Around The World In 80 Dinners Part 10

"Sure," Bill replies. "When we've got reliable local guides, we'll try anything edible once."

John relays the information and works out a time and place to meet Vicky and the producer. After hanging up, he says, "You're braver than us. We've always been curious about the street food but have never had the guts-pardon the pun-to eat any."

Patty proposes that we walk to the nearby Kaiyuan Temple, Chaozhou's main attraction for Chinese tourists. As we leave the apartment building, she points out across the alley a small barbershop and a house where a woman sews sequins and beads on wedding gowns and evening wear. John spots an older gentleman outside his home and introduces him to us as a tailor. He's obviously fond of John in more than a neighborly way, and invites us to come into his studio, where he replicates costumes of the Peking Opera and makes elaborate ornamental pieces such as fans and headdresses. He picks items for each of us to model for photos and takes care to pose John in a properly theatrical manner.

On the main street of the area, Patty shows us a curbside stand that specializes in medicinal herb drinks for motor-scooter riders, who pull up, place their order, chug it down, and putter off again. The business reminds John about a time when Mrs. Wu came down with a back ailment, in the period when they lived with the couple. "Her doctor made regular house calls on his motorbike. He always brought a live snake in a basket, killed it on the spot, and made a potion from it. The back problem went away. Just the thought of that drink would cure me."

The twelve-hundred-year-old temple, one of the oldest in Guangdong province, is beautifully serene, despite its location in a bustling area, and artfully adorned with elaborate wood carvings and lovingly sculpted images of the Buddha. More people, mainly adults today, want photos of themselves with Cheryl, not even usually bothering to pose with the striking architecture or landscaping in the shot. Before we leave the grounds, Patty gives each of us coins to pa.s.s along to the beggars outside the gates, many of whom suffer from severe physical deformities.

Vicky joins us at a vegetarian restaurant across from the temple, one of a breed that attempts to make its dishes look like meat and fish preparations. "The idea," Patty says, "is for vegetarians to be able to enjoy their food without any sense of deprivation." To further that illusion, we get tofu in two princ.i.p.al forms, as pretend pieces of calamari, beef, and bacon on a kebab, and as faux fish fillets topped with greens and carrots, both reminding Cheryl of the similar "mock chicken legs" served in her junior-high cafeteria. A crispy potato bowl plays the role of a bird's nest in a more earnest and effective performance. The cooks don't disguise mushrooms, presented in two tasty preparations, or the stir-fried rice-flour noodles with bits of fresh and pickled vegetables, a good foil for the house's red chile paste laced with Szechuan peppercorns and fermented black beans. As is the custom, rice arrives as the final course after other dishes are done.

During lunch, Vicky fills us in on the TV station and program we're appearing on. "In English the station name is Chaozhou Broadcast, or CZB. The program name translates as 'Eating Is Everything.' Almost everyone in the city watches it because it comes on three nights a week right after the evening news on the only station we get. I guess I'm going to be your translator because they don't have any English-speaking staff. I've never done that before on TV so I'm nervous."

"You'll do great," John a.s.sures her.

The producer, Mr. Lin, shows up with cameramen, a quiet young lady who turns out to be the show's hostess, and a team of bicycle rickshaws or pedicabs. Two to a carriage, we head out into traffic with as much safety protection as a troupe of naked Rollerbladers. The first stop, less than a mile away, is a stand known for spring rolls. The family proprietors are offering two versions today, one filled with mushroom and baconlike pork, the other with beans and herbs. They make the wrappers fresh at the stall, add the stuffings, and fry them in large woks. Light and crispy, the spring rolls trump any of the lunch dishes, but we would have cooed for the cameras in any case. "If you can't act better than tofu," Bill says, "you should stay away from TV."

From there, Lin leads us across the street to a cart with giant steam cookers. The vendor-chef is pouring a soupy rice-flour batter into tiny teacups placed in appropriate-size holes on the lid of the steamers. The batter firms in a few minutes; then the cook tops it with chopped, sauteed turnip, making it a nice two-nibble tidbit. As we sample the treat, the crew tells us through Vicky that these are popular after-school snacks for children, and a growing band of waist-high kids nods vigorously in agreement. The vendor also sells a loose-textured link sausage of rice, pork intestines, other pork, and seasonings, which he simmers first and then finishes in a wok. It looks and tastes much like a Louisiana boudin.

