Simbavati Monday & Tuesday, 5 and 6 October, 2015

First a little bit of background.  For our game drives we are seated in an OPEN Land Rover that has 9 passenger seats.  So far there have been 4 empty seats in our vehicles at both Garonga and Simbavati Safari Camps.  While we are 30 to 50 feet from game we can carry on normal conversations - and the large animals ignore us.  They even ignore the crashing and crunching of shrubs we drive over to get to them and they ignore the sounds of the vehicle.  It is kind of surreal.  The wildlife tends to ignore us as long as we stay seated in the vehicle.  Both of the leopards walked within 5 feet of the vehicle that had, moments earlier, been chasing about 50 feet off to the side of their paths.  Our guide and tracker are more clever than all the rest, it seems, as they anticipate where the animals are going to go and they get in the path.  That is how we get the good views and photos.  By the way, during a game drive we drive TO the game.  We do not "drive" the game.

Yesterday, on our Monday afternoon game drive we started by mingling with a herd of more than 100 African buffalo.  Since they were scattered among the shrubs and trees we could never see more than a small percentage of them at any given time.  Then while cruising round we saw a Water Buck.  Photo attached.  Then we heard by radio that a female Leopard had been spotted nearby so we proceeded briskly to it.  She was very cooperative in spite of the commotion our vehicle made.

Then we went to a road that defines the boundary between Kruger park and the private game reserves and went to a large waterhole.  First we noticed the herd of zebras on the other side; then we noticed that there were 3 Wild Dogs near the Zebras.  When the Wild Dogs wandered into the brush we headed out at a good clip - not knowing what the plan was.  It turned out that we intercepted the Wild Dogs.  They went by pretty rapidly, so I did not get any good photos when we were close.  So I have attached a photo taken from across the pond.  Then we went back to the point where we first entered the clear area around the water hole.  That gave us an opportunity to watch the four Hippos in the pond.  They did their yawning behavior at least 4 times but I was never ready any of those times so I did not get a shot.  When it got fairly dark one of the Hippos went to the other side of the waterhole and left the water to graze.  I got a photo of him out of the water, but it is pretty dark.

At about that time a herd of Buffalo started going to the pond across the road on which we had driven in to the pond.  Before long we realized that it was a HUGE herd.  They just kept coming.  There were probably 800 of them.  Even more surprising to us was that there was a mother and baby Rhino among them.  Seeing a herd this size is not a common occurrence.

Last night our drive-partners from Denmark were asked what they would like to see on their final drive since they were leaving after this morning's game drive.  The lady said she would like to see a Pride of Lions.  This morning we went to a water hole and our tracker observed that some females and cubs had been there during the night.  Our tracker guided us the the general area where he thought they were.  He was on foot and we proceeded without him.  As we were driving I spotted a moving leg through a small hole in the underbrush that was the Pride.  They were feasting on last night's kill.  Three females and 7 cubs.  They were on one side of a small dry creek bed.  We were on the other side about 50 feet away.

After we left there our guides took us to a Hyena house.  They had made their home in an abandoned termite mound.  We saw the two females lying around.  Then they moved and laid down for the youngsters to suckle.  The youngsters were more shy, but we did see them and get some pictures.

On the way back we saw another type of hoofed animal, Duiker Deer.

This whole trip is surreal!  And it just keeps getting better.

African (Cape) Buffalo

Leopard

Hippo

Young Kudu?

Lioness and Cubs

Wart Hogs

Water Buck

Wild Dogs

Zebras being frisky

Garonga Safari Camp, Friday afternoon and Saturday morning October 2 and 3, 2015.

                   

Yesterday evening our focus was to see Lions.  They had been found in the morning so we knew where to go.  Before we got to the Lions we saw another type of elk-size deer.  A Kudu female.  It was a weird view of her.  Her tail was directly pointed at us.  Her face was also directly pointed at us.  It looked like the front of his body and the base of her neck were mounted side-by-side on a wall.  

Kudu Female

I will get a animal identification book when I can so I can put names to some of the ones I am missing.  Of course we saw numerous giraffes, a half dozen or more zebras, and over fifty impala.  What an amazing place!

