Life continues to dish out doses of surrealism. We landed at Hoedspruit to find our driver Sidney waiting for us with my name on an ipad. The luggage “carousel” was a u shaped bench that the staff moved your luggage onto from the buggy/cart/bag shifter thingy.
I had to point out they left mine on the floor – it was one of the few without wheels so they just left it there for someone else to shift.
The reserve was around an hour and a half’s drive from the airport with high security at the entrance as part of the effort to deter poachers. We also passed an anti-poaching unit en route. They have a shoot to kill policy. A rhino horn can fetch eighty thousand dollars per kilo and with each horn weighing anything up to twenty kg you can see the attraction for poachers.
En route we saw monkeys, gibbons, zebra, kudu and miscellaneous deer types.
Five minutes after arriving we went straight to lunch on the veranda – three pm. You can easily understand why so late. The wake up call is for fourth thirty am with the first drive starting at five thirty. Breakfast is at nine thirty. Second drive starts at four and then dinner at eight. A somewhat lopsided day but when in the bush you have to adapt to the ways of the bush 🙂
Within ten minutes of starting our first drive we found a leopard up a tree with its kill. We also saw a white rhino with female calf and towards dusk a male lion. A great start to the safari. An early night followed dinner.
This morning it had rained overnight and was pretty drizzly for the first part of the drive. They gave us all ponchos which did the job although my specs kept steaming up and were constantly covered in raindrops.
Very quickly we came across a pack of wild hunting dogs. These are very rare – only 450 in the entire Kruger national park. Jeremy our guide was thrilled with the find.
These were closely followed by an elephant, a herd of water buffalo and subsequently a pack of lions eating a freshly killed water buffalo.
All in all an amazing start to our safari. Most unusual is the feedback from Jeremy the guide.
Now we are back at the lodge and, having breakfasted Hannah is catching up on some zeds whilst I write my diary.
There is a lovely view from the verandah, which is the place we eat lunch. A dried up river bed in front of us has a gently sloping hillside beyond it covered in deep grass peppered with trees and bushes. Whilst we were out this morning an elephant was to be seen. It’s a great viewing point. The view comes with a soundtrack of birds and insects unseen. An animal could wander into view at any time. The place is teeming with wildlife.
People meander by the verandah. It is downtime. At some point I’m going to have to get my book. Four Japanese tourists stroll slowly by, wondering what to do with their time. Lunch is not for four hours.
Internet connectivity is very sparse and only available in one or two public areas. Nowt here on the verandah. At least nowt I can access. Honestly who cares.
Although the colours around are mostly greens there is a tree in front of me with dark pink flowers. The tree next to it has fern-like leaves and small red flowers.
Someone has taken the plunge and is in the pool. I am suddenly alone apart from a woman quietly reading and hidden from sight. I know she is there. I also hear the murmur of quiet staff conversations.
In bygone times I would have used this downtime to write letters home.
“My dearest thing,
We are a mere five months into our adventure into the African jungle and I am already missing you but bearing up old gal. Our days are spent tracking big game and the native bearers set up camp for us each night at around four o’clock. We sometimes dress for dinner. Standards do have to be maintained.
Give the children a kiss for me. Young Percy must be getting rather big and almost grown up by now.
Your ever loving husband.
Sweetiepie, ”
A small herd of kudu wander by in the distance, perhaps two hundred metres away. The are spaced out and stop every now and again to listen. A laggard bounds into action to catch up with the others, now out of sight stage left.
The fans on the verandah create a pleasant breeze but out in the bush it is very still. We have been lucky to have arrived at a relatively cool part of the summer. The day before we got here it was forty degrees and in that heat the animals tend to stay put in the shade. No different to us humans really.
I have my posh camera with me but think I will abandon using it as my phone seems to bring better pictures. It is a much newer technology.
All is quiet in the Motswari Lodge.
…
Lots of termite mounds, large colourful butterflies and spiders webs with huge female spiders at their centre. We saw one chasing a male. They eat their males. This guy got away for now. Apaz they hang around repairing the web and hoping for the opportunity to impregnate the female. How ungrateful can she be?!
This wilderness is vast. It would at one time have covered most of Africa. We should be happy there is still a big chunk of it left. Animals only occasionally wander by. I guess if you stay still long enough you will see a lot of different species. Apparently there was a lion kill just in front of the lodge the other night as people were having drinks after their evening game drive.
A woman now dozes on a sofa to my right. An unusual period of enforced relaxation. There is free booze but you’d be daft to start drinking at midday in this weather, in any weather really if your day ahead includes a three and a half hour game drive.
Sat here on the verandah feels a bit like sitting in a hide waiting for some wildlife action to happen in front of you. You have to play the long game. I wonder what would happen if a lion appeared and took interest in the inhabitants of the verandah, ie me.
An antelope of some sort with a white band around its rear has just wandered into sight. A waterbuck, apaz. It moves on unobtrusively.
The lodge currently has twenty two guests. I guess that equates to four landrovers worth. There are seven guests in our machine plus the guide, Jeremy and the tracker Hendry. One or two vehicles have had maybe only three or four guests in them.
Our neighbour Susan just came by looking for towels. We have an infinity pool looking out over the wilderness. She remarked that a female waterbuck with calf had just wandered by their lodge. It really is amazing how much animal life there is in this place. At the same time the whole bush is a dangerous environment. Some carnivore will be out to catch and eat that calf.
…
A newbie couple has arrived. You can tell. They are walking around in a curious daze and eventually found their way back to the verandah presumably having found out there is very little else to see. Except for the bush. I feel like a veteran with two game drives under my belt.
…
Well, our second game drive of the day started slowly but came up trumps again big time. 2 giraffes, 3 baby warthogs, zebras, baboons, hyenas, wild dogs, hippos, crocs and a herd of 5 elephants at dusk including two calves. Howsabout that?
Difficult to know how to top all this and we still have five game drives left! I’m not complaining, just wondrin.
Tomorrow is another 4.30 am start. Dinner is at eight thirty. They don’t sleep much in the bush. It’s a survival thing. You sleep you die. Horribly.