By this point, the TV action has attracted quite a crowd, with the children swarming in as close as possible and the adults hanging around the fringes. Traffic on the street has slowed to a crawl-luckily for the drivers of a motor scooter and a car who run into each other while craning their necks to see what is going on.

This seems to be our cue to move ahead. The producer hops into the lead pedicab, and the rest of us climb into others to head down to the section of city wall along the broad Han River. The crew films us admiring the ancient main gate into Chaozhou, and just across from it, the reconstruction site for the Guangji Bridge, originally built-some say by a supernatural being-during the Song dynasty as a floating bridge supported by boats, which made it one of the earliest bridges in the world capable of opening and closing for big river craft. The restored version will have stationary supports at both ends, but twenty-four boats serving as pontoons through the center. Lin signals us, in what becomes a continuous refrain, "Just one more hour."

A half-mile walk along the river promenade takes us to another historic temple, one that did double duty as a lighthouse for night navigation. As the group gathers to leave here, we learn that all the pedicabs have disappeared because their s.h.i.+ft ended during our sightseeing. The producer summons their replacements on his cell phone and soon new bicycle rickshaws appear, racing each other down the street to get first dibs on the stranded customers.

The winning drivers pedal us less furiously to Fu Ron Chuan, a street-side snack shop more than one hundred years old. Vicky tells us it's famous for spring rolls, dumplings, and moon cakes, and stays busy at all hours. After samples of several goodies, Lin invites everyone to join him in an upstairs dining room for tea and a meeting. The producer indicates he has talked with the station's director and given him a good report on the day. Together, he says, they decided that if we could give them one more hour of time, they would like us to come to the studio the next morning to make one American dish and watch their show chef prepare one Chinese dish. Then the hostess, now introduced as Miss Cheung, would do a short, formal interview. Sounds fine to us.

Patty says, "Let's do something relaxing. I know just the thing, a head ma.s.sage."

"What on earth is that?" Bill asks.

"Come see."

Vicky backs off after an afternoon of translating, an exhausting job, but Simin joins us again. Ziggy, apparently used to going all kinds of places, drives us to a slick, contemporary hair salon. The five of us sit down side by side, and different ma.s.seuses deal with each of us simultaneously, shampooing our hair thoroughly while ma.s.saging our scalps, necks, shoulders, and arms for about forty-five minutes. Patty encourages the two of us to get a trim, too, if we want, and since both of us are getting s.h.a.ggy, we do. It's easily the least likely spot where either of us has ever had a haircut.

"There's more in the neighborhood for Cheryl and Simin," Patty says. "The boys can wait with Ziggy." She takes the ladies down the street to a shop called Happy 2000, her favorite girly tchotchke store, loaded with h.e.l.lo Kitty, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie the Pooh toys plus an international array of makeup products, accessories, and hair doodads.

Cheryl tells the guys, "Most of the merchandise is cutesy, sweet, and plain fun. Our granddaughters would love it."

Back at the Olivers' home, the two of us wash our laundry in a machine-a Little Swan-for the first time on the trip, and hang it out to dry on the balcony like everyone does in the neighborhood. John fries Mrs. Wu's turnip cake for a light supper, getting it extra crispy as she instructed. It comes out luscious, crusty on the surface and as creamy inside as a good gratin. While he plates the treat, we discuss a dish for us to demonstrate at the TV station. "We've got to keep the ingredients and kitchen tool requirements simple," Cheryl says. "Most American TV stations are poorly equipped for cooking demos, and who knows what we'll run into here." One or another of us brings up gumbo, crab cakes, Texas chili, succotash, and apple pie, but all seem to present possible problems.

Finally, Patty suggests southwestern salsa. "They can easily get the ingredients, you won't need much more than a knife, and you can show it served both as a dip and as a sauce for a steamed fish."

"Good idea," Cheryl says. "That's perfect."

