Not just any solar eclipse

The alarm clock’s ring was not to be denied, and since I had (intentionally) placed it on the dresser on the other side of the room, I had no choice but to get out of bed and stop the clamor. It was only 4am, but I was instantly awake. My partner and I were dressed and out the door in minutes, feeling smugly pleased that we had packed the little VW Beetle the night before. By 4:30am we were out of the city and motoring off down the Mombasa Road, leaving sleepy Nairobi behind.

Well, not all of Nairobi was snug in their beds. For that time of the morning, the flood of cars leaving Kenya’s capital was abnormally large. Any roadside observer would be within their rights to assume some catastrophe had given rise to a sudden mass exodus from the metropolis, especially since there was hardly a car to be seen heading on the other side of the road going into Nairobi. Of course, at that time of the morning, the only roadside observer we noted who was awake and present to take in this spectacle stood 18 feet tall by the side of the road, probably bemused by an exceptionally good view of this vehicular mass egress. That giraffe swung his head from right to left and back again, trying to make some sense of all those car lights and rumbling engines disturbing the predawn stillness. While it was not for a giraffe to know, nearly all those drivers shared our quest to find just the right spot to experience a truly remarkable natural phenomenon about to occur.

We did have a deadline to meet, and there wasn’t any flexibility. The total solar eclipse would take place just before 11:30am, and it would not wait for us. We had chosen a remote but spectacular viewing point, recommended to us by some of the old-timers we had met weeks earlier. As relative newcomers to East Africa, we had already learned that the advice of knowledgeable locals was essential. We had done our homework on weather and routes, and we had our maps (this was long before the internet and GPS). We’d tapped all the available databases - they mostly walked on two legs.

The Mombasa Road at that time was paved but badly potholed, leading southeasterly out onto the wide grasslands and plains through acacia bushes and mostly gentle hills, gradually descending seaward from Nairobi’s nearly 6,000 feet elevation. We had almost five hours ahead of us, trying hard to dodge those potholes and the occasional headlight-less truck, before we would reach Tsavo East National Park. Still, the time flew by even after we were out of range of the Voice of Kenya radio station (the only radio station then). For the rest of the journey we only had our conversation and the noisy little rear engine of the VW to soothe us over the bumps.

By 10:15am we had paid the Tsavo East National Park entry fees at the Manyani Gate, and then in relatively short order had arrived at our intended destination: Mudanda Rock. In the cool of the tropical morning on a cloudless day in the arid shrublands, a small group of little dik-dik gazelles scampered away from near where we parked our small VW Beetle. Both the dik-dik and the Beetle were dwarfed by the many massive Land Rovers and Land Cruisers parked along the dirt track.

Mudanda Rock is a distinctive feature of Tsavo East National Park. Historically, the hunter-gatherers who populated this region had named this long and narrow Precambrian eruption of rock rising abruptly out of the plain Waliangulu, which meant “the place of dried meat”. There had been no one drying meat here for many centuries, but it was not hard to imagine elephant meat stretched out on this long, purplish-pink rocky spine. The elephants, very much alive and mercifully intact, were down on the rolling plain in easy view, giving us a territorial eye from the banks of the naturally formed large watering hole on the eastern side of the Rock. ?

Those elephants had much to look at – Mudanda Rock is stunning – but no doubt they found it even more of a spectacle given this sudden collection of people who had all chosen this vantage point from which to experience the eclipse. Along its mile in length, the Rock was now populated by a new multinational tribe of curious humans, distinguished by an extraordinary array of the best photographic equipment and technology that 1980 had to offer, accompanied by earnest looking people conversing with each other in technical jargon. The professional photographer crowd was almost matched by the many journalists and khaki-clad tourists weighed down with smaller and cheaper cameras. A few mellifluous voiced announcers with recording equipment were already painting verbal pictures of the unfolding scene onto their tape recorders, for later broadcasts.

No one wanted to forget this warm and dry February 16th, 1980. By day’s end, it would be hot, very dry, and dusty, which was the perfect weather to frame the memories we had come to capture.

