowth and smashed into the river. Unforgettable and bloody stupid in hindsight.
Another time, Pete and Paul had finally shot their buffalo and brought it back to camp for processing. Pete suggested, "Why don't you take the boat and take Mikey out for a fish?" Great idea, I thought. Off we went onto the river, where I promptly managed to get the bloody thing stuck on a sandbank.
Eventually, I realized the only solution was to get into the water and start pulling sand away from the prop with my hands. "Can you just keep an eye out for crocs?" I asked Mikey. He remembers it to this day—perched on the front of the boat in his luminous green and yellow sun suit, scanning for crocodiles. Luckily, we made it back to camp.
Then there was the booze cruise with the Zimbabwean farmers—a boat trip down the Zambezi with gin and tonics as the light faded. It got darker and darker, and eventually I asked, "We're quite far from camp now. You do know the way back, right?"
"No problem," they assured me. "We know our way."
Turned out they bloody well didn't. They had to rely on GPS to navigate the sandbanks, which promptly went on the fritz. There we were, lost in a river full of crocodiles in complete darkness. It was an experience, but I can't say I was sorry when it was time to leave.
Meg came back with us—just Mikey, Meg, and me driving the Land Rover out of there. I'd made one call on the satellite phone to Terry, just to let her know we were all right. I was deliberately shutting my mind off to what might actually be happening down on the South Coast with her and Mike. There wasn't much I could do about it anyway.
When departure time came, I wasn't sorry to go. It had been a great adventure, and even by camping standards it was luxurious, but I'd had enough.
We got back without the Land Rover breaking down—a minor miracle—and it was definitely an adventure Mikey remembers to this day. That was my number one goal: to give him a beautiful memory during a time when his siblings were too young to feel the undercurrents of marital problems he was exposed to.
And it certainly gave him something to tell his mates at his new school.
At this stage I was back on SSRIs, Effexor I think it was, and seeing a psychiatrist. I was also on Xanor, the SA brand name for Alprazolam. I was very, very far from happy. The pre-Jonathan happy days felt like a lifetime ago. I was doing the best I could to keep the business going and trying desperately to keep my young family together.