The next morning, Vicky calls John early. "Last night the TV chef came up with a different plan for the show. Now the producer wants us to gather at the Shengle Hotel, that fancy businessmen's and dignitaries' hotel between Chaozhou and Shantou." None of us knows any more than that before we arrive. On the way, Vicky tells us about the "Eating Is Everything" star, Chef Fang Shu Guang. "He's the most respected authority anywhere on our local cooking, famous in Chaozhou and Hong Kong, too. He has a very popular and expensive restaurant, with a name that translates in English as 'Tasty and Happy.'"

Two Mr. Lins greet us in the hotel lobby, the second the head of the TV station. Vicky proudly admits her name is Lin as well. The male Lins usher us into the employee-only inner recesses of the hotel to a corridor leading to the kitchen. Inside, three dozen cooks look up briefly at our group as we enter, and then return their rapt attention to Chef Fang, presiding over an enormous prep table. The producer introduces all of us to the Emeril of Chaozhou, causing Vicky to get as flushed as a schoolgirl meeting Bobby Flay. Through her, Fang tells us, "Since you have come from halfway around the world to enjoy Chaozhou food, I'm going to prepare you a proper banquet." He then presents the hotel's executive chef, Su Pei Ming, who has brought in his entire staff to help in the effort and learn from the master.

Fang says he has looked at a map of the United States and knows that New Mexico is a large state. "How many people live there?"

"Less than the population of Chaozhou," Bill says.

When Vicky translates this, everyone in the room acts astonished. She pauses herself, thinking about the facts, and asks with wonder, "So you can have a very big house?"

While one of the a.s.sistant cooks brings Fang a live slipper lobster-a clawless but sizable langouste-for his next dish, we take a lingering look around the immaculate kitchen. The only obvious things that would rile an American health inspector are trays and bowls of some prep ingredients sitting on the clean floor and the wood cutting boards, all round cross-cut sections of giant trees, usually about six inches thick. A couple of sous-chefs are intently carving squashes, making methodical, intricate cuts into the surface with the tiniest of knives. They fasten two pieces of their vegetable sculpture together, one on top of the other, to form a two-foot-high golden dragon destined for the center of the banquet table. Another squash, the size of a Halloween pumpkin, is being hollowed out to make a soup tureen. The carver selected it for its delicate shades of green, yellow, and pale orange, which he uses in incising images of birds in flight to highlight their graceful shapes and movements.

Fang holds the scrambling lobster firmly and splits it down the center, removing the meat meticulously by hand so that the sh.e.l.l can be rea.s.sembled. He picks up a handful of ginger and scallions and squeezes them forcefully to drip the juices on the meat, which he then sprinkles with a little rice wine. He allows the lobster to marinate briefly in this mixture before draining and cubing it to make wrapperless dumplings. After topping each neat cube with a sliver of ham and a perfect cilantro leaf arranged to look like a flower on a stem, the chef swathes the pretty packages in lacy-thin pork caul fat, a prized fat from the abdominal cavity that will nearly melt away during the steaming process. "d.a.m.n," Bill whispers to Cheryl, "that makes our salsa seem ridiculous."

Next, Fang squirms his right hand into a large, pastel spiraled sh.e.l.l, wrestling out a foot-long live whelk. He gives it a quick bath in a rice-wine marinade and tucks it back into its former home, placing the sh.e.l.l over the fire of a small charcoal brazier to roast slowly for two hours. At this point, the action and cameras switch across the table to Chef Su, who is cutting into a whole fish flopping around on the counter. It looks like the pomfret we saw in India, but no one knows the name of the fish in English. Su slices the meaty white flesh into plump rectangles, lays the pieces on a platter, and adds between each slivers of dark forest mushrooms, lard, ginger, and Yunnan ham, similar in smoke and salt flavor to an American country ham. He puts the platter into a large steamer to cook, later restoring the fish's head, tail, and top fins to the serving plate at mealtime so that it looks whole again.

Fang draws our attention to cooks working on shark's fin soup. "One of them," he says through Vicky, "got here hours ago, in the middle of the night, to start the broth," which contains at least chicken feet, pork, beef, scallion, and ginger from what we can gather. Neither of us would order the soup in a restaurant-because of the brutal way the fins are harvested from live sharks-but we won't refuse it in this situation because the Chinese regard it as a delicacy to give to honored guests. The cooks eventually remove the long-simmered fin from the broth, pull it into hundreds of gelatinous bits, and serve it in bowls topped with cilantro and black vinegar. It tastes like a meaty version of bean-thread noodles.

