Blogging from Earth lodge in Sabi Sabi on our last full day here. We have had an incredible time, and this has been a whole new safari experience for me. I'm used to going to Kruger, driving your own car, and hoping luck is on your side to see a cat. Here at Sabi Sabi, A trained guide along with a Shangan tracker drives you around in an open top land rover to find the big 5 and more. Did I mention the guide and tracker will leave the vehicle to track some animals(lion and leopard) on foot to find them, and all land rovers are in walkie-talkie communication? That way if one vehicle spots something, others can find it as well. Oh, and the vehicles go off road to get right next to the animal. Ben and I joked that it felt like Animal Kingdom's safari ride, and we were just waiting for the ranger to come on the radio to say "Simba 1, come in. There a some poachers in the reserve! Head east to help stop them."
Our guide's name is Darred, born and raised in Nelspruit, and is extremely knowledgable and well trained. You can ask him to identify any animal, insect, or plant, and he can not only identify it but tell you everything about it. Our tracker's name is Kenny and he almost got eaten by a lion today when he had to get off the vehicle to hook a chain into the land rover when we got stuck in the mud next to a pride of lions. Did I mention-- open top land rover? Just a little bit scary. Darred says that as long as you stay on the vehicle you are safe because the lion just views it as one big animal- it can't pick out individual humans.
Here is our typical day:
5:30-6am: coffee and tea
6-9am: safari
9am: breakfast
1:30: lunch
4pm: tea time
4:30-7:30: safari
8pm: dinner
Ben and I went in a bush walk after breakfast today with Darred(and his gun). Luckily, we had no dangerous animal encounters on the walk.
A list of the animals we have seen:
The big 5 (lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino, elephant), wild dogs, baboon, bushbuck, duiker, genet, scrub hare, hippo, spotted hyaena, impala, kudu, dwarf mongoose, vervet monkey, squirrel, steenbok, warthog, waterbuck, African tortoise, hinged tortoise, and over 40 species of birds including the giant eagle owl and the spotted eagle owl.
Highlights from each day--
Sunday night:
We set off and soon hear the distress cry of some baboons and a bushbuck. Darred and Kenny head off the vehicle to see what is causing the commotion. They can't find anything but suspect it's a leopard. The ranger comes in on the radio saying they have found fresh "Ingwe" (leopard) tracks-- 2 sets, male and female. We spend most of the night trying to find these leopards, seeing some of the big 5 (elephants and rhinos) along the way. We finally found the leopards at the end of the safari , walking down the road -- a big male in his prime and a younger female. Darred suspects they plan to mate soon. The male marks his territory by spraying urine every few hundred feet, and to quote Darred, "it smells like buttered popcorn" we follow them for a while until they disappear into the grass and we head back to camp. We also saw our first "kill" when the owl we saw was carrying a woodland kingfisher in his claws.
Monday--
We had a nice, relaxing morning safari. We saw a lot of elephants, and we were actually able to get right next to one who was stripping the bark from a tree to eat the nutrient rich layer underneath. It was fascinating to watch. We also saw another group of elephants where the mother bumped the Marulla tree with her head so the fruit would fall down and ripen. Towards the end of our morning safari, we suddenly headed off road to find a young male lion sleeping in the shade. Apparently, his 3 brothers and him were kicked out of the southern pride when two new Kruger males came on the scene. That afternoon, we headed off in the direction of the leopard pair again in hopes to catch them mating. We found them walking down the road when the female started rubbing her tail in front of the male and they started mating. They contain this process every 15 minutes for 2 days. After the mating, they both went to go lay down in the grass. All of a sudden 2 hyaenas appeared. Even though the male leopard was strong enough to scare them away, the female leopard and him ran away to continue mating further down the road. In between the mooning and afternoon safaris we were able to go visit the site of our south African wedding ceremony in Skukuza. The new doctor who lived I that house was kind enough to show us around. It was nice to be back there.
Tuesday--
Our morning was quite eventful. Our first sighting was a group of elephants right by the road enjoying some Marulla fruit on the ground. In the group was a baby elephants, barely a year old, trying to control his little trunk enough to eat Marulla fruit as well. Eventually he gave up and just started suckling on his mom instead. Darred then gets a call of the radio and tells us we a going to drive "a little bit faster" to get to a sighting at the opposite end of the reserve. As we are flying down the dirt road, ben and I are bouncing out of our seats, and I'm hoping we are heading to see a cheetah. As we get closer, Darred tells us that it's a pack of wild dogs who just got chased off by the pride of lions. As we get closer, we see pride laying in the road. Darred goes off road to get around them to go find the wild dogs, and this is where we get stuck in the mud and kenny has to get off to attach the chain to the car. We got pulled out of the mud by another land rover and headed in the direction of the wild dogs. We found the pack of 8 trotting down the road. We were able to follow them for a while before heading back to the lodge. The lions in the meantime had chased a buffalo into the neighboring reserve, so that was the last we saw of them. Tuesday afternoon we headed down to the southern section of the reserve near the Sabi river where we saw two rhinos and were able to get some beautiful pictures. We also stopped to have sundowner drinks at a spot overlooking the Sabi river. It was breathtakingly beautiful. You really can never get enough of the African bush.
