SAFARI!

This past weekend we went on Safari! We got up early saturday morning and drove the 4 hours to the Umfolozi/Hluhluwe game reserves (originally 2 reserves- now they've been combined) to do some serious game viewing. We got there early afternoon and jumped into our safari vehicles and were on our way! Being on safari feels like being on the Indian Jones ride at Disneyland- the cars are the same and you're riding trails most of the time and communicating with the other cars via radio so we sang the Indiana Jones theme song pretty frequently this weekend. So we headed out in our game drive vehicle as soon as we got there with Reg, our program director at the wheel. And we started looking at animals! We saw giraffe, impala, a ton of white rhino, buffalo, warthogs (there was also a lot of quoting and singing the lion king) and we even found a breeding herd of elephant with a baby. Mamas and babies were the theme of our safari experience- we saw so many babies which was really fun. So in our first day we'd knocked out 3 of the big 5 in just a few hours! The big 5 are the buffalo, lion, leopard, elephant, and rhino. They were nicknamed the big five because they are the 5 most difficult animals to hunt on foot. If you didn't kill one of the big 5 first shot then they would most likely kill you. So we'd already seen 3 of them and Reg was on a mission to find us some lion, so the second day the lion hunt began. In searching for the lions we saw a breeding herd of elephant cross an open field and a ton more rhino, including a black rhino. In the afternoon the rangers/guides that were driving the other vehicles tracked down one lioness that was on the riverbed (there's been a drought going on for about 3 years now and all the rivers and streams are dry) so we all quickly gathered and she was very difficult to see because she was so far away, but standing near her was a breeding herd of elephant, a couple of buffalo, and a rhino. We got to see 4 of the big 5 all at one time, which was awesome!
And further down the riverbed was a pack of wild dogs which we chased over a hill and we got to see about 12 wild dog puppies which was incredible. Wild dogs are small and very illusive so not many people get to see them, and we got to see a whole pack!
The next morning we got up early to find the lions and found the lioness again, but she was by herself and we wanted to see them closer so we started the search again. The guides knew where a pride was supposed to be so we tried to encircle them with our vehicles and the Regmoblie was waiting around when we got the radio from Andy, "Reg, We got 'em." at which we all jumped into the car as fast as we could and arrived at Andy's vehicle just in time to see a pride of 5 lions cross the road in front of us. They were mostly young- there was one adolescent male lion whose mane was coming in and the rest were female and there was one cub. It was awesome to see them doing their own thing just crossing the road while we were freaking out- quietly of course. So after the lions were out of view we decided to move on to breakfast and maybe try to intercept them again on the loop. I didn't think we would find them again and was just excited about eating when all of a sudden we came around a turn and there they were! They were just as surprised as us and some of the lionesses were only about 8 ft from our car. After they realized we weren't going to do anything they crossed the road in front of us again- this time only about 10, 15 ft in front of the vehicle, and we got to see them really up close which was probably my favorite sighting of the trip because it was so unexpected and exciting. After we ate breakfast we moved into cheetah country to try for a cheetah sighting before we went home and unfortunately we didn't find any, but we did get to see two Kudu fighting with their horns and two Giraffe doing something that could have either been fighting or cuddling with their necks which was interesting. Safari definitely ended on a high note.
The game reserve itself was incredibly beautiful and we actually stayed in it. The girls stayed in tent/cabins with attached bathrooms and a billion bugs which was unpleasant but manageable and the biggest inconvenience was that we couldn't leave our tents at all at night because the animals were able to wander through our camp (a man had been scalped by a leopard about a year ago where we were staying), but this is africa- not a big deal. So altogether it was a great experience and we got to see some fabulous animals. This week we have our Zulu mid-term and then saturday we are going to uShaka Marine World which is a theme park/aquarium and to a rugby game.