Moving into a more instructional mode, Fang shows us and the a.s.sembled chefs how to slice and cross-hatch squid steaks to make them resemble a ginger flower when steamed. He does it a dozen times, but the technique sails over our heads. Explaining that a garlic-vinegar sauce goes with the squid blossoms, he demonstrates how he wants the garlic sliced into tiny bits rather than mashed, and pa.s.ses around tastes of it in vinegar treated both ways to ill.u.s.trate the subtle difference. Grabbing a couple of tail-on shrimp, he talks next about cutting them to achieve the desired presentation effect. If you want them to curl up, he indicates, slice them down the top side; but if you would prefer them to lie flat, as he does today, cut them lengthwise on the bottom side. "I never knew that," shrimp-whiz Cheryl admits.

The cooks eventually flavor the shrimp with ginger and fry them in batter to go around the base of the dragon centerpiece along with two kinds of fried b.a.l.l.s, one of fish and the other combining shrimp and pork. As the banquet time approaches, four hours after our arrival at the hotel, Fang extracts the whelk from its sh.e.l.l, slices it paper-thin with his cleaver, lays it out in a fan pattern, and glazes it with oil. He adds carved vegetables to the plate plus a section of the sh.e.l.l that shows the beautiful spiral pattern.

The producer escorts Patty, John, Vicky, and us upstairs to a private banquet hall and seats us at the larger of two round tables. The Olivers ogle the china, claiming it's some of the finest from the area. Chefs Fang and Su join us, and everyone else takes a chair at the other table, where our leftovers go when we've had our fill of the fifteen or so dishes. The servers bring us Iron Buddha tea first, to sip with stir-fried peanuts with a crackling sugar glaze and tangy, spicy pickles of cabbage and other greens with black olives. Then comes a Chaozhou specialty we didn't see in the kitchen, goose braised in black vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, cinnamon, star anise, and ginger. The skin-on slices taste overly fatty to us, but the vinegar makes a superb foil for the rich meat and the aromatics in the braising sauce have fully permeated the goose.

Our favorites among the dishes are the flowery squid, the simple lobster dumplings, and the fish with the ham and mushrooms. Both the lobster and the fish have absorbed a surprising amount of their gentle seasonings without losing any of their own delicate character. Steamed, vividly green baby bok choy decorate the fish platter, and the intact lobster sh.e.l.l, along with a garnish of orchid sprays, sits beside the dumplings. Cheryl says, "I swear the lobster antennae are still wiggling." A halo of deep-fried morning glory leaves surround the pristine white squid, now topped with fried garlic as well as the garlic vinegar, making it a garlic lover's dream.

The whelk is also tasty, but both of us have trouble holding the large, slick slices with our chopsticks and decide that restraint is the better part of valor in this case to avoid making a mess. An oyster omelet, cleverly arranged to display the yin and yang signs, arrives near the end, moist and creamy with just a touch of crispness on the edges. It's good enough for a full meal, but we can't manage more than a few bites each. Bill sums up our feelings when he tells Fang, "This is one of the most incredible experiences of my whole life."

It's our turn to perform, however, and the salsa idea, so brilliant last night, now looks like a recipe for cultural disaster. To offer it as any kind of counterpart to the Chinese feast seems totally insulting, so we start trying to weasel our way out of it, saying there isn't enough time to do both the demo and a formal interview, the more critical element to them. After all, what was planned as a short morning appearance has already taken us into the middle of the afternoon, leaving us scant hours with our friends before our departure early the next day. The producer pleads, "One more hour," even though he knows the taping would take longer. John and Patty come to our rescue, promising that they will come back to the station another day and prepare an entire American Thanksgiving dinner for them. The compromise satisfies everyone, and the TV crew starts setting up for the interview.