When we got to the two male lions they were doing what lions do during the day - sleeping.  In this case they were sleeping on the road.  There were up to 4 vehicles within 50 feet of them at times while we were there.  Each vehicle had 3 to 11 people in them.  --And the lions slept anyway.  The only time there was even any head motion was when vehicles were attempting to leave on the soft sand road that headed uphill about 20 feet from one of them.  It required full throttle in 4-wheel drive to get up the hill.  The vehicle ahead us us made an awful cloud of diesel smoke in addition to the sand it was throwing when it left.  While we were leaving I tried to keep my video camera trained on the lions.  As a result I think I got the only photo (extracted from the video) showing one of them with his head up.

Lion in the road

After we left they finally had the road to themselves.  Peace at last.

Today we went to see the water buffalo.  That was a long trip so we did not have much time to spend with the giraffes (about 20 of them along with a few zebra) that were grazing in a large area that had trees but minimal underbrush.  And we did not have much time to spend with the zebras that had arrived at a pond for a drink a little further down the road.

Zebras at waterhole

We did find the water buffalo. 

Cape Buffalo

And I haven't even mentioned the monkeys that play around our camp during the day and throughout the night.  Maybe I will be able to get a photo of them to you, but I don't have one yet.  And the photos below are other animals we saw at Garonga.

Elephants bathing

Wart Hog

White Rhinos

Zebras

For a video of what we saw during our stay at Garonga Safari Camp click on the following YouTube link:

https://youtu.be/k76T5F_QFr0

We arrived at Garonga Safari Camp yesterday in time for lunch.  Our camp is located at the corner of a dry riverbed.  There are a couple of ponds within view.  When we arrived there were three elephants near one of the ponds.  During our lunch we watched them at the closer pond. They showered themselves and splashed water.
In our evening game drive we saw a giraffe and a few Impala.

From what we have seen on TV and in movies we expected to see some grassy plains where it would be easy to spot animals.  Where we are there is none of that.  There are trees of varying heights up to possibly 40 feet tall and there is a lot of dry underbrush.  There are larger trees near the water channels.  Game spotting is not so easy here.  There are many game reserves in the area on the West side of Kruger Park.  Most are fenced.  There is no migration happening here.

On our morning drive today we started off by seeing some Impala, two Wart Hogs, a couple of Wildebeests; some Yellow-bill Horn Bill birds and two Zebras.  

We thought most of the animals we expected to see would be in herds.  Mostly, the ones we saw were alone or in pairs.

Then it started to get interesting.  We saw a herd of about 40 impala.

After cruising around for a while our tracker got onto the trail of a pair of white Rhinoceros.  To show us how fresh the rhinoceros dung was our driver wrung some water out of it.  Then he put some of it in his mouth explaining that it was "only grass".  When offered a chance to try it, all 5 of us (clients) declined.  Anyway, while our tracker was following the rhinos we had tea.  Then our tracker returned and told us that he had found the Rhinos.  We set out on foot and found them grazing on a little flat on the other side of a nearly-dry creek.  We were probably about 75 yards away.  That is an appropriate distance.  We did not disturb them, but we did get a good look at them.  .

By the time we finished there we were already late for breakfast so we started making a beeline back to camp.  Our intention was to stop for nothing - except for a lion or other cat.  

That is when the herds started popping out of the woodwork, so to speak.  First there were Giraffes and Zzebras grazing together.  Some of them were on or near the road.  Both the Giraffes and Zebra ranged in age from yearlings to mature adults.  Those male Giraffes are really impressive.  I could walk under their bellies (if they would let me) without bending over. There were about eight Giraffes and 6 Zebras.  That slowed us down a little bit.  Then a short while later there were more Giraffes; and more Zebras; then several Wildebeasts; then a herd of large deer (I will call them antelope for the moment but that is probably not accurate).  Since they were not on the road we did not even slow down for them.

After we returned to camp and had breakfast my wife returned to our cabin to find a very large elephant about 80 feet from our porch.  He hung around for at lest 15 minutes.  When two others passed by (after one of them knocked a tree over) our elephant joined them.  The three continued to perform for us for another 10 minutes.

We are being awed by it all.  It is hard to believe we are finally here and seeing what we are seeing.

Tomorrow night we are planning to spend the night on a platform in a tree.

This is the first of three game camps we plan to visit.

Elephants Bathing    

  Kudu Female         

 First Giraffe sighting

  Impala                  

 WartHog              , 

 White Rhinos         

 Zebra