Running on Empty

“The best hospitality is often the kind your guests never notice.”

One of the great privileges of working in hospitality is that guests usually remember the sunsets, the sightings and the wonderful meals.

They seldom remember the small disasters.

That’s because, if we’ve done our jobs properly, they never knew they happened.

One afternoon during our first few weeks at Plains Camp, Busi and I drove into Skukuza to collect supplies and tackle a handful of errands before returning to camp to prepare dinner. It was an ordinary afternoon, one we’d repeated several times already.

Until it wasn’t.

On the way home, the bakkie simply stopped.

I climbed out, looked under the bonnet with great determination and absolutely no mechanical knowledge whatsoever, then climbed back in again. The engine remained equally unimpressed.

There was no cellphone signal.

No passing traffic.

No handy roadside assistance.

Just the three of us, a silent vehicle and the African bush slowly preparing for nightfall.

At first it wasn’t too bad. We chatted, watched the bush around us and waited, convinced that somebody would come along before long. As the sun dipped lower, elephants began moving through the surrounding bush, snapping branches as they fed. A curious bushbaby appeared and seemed almost as interested in us as we were in it. For a while, it kept us thoroughly entertained before disappearing into the gathering darkness.

Then came the mosquitoes.

One particularly determined specimen found its way into the cab and proceeded to torment us. Every time I switched on the interior light to find it, it vanished. The moment I switched the light off, it reappeared with an irritating whine somewhere near my ear before landing to enjoy another meal at my expense.

Eventually we declared war.

The three of us flailed around the cab in increasingly undignified fashion until the poor mosquito finally met its end on the windscreen. Victory was short-lived. With the windows closed the cab became unbearably hot, but opening them again simply invited an enthusiastic new squadron inside.

Somewhere in the distance I thought I saw the sweep of a spotlight.

Could it be Gerrit returning from his evening drive?

I flashed my headlights.

Nothing.

Perhaps I’d imagined it.

Eventually I did something I had never done before—and have never done since.

I hooted.

The sound echoed through the reserve, loud, harsh and completely out of place. I remember almost hoping Gerrit hadn’t heard it. More importantly, I hoped our guests hadn’t.

My concern wasn’t really for us.

It was for their dinner.

More than three hours after the bakkie had broken down, headlights finally appeared.

Gerrit had returned to camp and immediately realised something was wrong. There was no smell of dinner coming from the kitchen. A quick conversation with Frank confirmed that neither Busi nor I had returned from Skukuza, so he turned the game-drive vehicle around and came looking for us.

We abandoned the bakkie where it stood, piled into the game viewer and raced back to camp.

It was already after eight o’clock.

Dinner should have been on the table.

Instead, I hurried over to the guests, apologised profusely and admitted what I believed to be the unforgivable truth.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I confessed. “I’ve run out of fuel.”

Meanwhile, Frank had quietly done what good chefs do.

Realising something was wrong, he’d taken lamb chops out of the freezer before we arrived. While he assembled a smoked salmon salad, I browned the chops and deglazed the pan with a little red wine and port for a quick sauce. Peppers, onions and butternut went into the oven with herbs and olive oil, potatoes became hurried deep-fried “roast” potatoes, and caramelised pineapple with honey, mascarpone and nuts completed the dessert.

Not long after half past eight, dinner was served.

To my relief, the guests took the delay entirely in their stride. Had I not apologised, I suspect many of them might barely have noticed that dinner was a little later than usual.

The real embarrassment arrived the following morning.

The bakkie hadn’t run out of fuel after all.

The timing belt had simply chosen that particular moment to retire.

If any of the guests who shared dinner with us that evening in 2003 happen to read this, I’d like to set the record straight.

I owe you an apology.

Not for serving dinner late.

For falsely confessing to running out of fuel.