The producer seats us and Vicky at a round table with Miss Cheung and a gentleman in a suit who does nothing except serve us Iron Buddha tea. Demure to the point of silence up to this point, Cheung suddenly shows a confident, a.s.sertive charm, reminding Cheryl of Katie Couric. While her sidekick constantly refreshes our tea, and Vicky scrambles successfully to handle the back-and-forth translation of everything, the interviewer probes our responses to Chaozhou and its food more deeply than we expected. She questions us as if we're representatives of the Western world, seeking acknowledgment from us that Chaozhou deserves global recognition as a special city. The TV station's interest in us clearly revolves around this desire for outside approval of the widespread hometown pride. As enthusiastically as possible, we give them what they want, which is easy to do because we feel genuine grat.i.tude about their generosity and goodwill.

Who knows what the viewers think we said. After our return home from the trip, Patty and John get us a video of the show, which has us talking in English with Chinese subt.i.tles rather than Vicky's oral, on-the-spot translation. The Olivers report that the station promoted the program extensively for two weeks before airing it, often with shots of the four of us together, making them local celebrities for a while. Neighbors and strangers on the streets greeted them regularly with the Chinese phrase for "Eating Is Everything."

Whether Chaozhou itself is truly exceptional-and a good case can be made for that-certainly our experience of the city is. The whole visit, however brief, fascinates us completely with different and unexpected pleasures, from the wonderful people we meet to the offbeat things we do. The banquet alone ranks as the most extraordinary treat of our whole three-month trip because of the combination of watching the preparation, relis.h.i.+ng the food, and sharing it all with friends. It's such fortuitous good fortune that makes travel one of the most marvelous and meaningful joys of life.

THE NITTY-GRITTY.

[image] THE S SALISBURY YMCA YMCA www.ymcahk.org.hk 41 Salisbury Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong 852-2268-7888 fax 852-2739-9315

[image] CITY C CHIU C CHOW 98 Granville Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong 852-2723-6226.

lunch and dinner

[image] VICTORIA S SEAFOOD Fifth Floor, Citic Tower 1 Tim Mei Avenue, Central, Hong Kong 852-2877-2211.

lunch (dim sum) and dinner

[image] HUTONG www.aqua.com.hk Twenty-eighth Floor One Peking Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong 852-3428-8342.

lunch and dinner

[image] CHAOZHOU B BROADCAST www.czbtv.com Chaozhou

[image] SHENGLE H HOTEL www.shenglehotel.com North Hengli Road, Chao'an 86-768-6669338 fax 86-768-6617567

Wok-Charred Long Beans with Black Olives SERVES 6 6.

1 pounds fresh long beans or other green beans, tipped and tailed, and cut into 2-inch lengths3 tablespoons vegetable oil4 ounces ground pork1 tablespoons minced garlic1 tablespoons minced fresh ginger1 fresh, small, hot red chile, seeded and minced, or 1 teaspoon dried hot red chile flakes cup plus 2 tablespoons salted chicken stock2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar or balsamic vinegar1 tablespoon soy sauce cup halved, pitted dry-cured black olives Blanch the beans: Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil, immerse the green beans, and boil them for 1 to 1 minutes. Pour off the water and then plunge the beans into a bowl of ice water to set the bright green color. Drain when cool.

Heat a wok or large heavy skillet over high heat. When hot enough to evaporate a bead of water, swirl the oil around in the wok. Add the pork and fry it, breaking it into tiny bits. When all the pork has lost its raw color, stir in the garlic, ginger, and chile, and keep stirring for 1 minute. Add the green beans and stir-fry for several minutes until just tender. Pour in the stock, vinegar, and soy sauce, and toss the beans until the liquid is mostly evaporated. If the beans are not yet fully tender, add a little water or additional stock, cover them, and reduce the heat to medium. Uncover again after several minutes, and if liquid is left, return the heat to high and toss the beans until they are nearly dry. Mix in the olives and heat through very briefly. Turn out onto a platter and serve hot or at room temperature.

SOUTH AFRICA.

