I saw an aardvark near the foot of Aasvogelberg: it was a night of rejoicing, and not just because of those glorious double-As. I was in Samara and the fact that I saw not one but two aardvarks says a great deal about the land I was visiting. Aasvogelberg, by the way, is the mountain of the aasvogel or vulture; that “vogel” is pronounced a bit like “vowel”.

I had only seen an aardvark once before, 30 years ago: and now there were two in quick succession, like London buses, each one looking like a bad drawing of itself. Aardvarks are supremely unlikely creatures, and for the best of reasons. They are unique.

We humans like to think of ourselves as the unique ones, but we have our being within the order of primates, along with 300 other species. The aardvark is the only member of its genus, the only member of its family and the only member of its order. There’s nothing in creation even remotely like an aardvark.

They have evolved as specialist termite hunters. Termites are not part of their diet, they are the beginning and end of it, and they need 50,000 of them a night if they are to survive. That’s a nightly 50,000 lives needed to sustain the aardvark’s one… and I thought the lion I saw the previous day was ferocious.

Aardvarks have no Plan B. It’s all about Plan A – termites. No termites, no aardvarks. And the ease with which we found those aardvarks tells an important truth about Samara: it’s full of termites. That’s more exciting than it sounds: 25 years ago this was a place of intense farming, and termites can’t survive long in such places. But the land is recovering, termites are thriving and as a direct result, so are the funkiest mammals in all creation.

It was getting on for midnight when we got back. I had, Boy-Scout-like, placed a glass of Bain’s, the excellent local whiskey, in my room. Before turning in I raised a glass to termites, to aardvarks and to Samara.

https://www.samara.co.za/