African safari

When meeting the soft-spoken Charlie Downs for the first time, people don’t get the idea that he’s a lion wrestler, but in March that’s just what he got to do.

After his wife, Mary Alice, retired in January and he retired March 1, they hopped a plane and, with a skip and a jump, they crossed the big pond landing in Vredefort, South Africa, for a safari.

Though many people don’t see it when looking at him, wrestling is in 71-year-old Downs’ blood.

As Waynesboro’s former Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator for more than 16 years, he’s had to wrangle with some pretty wild rules and regulations regarding accessibility issues for people with disabilities.

So meeting nature on its own terms came easy to him, he said, despite his use of a wheelchair since his bout with polio at age 6.

“If you need special accommodations, you need to be upfront about it,” Downs said. “I didn’t want to hold people back.”

Downs said that accommodations are different for the various types of disabilities and must be individualized according to the person. He even brought along the hanging handicap tag he uses in his car at home.

“It’s recognized the world over,” he said. “It’s an international symbol.”

Issues such as proper signage, which many people take for granted, need to be addressed.

“There was a sign showing a fork in a road, but it didn’t indicate which was handicapped accessible,” Downs said.

But the staff at the preserve was more than willing to accommodate Downs’ needs.

They installed a ramp at the chalet he and his wife stayed in and even took over pushing Downs’ wheelchair through the rough gravel.

“It was no different than staying locally,” Mary Alice said. “Our particular group was very accommodating. They lifted up Charlie’s chair when needed and pushed him in the rockier areas.

“They gave me some freedom,” she said. “When we would say ‘Thank you,’ they would say it was their pleasure. And they meant it.”

The 14-day safari program, arranged in conjunction with the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, started in 2003, said Erwin Bohmfalk, the center’s chairman.

“My wife and I went in March 2003,” Bohmfalk said on his Web site, Wildlife Center of Virginia Safaris. “It was an extraordinary experience, and it was obvious such a unique opportunity should be made available to as many others as possible.”

Today, Bohmfalk, 87, owner of the Purple Foot restaurant, takes about two trips to the reserve in the spring and two in the fall, and his eatery has pictures displayed documenting his excursions

“All the animals are wild,” Bohmfalk said. “They kill each other and eat each other. They don’t go around and put their heads in your windows.”

In contrast to some American nature reserves, the animals are more likely to run away, Bohmfalk said, as the African reserve’s owner and guide, Joe Viljoen, prevents them from becoming acclimated to humans as much as possible.

Even when Viljoen needs to tend to young animals, such as a lion cub, they are kept for a minimal amount of time and released back into the wild to prevent the animals from attaching themselves to their human caretakers.

For that short amount of time, though, visitors to the park can pet and hold a wild animal.

Even a man like the mild-mannered Downs can take a moment to wrestle with a squirming, wriggling baby lion.