EIGHT OF US, ALL THE GUESTS AT THE T TREE T TOPS Lodge, pile into the safari-modified Land Rover, open on the top with rising levels of backseats to a.s.sure everyone a good view of the terrain and wildlife. The young ranger Juan MacDonald, in his early twenties, takes the wheel and Bill sits next to him in the front. Juan barely gets beyond the lodge grounds when his radio crackles with news about the lion family. The male, female, and two nine-month-old cubs are nearby, resting in a shaded thicket. Lodge, pile into the safari-modified Land Rover, open on the top with rising levels of backseats to a.s.sure everyone a good view of the terrain and wildlife. The young ranger Juan MacDonald, in his early twenties, takes the wheel and Bill sits next to him in the front. Juan barely gets beyond the lodge grounds when his radio crackles with news about the lion family. The male, female, and two nine-month-old cubs are nearby, resting in a shaded thicket.

Juan soon leaves the dirt tracks that serve as roads at the Lalibela Game Reserve, and drives carefully through the brush upwind of the lions to avoid startling them. On the way, he tells us, "Remember to keep silent and don't stand up or move around much. The wildlife views the Rover as a single, nonthreatening animal, but hearing voices or seeing movement can make them curious in an undesirable way. The worst thing is for anyone to get out of the Rover, because that signals it isn't one individual animal. In this case, the lioness still feels especially protective of her young cubs and will for several months longer. We've got to be wary of her."

Bill says, "The male didn't seem nervous or threatening yesterday. He was just lying lazily on that hilltop gazing into the distance and yawning occasionally."

Juan wrestles with the steering wheel to avoid a bush before responding. "The lioness is much more dangerous. She's the hunter of the family, even though she lets the male eat her kill before taking a turn herself. Lalibela released a new male lion just this week, and no one knows yet where he's hanging out. At some point before long he will probably try to kill the cubs, because that puts the mother in heat again, and then the males will fight for dominance and the right to mate with the lioness."

A vivid image of that ritual jolts Cheryl, who read a magazine article a couple of days earlier describing the mating routine. The author reported that the s.e.xual carousing lasts about five days at intervals as frequent as every fifteen minutes. When she showed the story to Bill, he said, "That would give you and me both a headache pretty quickly."

Juan pulls into the thicket, stopping about twenty yards from the family. The male reclines peacefully by himself under a tree and the mother sits between her cubs a few feet from each, all of them facing away from us but certainly aware of our presence. After we watch them for five minutes or so, Juan backs out and tells us, "I'm going to move to the other side to get better views. We'll be looking directly at the lioness, who will always give us clues if she's getting irritated. Watch to see if she lays back her ears, grunts softly, or flicks her tail, ways she warns off bothersome animals before attacking. Usually lions aren't too interested in people unless they appear simple, helpless prey, like someone walking through the veldt alone."

Juan parks in a gra.s.sy area a little closer to the mother and cubs than we were before. She stares at us intently but stays still for a couple of minutes before suddenly whipping her tail into the air. Bill, ready to jump out of his skin, nudges Juan, who whispers to him, "One more flick and we're out of here." Right on cue, she does it again, and the ranger backs the Rover away slowly.

"Yikes," says Annette, the lady in an Irish couple. "That was edgy."

Anna, a jocular young Swedish woman-who, like all Swedes, speaks English well, along with some fifteen other languages-agrees quickly with a little laugh. "I'm going to have to wash my underwear tonight."

For the next half hour, Juan drives around in search of an African buffalo, sighted nearby recently. "They are mighty creatures," he says. "They even scare and sometimes kill lions. It takes at least two lions to down a mature buffalo." Bill spots the broad, arching horns of a buffalo deep in the brush, too distant to see clearly. In trying to find a better perspective, Juan encounters a group of giraffes grazing on treetops. Juan points to one of them. "Look at the scratches on his hindquarters. A lion tried to jump him from behind, but the giraffe kicked him away. Antelopes, zebras, and other animals like to hang around giraffes because their height gives them an advantage in spotting approaching predators early."

Ranger Darrell, a good friend of Juan's, calls on the radio at this point to relay that the lion family has moved into open gra.s.sland. Juan takes off in that direction slowly. "We want to give him time to clear out of the area before we go in. Two Rovers at once might make the lions nervous. Darrell and I grew up together as local farmboys, learning with each other how to hunt and how to track animals by their spoor and the freshness of their dung. We know every inch of this land." The latter seems a slight exaggeration when we cross paths with Darrell as he's leaving the lions' roost and we're heading in. Darrell plops his Rover into a big pothole, causing Juan to snicker and say, "I'll give you some driving lessons later today."

