So, we discovered pretty early on the first night at Camp Xakanaxa (pronounced Ka-ka-na-ka) that we had free rein of the liquor cabinet. We also discovered there were magic elves that replenished whatever we drank. That the elves were Australian and re-introduced “no worries” back into our vocabulary was neither here nor there.

So we enjoyed ourselves and tried different drinks. Amarula was a particular favourite of mine. Amarula is made from the amarula fruit, a southern Africa tree that elephants love. The fruits look a little like oranges, but the liquor is nothing like that. It’s very reminiscent of Baileys but with a nice, delicately fruity taste.

However, that first night, I had 2, maybe 3 gin and tonics, and several glasses of wine. I hung out with the pilots that night as all of my friends went to their tents earlier. I drank more wine. I did not drink outside of my normal bounds, but as I was led back to my tent, I found myself violently ill, which everyone in the camp (and the hippos as well) heard.

The next morning, I woke up barely remembering how I made it to bed and was greeted by the not so great surprise of my sickness, which I did my best to clean and apologize to Allison for. But I could not figure out what happened. Unless someone slipped me a mickey, I didn’t drink enough to reduce me to the barely walking, barely talking mass of humanity I was that morning. When I made it to the common area, the pilots looked just as horrible as I felt. Everyone asked me if I were okay. I nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed. I had yet to piece together my night. I was not the only one in our group that had imbibed a bit too much. Allison, Catherine, and Ian were fine. Ben and I looked at each other and telepathically agreed that we should have coffee. I grabbed lots of water and fruit for the early morning safari. To my body, it was midnight and I’d just gone to bed at 10am. I wasn’t even sure I would survive the daylight.

This is the foundation for what happened next. Our guide, Water, drives us out and in the mix and maze of the African bush, he stops the 4X4 and says, “Impala, up.”

We look around in silence and we don’t see an impala. And besides, we saw hundreds of impala the evening before on our first drive, when we saw the elusive leopard and the herd of elephant. Why would an impala be important now?

“Where is it? I don’t see the impala.” If we didn’t say this, we are all thinking this, knowing our animal spotting eyes are not trained enough to see very far into the bush should an animal choose to camouflage.

“Impala, up,” Water says again. We look straight ahead and don’t see a damn thing. “Impala, 12 o’clock?” Ben asks. He’s pointing straight ahead. Water shakes his head and repeats again, “Impala, up.” This time, he emphasizes his words by pointing his finger straight towards the sky.

We are now looking for the elusive flying impala. Finally, Ian steps in and tells us that the remains of the impala from the night before are in the tree. You see, leopards like to drag their kills up a tree to save for later, getting them out of reach of other, non tree climbing, predators.

So, here, we see the leopard, the previous day, chawin’ down on some impala bones:

And this is the remains of the impala, up the tree:

As the day went on, I could more clearly remember the things that happened the night before. And the one thing that was not clear was why I’d gotten so sick. Ben and I investigated and came to the conclusion that it was my malaria medicine since he’d gotten sick with his without the alcohol. As we talked about the possibility of that being the culprit, Ian informed us that he’d had malaria seven times and he was fine and advised us to forgo the medicine because it was nearly as dangerous as getting malaria. We continued to take our medicine, just to be on the safe side, but anything more than a couple of drinks led to queasiness and once we got back to the states, the last time I took my malaria medicine coincided with me getting sick after having a few drinks at a party. Damned malaria medicine.

Of course, just because I didn’t get sick again while in Africa didn’t mean I didn’t overindulge – but it was by far the sweetest overindulgence I’d ever experienced.

Thanks for that, Africa.