As of this morning's, we’ve only been on 3 game drives (of 8) so far, but we
have seen so many incredible animals—it’s hard to believe we get to do this a
few more times! Our guide Celebrate has had amazing luck so far; he says we’re
going to see ____ and lo and behold we see ____. This morning though we spent quite a bit of
time tracking the lions that we had seen yesterday. It seems that they moved on
last night to another location so Celebrate was looking in their favorite
places as well as following tracks to see if we could locate them. It’s going
to be blazing hot though so it looks like it was an early turn-in for the
lions and we couldn't locate them. What we did see though were tons
of zebras—it seemed like there were herds of them in every field we passed!
After our morning coffee & biscuit stop (I really love
writing thatJ),
we actually went on a short bush walk. Amazingly we hadn’t seen much that was
really exciting on our drive thus far, but of course as soon as we’re out of the
car and walking across the field, we spot not only giraffes watching us closely
but also an elephant traversing the plain.
There was a wildebeest and a kudu closer to us who both took off while
we were examining the crazy termite mound.
Apparently we’re scarier on foot than in a vehicle! The termite mound was huge and apparently this
is actually a smaller one—a few fun facts: they build it out of mud and saliva,
aardvarks will dig a hole under it and eat out the termites, and they can be
used for orientation—the side that is more eroded and pockmarked is south since
rain tends to come from the southern direction.
Continuing our walk, Brennan actually spotted a rhino as
well—suddenly we were seeing several of our favorites again and the morning was
back on track. On the walk, in addition
to keeping an eye on the animals mentioned, we learned some more about the
plants in the park (they burn the grass every 2 years to minimize the risk of
actual wildfire due to overgrowth, there’s an amazing plant that they use for
bushman’s tea that spells like citrusy mint, and there is a marula tree whose
fruit is used for the amarula liquor we had as our pre-dinner drink last night.
We actually tried the fruit on our walk—sweet but definitely sour as well since
it wasn’t fully ripe).
Went back for our breakfast through tea time relaxation,
logged some time reading by the pool, catching up on blog entries etc. When we headed out on our afternoon game
drive, Celebrate asked us what we had liked seeing the most and we asked what
the likelihood of spotting the cheetahs would be. He explained that they hadn’t
been seen for about a week and they are notoriously difficult to locate so he
couldn’t promise anything – but—they actually have a collar on one of the
cheetahs that emits a blip on one of the radio frequencies once you’re within a
few kilometers of it. We would go
looking for the male rhino and see what we could find.
If you’ve read the other entries, it should come as no
surprise that since Celebrate talked about cheetahs, we saw them. I really am starting to believe he is magic,
it’s uncanny. So we’re driving through a
new part of the park and up on top of this ridge scanning the plains below for
the rhino when Celebrate stops the truck and backs up a bit. We waited quietly, excited to hear what his
keen eyes had spotted, but then he went forward again and then back again. Couldn’t take the suspense so we asked what
he saw and he explained that he heard a click on the radio, signifying that a
cheetah was somewhere in the general proximity.
At first I honestly thought the radio frequency was a cheat, it kind of
takes the fun out of it if there’s a beacon to follow—looking around the
landscape though, we quickly realized that it didn’t start beeping faster or
anything the closer you got to it and because the landscape is so wild, your
odds of finding them are still incredibly small.
Spotting a big gathering of blesbok down the hill and across
the plain, Celebrate guided us that way in the hopes that we would hear more
clicks and be able to track down the elusive cats. There were so many blesbok waiting for us,
all looking the same way with their white faces. Thinking maybe they had seen
something and that’s why they were all grouped together and not grazing, we
went the direction they were looking but didn’t pick up any more clicks or see
anything. Passing them and going the
opposite direction from them resulted in a few clicks popping on the radio! Celebrate
tempered our excitement a bit explaining that we were very close to hills and
mountains so they could be up in there and not visible to us. Our faith was
confirmed when we rounded the next bend and saw two cheetahs walking just off
the road. Unbelievable luck…
We watched them on the road for a little bit then they
turned to go up to the hills and we followed them. We were with the two
brothers for a little over an hour total; following them slowly up the hill,
watching them rest in the shade, one even jumped into a low-branched tree at
one point. We even got out and walked a
little closer to them on foot once they started up a steeper part of the hill! To be in South Africa and watching cheetahs
as the sun started setting… all I can is wow.
A beautiful sunset while we drank sundowners finished out
our drive. Since we had spent so much time with the amazing cheetahs, we were a
little later than normal heading back to the tents and it was getting dark as
we crossed the plains. Celebrate pulled out his spotlight and swept it across
the trees and plains as we moved forward. Just as we were pulling onto the part
of the road that leads to the tents, we got a call from one of the other
Rangers—he had spotted the male lion! After asking if we were game, Celebrate
turned us around and took off toward the sighting.
Amazingly, the male lion was lying just off the road in a
field about, oh, 2 football fields from where we had dinner the night
before! There had been rangers with
rifles making sure nothing happened the night prior, but the smell of meat
might have brought him down that direction at the time or shortly after. I don’t know how the first truck managed to
spot him—he’s massive but it is so dark that when the lights weren’t on him, he
was extremely difficult to see. Exactly
what you expect a gorgeous male lion to look like: huge full mane, a beautiful
face, and just massive. Seeing him at night was just so amazing.
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