Hyena Hijinks

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My recently-proposed-to fiancee Aleks and I decided that we would take our first big trip together, and we chose one of my dream destinations - Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe. Although the Falls were amazing we decided that with a full week at our disposal, that an overnight safari to Chobe National Park in Botswana would be equally amazing. A daytime boat ride introduced us to the park, where we saw hippos, elephants and all kinds of birds. Later in the day we toured around on land and saw lots of monkeys, giraffes and a chance encounter with a lion.
But the best encounter was yet to come. When we had set off there was scant information provided to us about this tour, but we had assumed that we would be staying in some sort of building that night. Not so, it turned out. Once we got to our table for supper we saw the tents and knew this wasn’t just our makeshift restaurant, it was our makeshift hotel.
Aleks was a little hesitant to stay out there, but she felt relatively safe with me. But then the sun went down the tour guide started to tell us some stories about people that had met an unfortunate fate on savannah. As it turned out the animal he said was most responsible was not the lion, or leopard, or even being trampled by an elephant, but rather the night-time hyena. Now Aleks was a little bit scared and felt as though she would stay safely tucked away in the canvas confines of our tent. Yet as the result of some wine consumption at the campfire she had to go to the latrine numerous times in the middle of the night and of course she would wake me up to make sure it was safe outside and to wait with her.
The first, second and third times were no problem. Each time I poked my head gullibly out of the tent and safely proclaimed the coast was clear. But on the fourth time I heard but did not see something right outside the tent. I spooked it, but to be fair it also spooked me. I jumped back into the tent and my rational mind tried to relate this sound to something that I know, in Canadian terms. Bear? Too small. Wolf? It couldn’t be bigger than a wolf could it?. Squirrel? Hmm, yes probably about squirrel size. So with my limited knowledge of the Ottawa Valley’s natural residents I figured this thing was some African version of a squirrel.
We went out and everything was fine and we came back into the tent. I dozed back to sleep but before I knew I woke up with the familiar feeling of my family dog being nearby. Except of course my dog was over 4000 kilometeres away. Aleks had been sleeping lightly, bothered by the sound a nearby elephant chewing on some leaves and took notice immediately that I was awake. I reassured Aleks once again that there was nothing there, knowing almost certainly that there was, but I was sure whatever it was that it was not interested in us and my reassuring thought about a squirrel sized animal goaded me back to sleep.
In the morning the guide asked us if we had seen the hyena in the campsite the night before. At that point it all came together for me, all these night-time occurrences pointed to one animal whose identity, though never seen, was now indisputable - a hyena. My mind put together all the clues, scavengers would be quieter than smaller animals, hyenas sound like dogs and so on. Oops!

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