So begins the longest fifteen minutes of our lives. Juan pulls up about the same distance as before from the lioness and cubs, who are spread farther apart from one another this time. The mother glares at us, stands up slowly, and takes a few steps toward us, settling down again when she's clearly closer to us than we are to either of her cubs. The unexpected advance rattles everyone except maybe Juan. No one utters a sound, but at least sixteen eyes grow to the size of saucers.

After giving her a minute to relax again, Juan puts the Rover in reverse and starts making an arc through the tall gra.s.s around the lioness and cubs toward the more tranquil king of the jungle, slouching around in the rear of the pride as if he's waiting for his wife to bring home dinner and a six-pack. She watches us keenly every foot of the way, never even blinking, it seems. When Juan is around to her right side, ninety degrees from where we were and only several yards more distant, he hits a deep hole hidden in the gra.s.s that brings us to an abrupt halt. Normally when something like this happens-we get marooned in mud another day-the pa.s.sengers hop out and help push if necessary. Not a good idea just now.

Juan kicks the Rover into its most powerful four-wheel-drive gear and rocks the vehicle back and forth aggressively, but we're dead stuck. Again, everyone remains silent, with at least two of us thinking about Juan's earlier offhand comment about "helpless prey." The ranger loads the rifle that's always secured to the dashboard and rests it in his arms pointed toward the lioness, who has craned her neck around to maintain the fixed stare. He then quietly calls Darrell on the radio to ask him to come tow us out of the jam, puts the rifle in firing position, and takes aim at the huntress, who, he tells us later, would reach us if she wanted to in about two seconds, time for one quick shot. The five-minute wait for the arrival of the other Rover seems longer than the process it took to produce the two cubs.

Darrell positions his vehicle, full of other alarmed guests, directly in front of ours, supposedly conveying an image of a single, extra-large benign creature. All four lions watch us now, wondering no doubt, What the h.e.l.l? Darrell loads his rifle and directs it at the lioness, after which Juan climbs out of the doorless driver's seat-leaving Bill openly exposed to a bounding leap-and connects a tow rope between the Rovers. He gets behind the wheel again, relieves Darrell from the sharpshooter role, and his buddy floors the accelerator, bouncing us out of our black hole. The lions, never moving, keep looking as the tandem Rovers return to the road and disappear out of sight.

When we're safely away, Juan and Darrell stop to disconnect the tow line. "About those driving lessons," Darrell quips, "I think I better teach the cla.s.s."

In the first words any of our group has spoken in some time, Anna the Swede says, "Now I'm just going to have to throw these panties away. And they used to be so s.e.xy."

The rest of our three-day safari is less traumatic on everyone's nerves and underwear. It starts for us with an early lunch in the Cape Town airport before our noon flight to Port Elizabeth. The terminal's featured eatery is Spur Steak Ranches, a member of a local chain that boasts about being "the official restaurant of the South African family." A caricature of an American Indian chief serves as the logo, cowhide cus.h.i.+ons line the booths, and a neon saguaro cactus flashes green in a corner. The menu offers burgers, steaks, and Buffalo wings as well as our choices, fish and chips and calamari and chips. Sitting on the table, handy for splas.h.i.+ng on anything, are bottled sauces, including two barbecue versions (original and spicy) and another labeled "Salad and French Fry Dressing." The serviceable food sustains us until dinner, and Bill actually enjoys his lime milk shake.

At the Port Elizabeth airport, a driver meets us in the baggage area to take us to Lalibela, about one hour northeast. As he maneuvers through the oceanfront city toward the highway, he points out different residential neighborhoods, some affluent, others "shack towns," as he calls them, where people still have no electricity or running water. He praises Nelson Mandela's initiative in building modern homes for the poor, and says the national government has constructed a million and a half houses in just over a decade since the country's first real democratic election in 1994.

"What other South African languages do you speak besides English?" Bill asks.

"There are eleven official languages, you know. I also speak Afrikaans, the local variation on Dutch, and my native tribal tongue, Xhosa, which is full of wonderful click-clack sounds." He rattles off a few sentences in Xhosa to ill.u.s.trate his point, producing tones that range from something like an English "tsktsk" to a booming pop reminiscent of a cork pulled from a bottle.