The photographers, journalists, and voice announcers had ample distractions to keep them busy. Setting up sophisticated tripods on the irregular rock surfaces, adjusting and readjusting their equipment, using light meters to gauge the scenery around them, scribbling in notebooks and comparing their authoritative opinions about which film was best, they entirely ignored my partner and me. We were among the very few who brought homemade safety glasses and a good supply of drinking water, wide-brimmed hats, durable cotton clothes, rugged boots, binoculars, and little else. We were just fine with being ignored; while those who came to capture the scene and the magic of the impending eclipse devolved progressively into a frenzied state of immersion in and anxiety about their equipment, we stood a little ways off quietly entranced by the captivating scenery and wildlife all around us as we stored our memories in the biological safety of our minds.

Forty-four years later, those memories remain with satisfying clarity. It isn’t hard for me to summon up the Tsavo East vista spanning out over the brown and faded green grasslands of the surrounding game park, with the Galana River glimmering far in the distance on the volcanic Yatta Plateau. I can easily recall the rocks and plants, which were the setting for orange-bellied parrots who squawked from the nearby acacia trees as they competed for our attention with a wide array of noisy birdlife. A rainbow-colored agama lizard had posed unperturbed on the rocks nearby us. ?

Everywhere we looked, nature looked back at us. Golden breasted starlings circled us from above, while vulturine guineafowl scampered quickly through the brush while keeping their beady eyes on these many human interlopers. A solitary secretary bird arrogantly stood his distance and stared at us, head well above the surrounding grasses, remaining easily visible to anyone on the Rock who chose to look. Fresh traces of a recent visit by a troop of baboons spotted the Rock near where we stood. We watched with some amusement as several of the equipment-obsessed photo-folk failed to avoid these baboon calling cards, in the process besmirching their brand-new Bata Safari Boots. Had we been less practiced at avoiding baboon droppings, we could have fallen prey to similar befoulment – given that the vast vistas looking out over Tsavo East seduced our eyes to scan the horizon.

As 11:30am approached, the tension rose discernibly on the Rock until finally a hush of expectation settled on us all. As the moon began to move into the path of the sun, everything suddenly began to change in far more dramatic ways than we had ever anticipated. What did we know about eclipses?

First, the air temperature almost immediately dropped by at least ten degrees, accompanied by strong breezes. As the light of the sun began to diminish, flocks of birds quickly circled in to nest in the nearby thorn trees and hide in the thickets of scrub vegetation “for the night”. The flapping of their wings and their raucous calls pierced the air, but not so much that we were distracted from the bizarre visuals before us. That far vista of miles and miles of Tsavo East National Park, once laid out in deep and textured dimensions, began to rapidly flatten as the moon moved further into the sun. Very soon, it seemed like we were looking at painted posterboard, utterly two-dimensional. The cameras probably struggled to do that sight the justice that it deserved, but the photographers were so immersed in their equipment they failed to “see” this at all.

We used our safety glasses to watch the moon progressively consume the sun; the darkness that suddenly surrounded us was beyond description. Only the confused and somewhat indignant trumpeting sounds of the elephants down at the watering hole reminded us of where we were standing, and what was happening to the world all around us.

In just under four minutes, it was over.

The confused birds took their time to tentatively regain the sky, but the air warmed almost immediately as the sun reasserted itself. Other than the last few clicks and whirs of the plethora of cameras, all the human visitors on this long rock remained in stunned silence, only slowly engaging in churchlike whispered conversations as they slowly began to pack up their gear.

The two of us stayed put, seated on a moderately flat slab of rock. Within 30 minutes, we were almost alone, although now covered with a fresh coat of dust from the many departing 4-wheel drive vehicles. Soon enough, Mudanda Rock was ours to enjoy by ourselves, with that previous spatial flatness only a very curious memory.

Near to our feet, that lizard did his little push-ups on the rock, determined to make sure that he remained locked within our memories too.

I am happy to say that he did.