Saturday, November 23rd game drives

Saturday, I got up early for the game drive (4:30 AM), but Elder Kyle was throwing up and stayed behind. It was a beautiful day, brisk but not cold, and the air smelled so fresh. David was our guide and we were told he is the best. We had two vehicles and the other one was driven by the lodge's manager. He and his wife run the place and they are both very nice.

twice a day went out in these vehicles with no top and no guns

One of the big surprises was how knowledgeable they were about the animals and how much they cared about preserving certain species. They knew when new baby impalas were born and how many lion cubs were in the bush. David knew the names of all the birds and when we asked about them, he would hand us a book over one inch thick and tell us what page it was one. He did this over and over. Amazing! They communicated by radio with other parks close by and would tell each other when animals were spotted. The vehicles were all-terrain and we certainly put them to use, driving over small trees down ravines and over hills and dirt roads. If we saw an animal, the guide would just go off the road and take off after them. I kept expecting a blowout and was wondering how we would be able to change the tire without risking our lives, but they weren't worried about dangerous animals at all. It was like their vehicle with all of us in it was just another big animal, one that proved to not be dangerous to other animals. The animals acted like we weren't even there for the most part.

On this drive we first saw some female and male Kudus. They are very large animals and the males have large curly horns, while the females have no horns but big ears. Males are gray and females are tan. They are pretty cute and the females and babies stay together, while the males hang out together.

After that we saw more elephants...maybe the same herd as the night before, but we couldn't be sure. We also saw two males elephants by themselves staying close to the herd, but not too close. According to our guide the females decide whether a male can join them or not and until then they just follow waiting for an opportunity. In this species, the female rules. They were eating the bark off the trees, basically destroying the trees, but our guide said the trees are fast growing. It's a good thing, because when the elephants get done, the area looks desolated.




Then we saw another lion. The guide said he was a brother of the Lion we saw yesterday. How in the world he knows that is a mystery to me, but he was pretty sure. No females were in sight, so it did seem like a different one. He was just walking along, paying us no mind. Wow, only two games drives and look what we've seen already!




After this drive, we had breakfast and visited with each other. Elder Kyle was still not feeling too good, but he had some toast and then went back to the room. There was an extra game drive at another game park set up for 1:00 for those who wanted to go. I opted to go while Elder Kyle rested up in hopes he could go on the regular game drive at 4:00. I wanted to go on the earlier one because the promised we would see white lions and rhinos. We did see a rhino this morning, but he was hiding behind a bush and we couldn't get that close to him, except for a brief time when he passed from one bush to the other and was captured on camera.


We headed off for the other game park after lunch. It was about ten minutes up the road and then about ten more to the lodge when we made the turn off the road. We had different guides, but I liked the one we had. He was easy to understand and very knowledgeable. He also told some pretty good jokes. The first thing we did was visit a couple of rhinos that were orphaned when their mothers were killed by poachers. They had grown up in a protected area of this park and came to the park at different times, but had become inseparable. One of them is blind and the other takes care of him. It was very sweet. Although they were not able to be out in the wild and were behind a rather flimsy fence, they were preparing them to be in the wild. We got to actually touch them and their skin is hard as a rock, except for a small space behind their ear which is very soft.

Then we were off to search for the lions. They told us that they knew where their kill was from earlier in the day and the lions would stay close by, so we headed off to find them. The rains had made the bushes and trees really green, so the scenery was pretty and we saw all sorts of forms of animals life on the way, birds, dung beetles, leopard turtles, etc. When we finally got close to the kill, the smell of the dead wildebeest was pretty awful. The guide pulled right up to it and cut off his engine. Pretty soon someone yelled that a lion was coming our way. "Don't you think maybe we should not be so close to his kill," I said, but was ignored. The lion kept coming closer and closer and I was on the side he was headed towards. I'll admit I was a bit nervous. Finally he walked right up to the side of our vehicle, turned around with his rear close to the tree where his kill was, then plopped down and yawned. He could have cared less that we were there. What a magnificent animal. The white lion has blue eyes that seem to look right through you. They are very rare in the animal kingdom. I felt privileged to have seen one, especially that close.

Then we saw five more lions, including a female that we followed. She suddenly stopped and crouched down to do her business...whooh...smelly. We finally had to leave her to it. I never smelled anything so foul...Ha. Once again, she just totally ignored us as if we were not there. I never expected to be able to see these animals up close without being afraid, but they paid us no mind at all. They even acted like we were friends. You can see how close we were, all of us taking photos of this poor girl going to the bathroom...crazy!


While we were looking at white lions, Elder Kyle was going on the evening safari at the lodge. He was lucky enough to see some hyenas, something I didn't get to see while I was there. The hyenas were waiting for the lions to finish the wildebeest they had killed and then would probably move in when the lions were not there.







Elder Kyle got to see the female lions and their cubs eating their kill. The photos show them  eating and then the bloody fur around their mouths after they finished. I was glad I missed this part. At home, I would leave the room when the animals were killing another animal for food, so seeing it in person did not appeal to me at all, even though it was a normal part of their quest for survival.




All the things we've seen on animal programs via television we witnessed at this park. We even saw a type of bird that when he is mating, flies straight up, rolls into a ball and then dives towards the ground. At the last minute, he spreads his wings and flies back up to a tree limb. The guide knew how to rev the engine and get them to do this. They make a funny sound and we would just look around for the bird. It was the funniest thing to see them do this.

Saturday night we had a braai (BBQ) outside in this cool area surrounded by a rustic fence made out of trees. Sean cooked meat on the braai and we had salads and baked potatoes. It was fun sitting around the fire and enjoying the outdoors. This is really an amazing place. The sound of the animals at night, the fresh air and stars in the sky, a beautiful place to sleep and eat. We feel very fortunate. It is so easy to feel close to God when you are in an atmosphere like this. It helps us understand and be awed at God's plan when he created this earth.