Safari - Day 3 and 4

Day 3 (this reminds me of ELC writings!) kicked off with another early wake up call from our friendly ranger, Dale. Some of us felt better than the others; clearly the elephants have a little more body weight to help absorb some of the Amarula… We had another great drive with plenty of game and the highlight being watching a bull elephant push over a tree – it’s an amazing feat! The capability of an animal so big is fascinating – check out how he locks in his back legs for power! Little educational side note: elephants use their tusks to get to the food under the bark of trees or they just push the tree over and eat the roots. They can actually be destructive to the ecosystems and kill too many trees – interesting how before humans had the ability to control where the elephants roamed, nature seemed to more or less take care of itself – now there are efforts to ‘protect areas’ from the elephants. We also saw the same pride of 7 lions (including our blue-eyed friend) again, and they were lying less than 100 yards from where we had taken our morning walk on the previous day. Realizing how close we may have been is more than a little unnerving…

After the morning drive, we went for a morning hike in search of zebras as we hadn’t seen any yet – but all we found were fresh tracks, giraffe bones, elephant watering holes, and hair from a hyena that had been carried up a tree by a cheetah. We packed our things and after writing our notes in their gigantic guest book (largest book I have seen in my life), we left Lukimbi for Idube, the sister lodge. We had been told it would take us 2-3 hours to drive through Kruger and then another 20 minutes outside the park to Idube, which is within Sabi Sands. We had hoped to spend all 3 nights at Lukimbi but due to availability, we (Herman) booked us at Idube. In retrospect and such as life, it all worked out. The drive through Kruger is not to be missed. It is fun to take on the responsibility of finding the animals on your own. Along the drive, we saw impala (of course), elephants, giraffes, rhinos, wildebeests, warthogs, monkeys, and …zebras! After 5 hours, we found ourselves in the same boat as we had been in two days ago and rushing along dicey roads in order to make it in time for the evening game drive (ah, the beauty of rental cars). We called ahead and they said that we’d be sorted when we got there. Quite the relief because at one point, we came around a corner and a HUGE rhino was in the road and we had to wait until it got far enough from the road to prevent provoking it into turning our car into a top for afternoon entertainment.

Idube’s location within Sabi Sand makes it an entirely different than Lukimbi, which is on a concession within Kruger National Park. The different game parks in Sabi Sand have an alliance and share information regarding the movement of the animals and various sightings. On that evening’s drive, the highlights were a herd of water buffalo, sleepy lions (they had a successful hippo kill the previous day and were roly poly with bellies full of hippo), and finally a cheetah. By the time we found the cheetah, it was past dusk and he was walking along a dry creek bed. It was as if he didn’t know we were there – even with our spotlight on him. There were 2 of our Land Rovers there and we were actually driving alongside of him. His gait was beautiful and majestic. At one point, he said down and we stopped alongside him; there were literally only a few feet between him and our vehicle. He definitely could have walked into the woods on either side of the creek bed (which he eventually did) to escape our staring eyes, but I felt as if we were intruding. Lukimbi in Kruger Park is more my style; it’s hard to put in words and I’m glad I experienced both styles of safaris.

Following the drive, it was time for dinner. Dinner at Idube is outdoors and there are tables set up circling a campfire. Every chair had a blanket and I wrapped myself up and enjoyed a fabulous dinner of kingclip. Exhausted from the long day and in anticipation of the early wake-up call, we returned to our beautiful rooms for our last night in the bush.

Monday morning’s game drive was our final drive and featured a herd of 20+ elephants and a giraffe kill. The entire trip, I had been fascinated with the idea of seeing a kill. Now, I’m struggling with sharing it. Upon returning to Cape Town, it wasn’t something that I included in my recap with friends. While we were watching the elephants (and at one time getting too close a bull elephant trumpeted and stomped towards us a few meters until our ranger revved the engine and then backed away – again, I felt as though we were antagonizing), our ranger received word that a baby giraffe had been attacked by hyenas. We drove for 20 minutes (seeing Virgin Atlantic’s Richard Branson’s impressive lodge en route) and came upon the noticeably distressed mom giraffe in the road. The baby had been attacked and was lying in the grass 15 yards away. 4 heynas were circling but wouldn’t go near the baby with her still in the vicinity as a giraffe kick could bring their laughs to a quick end. The entire trip, I had wanted to see a giraffe drinking water as they look quite goofy reaching for the ground. Unfortunately, I saw this stance as the mom would stretch down to muzzle her injured baby. The baby would go into shakes and the mom would stomp her foot – not on the baby but sometimes she’d get its leg. I don’t know if this was a recognition that the baby was suffering? Then she would walk away and look to the baby; in my head, it looked like she was ready to leave but wanted her little one to get up and leave with her. As she increased the distance between her and her baby (up to 20 yards, the hyenas would get closer to the baby. Then she would circle back and the hyenas would recede. You have no idea how much I wanted the mom to give a good kick to the hyenas when they would laugh. Finally, the mom distanced herself enough for the hyenas to begin their feast – remembering the sounds makes my stomach turn.

I left Idube with a broadened perception of ‘circle of life’. Both in seeing the hyenas and giraffe and seeing impalas and other animals in proximity to lions and wild dogs. In my head (without ever really thinking it through I guess), I imagined that the impalas that survived had never crossed the path of an animal higher on the food chain. I learned that they aren’t quite the sitting ducks as I had previously believed.

We packed up at Idube and made our way back to the Nelspruit airport for our flight to Cape Town via Johannesburg. Candice and Susanne left us in Johannesburg for their excursion to a diamond mine while Patricia and I headed back to Cape Town. It was definitely a weekend of a lifetime.