Day 6. A full day on the safari

I had the best sleep at night. Around 6am while it was still dark, we got up for our morning game drive. We put on our winter jackets, had some coffee, and started our game drive. 

Birds

Themba and Jimmy showed us several birds. There was a grey go-away bird that was making the sound "away, away".  There was a red-crested Korhaan, also known as suicide bird. In an attempt to attract female, a male suicide bird will fly high up to the sky, fold his wings to free fall, and open up its wings to break the fall and land right before it hits the ground. That's why it is called suicide bird. If the stunt gets the attention of a female, then the male bird will dance around her to keep wooing her. I asked Themba whether he had ever seen a suicide bird miscalculated in the free fall, he said once he saw a bird hit a tree branch.  

Lions

We saw four female lions resting. Themba and Jimmy said that they were the same pride we saw yesterday. There was some blood on their paws, so they must have successfully killed some prey and ate well last night. Lions hunt at night. I was surprised to hear that it is not easy for lions to hunt. Impalas are too fast for them, giraffes are too big for them. So lions are opportunists and hunt whatever they can get. It is common that they hunt a whole night and cannot get any food. I commented that how sad it is that there were so many animals on the safari, but the lions failed to eat any. Themba replied "same for me. there are so many restaurants here, but all too expensive for me". 

Elephants

We saw a herd of elephants, females and babies. Themba said that elephants eat nonstop 24 hours a day. Themba said that elephants do a lot of damage to trees, if there were no elephants, the safari would turn to a forrest. We saw one elephant easily uprooted a tree to chew the roots. 

One elephant suddenly turned to our vehicle, started flapping her ears and making a huffing sound. Themba stopped the vehicle and the elephant calmed down. Themba said that we got too close and the elephant was warning us, so we needed to give her some distance. 

One adult female elephant did not have a tusk. Themba said that this is caused by a genetic mutation. Because poachers hunt elephants for tusks, this mutation has been selected for, and has become more common in the elephant populations in South Africa.

Food

It got quickly warm after sunrise. Themba and Jimmy took us to a beautiful spot near a lake, set up the picnic table for hot drinks and snacks. 

After that, we drove more, saw black rhinos, impalas, steenbok, and some other antelopes before we went back to the lodge.

We had breakfast, rested a bit. Then it was lunch, more resting, and ready for the afternoon game drive. While I had a great time and enjoyed everything, I had no doubt that I was gaining weight. 

Giraffes

Crocodile

My cheap Motorola cell phone could not capture a good photo, but there is a crocodile in the photo below. There was a hippo in the lake too, but it was so shy that it disappeared in the water before I could pull my cell phone out. 

Lions

Buffalos

We saw a big herd of buffalos, like a hundred of them. Themba explained that males and females have different sizes of horns. Males have horns that are really big, like a helmet. Hunters called five most dangerous animals the "big five". Those are lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and buffalos. Themba said that buffalos are the most dangerous one among the big five, because buffalos can attack you without a warning whereas the other four would give warnings. Buffalos do not have good eyesights, which makes them more dangerous as they can get aggressive just because they thought they saw something. 

We saw another beautiful sunset, had another great picnic. On the night drive back, we saw a wild cat. It was the size of a house cat, and Jimmy spotted it across a lake. A wild cat is the same species as a house cat, the difference is just that they live on the safari. Claire and I talked about our cat Aster. While we missed him, we were happy that he was safe and well fed at home.

We also saw a chameleon on a tree. We were so impressed by Jimmy's super-human eye sight, because we could not see any of these until Themba drove really close and used a laser pointer to point at them.

People

In the afternoon, a couple checked in. The wife was a travel agent and was here to research Sausage Tree Safari Camp. They had been traveling for two weeks evaluating different safari lodges. She said that we made a good choice for our first safari and that her favorite safari place was Botswana. 

Two owners, Tamara and Devan, joined us for dinner. They were super nice and connected us with the Blue Mountain restaurant owner Andre for lunch on our check-out day. They shared fun stories about living here, for example, an elephant somehow disliked the lodge sign and kept destroying it. At one point we paused the conversation to hear lions roaring in the distance.

When we went to our tent to sleep, once again we hear lions roaring. Very nice experience.