"I'm sure you are going to love Lalibela," he says. "But do you mind if I ask why you chose it for your safari? It's just a few years old and not well known."

"I'm the one who pushed the safari idea," Cheryl replies. "Bill agreed to do it if we could find a reserve easily reached from the Cape Town area that has the 'Big Five' game animals and reasonably affordable rates."

"Affordable is relative, of course," Bill says. "Many of these places pride themselves on grand European luxury and charge prices approaching U.S.$2,000 per night for a couple. Lalibela offers what seems to be a less snooty but similar safari experience for one-third to one-half the cost."

"We like the emphasis at Lalibela on African food and atmosphere," Cheryl adds. "Besides, I want to stay in a tree house."

The driver drops us at a check-in office just off the highway, where the staff loads us and our luggage into a Rover for the fifteen-minute ride to Tree Tops, one of four lodges scattered around the 18,500-acre private reserve. Cornelia Stroud, the lodge manager, greets us and introduces us to ranger Juan. "Normally, my husband, Mark, serves as the ranger for guests staying here, but he's away on family business and Juan is subbing for him. As you'll notice, raised boardwalks connect our dining-room-lounge area, the pool, and the four guest quarters, with all the structures elevated on platforms above the ground." Grabbing a handrail, Cornelia goes on, "Locals call this 'sneeze wood' because when you cut it, it gives off little fibers that make you sneeze. It's virtually indestructible."

Like the other accommodations, our s.p.a.cious room is framed and floored in wood but contains a pitched thatched roof, zip open-and-shut canvas sides, a contemporary bathroom, and a covered viewing deck about twenty feet above the lush vegetation. Kilim rugs cover much of the floor, hand-printed African fabrics swathe the king-size bed, and carvings decorate the end tables and a storage chest. Conveniences include air-conditioning, heating (useful at night this spring), a phone, and, for dire emergencies, an air horn that would probably wake people as far away as Port Elizabeth. "At night," Cornelia tells us, "a ranger will walk you to your room, just in case you have any unexpected visitors."

Like most safari reserves, Lalibela includes two game drives a day in the price, along with all meals and drinks. Cornelia gives everyone a wake-up call at 5:30 in the morning; we gather for coffee, tea, m.u.f.fins, fruit, yogurt, and cereal around 6:00; and Juan takes us out promptly at 6:30 for about three hours. On our return, the cooks lay out a prodigious brunch buffet, after which we're on our own during the heat of the day, when most guests laze around the pool, read in the central lounge or on their deck, or, in our case, do little maintenance ch.o.r.es like trying to st.i.tch together our pants sufficiently so they will last another month. At British teatime, around 4:00, the lodgemates a.s.semble again for tea, coffee, or wine and substantial snacks such as sausage rolls, lemon meringue pie, and on one occasion an excellent carrot-and-beet cake. The ranger loads us up in the Rover at 4:30 and we're off again until 8:00 or so, with only one sundowner stop for drinks along the way. When Juan delivers us home, another large buffet awaits, ensuring that everyone waddles to bed with their ranger escort as a fully stuffed prize treat for any predators in the area.

On our six game drives, we enjoy good sightings of four of the "Big Five" African animals-lions, buffalos, rhinos, and elephants-but never see any leopards, who Juan describes as "hide-and-seek artists," active mainly late at night. Once, Darrell gets the guests in our Rover excited by calling to report a "leopard in its sh.e.l.l." Juan knows his friend is teasing us, but takes us anyway to see a leopard tortoise, speckled like the namesake cat.

The buffalos are more elusive during our visit than usual, the rangers tell us, but we have one great encounter. As Juan drives us back to dinner one pitch-black night, Bill sits beside him scanning the brush with the ranger's powerful spotlight, looking for reflected glare from animal eyes. Suddenly, two small headlights gleam back at us from a buffalo standing near the road. Magnificently muscular, he looks as big as the Rover, a hulking black beauty with glorious upward-curling horns and flaring nostrils. Set one of these creatures loose in a bullring and the bullfighter would faint on his sword. Irish Annette laughs softly, whispering to us that she expected to see the curly-haired head of an American bison.