Boy oh boy! It’s always hard when you have such high expectations of an experience, even when you know you shouldn’t. I can pretty much sum up our first safari experience in one word: INCREDIBLE.
We met our ranger, James, at 6:00 a.m. sharp. It was then that we got the unexpected news that the rest of our group wasn’t arriving until today, so we got our first tour all by ourselves! It was pretty much a private tour! So that just started everything off on the best foot possible! We jokingly told James that because it was just us he had to really deliver, and boy did he! Now, truth be told, the rangers cannot predict the movement or paths of the animals, but they do communicate with each other over the walkie talkie to let each other know when and where things have been spotted.
All in all, we ended up seeing at least 10 major animals types, and numerous birds as well. We saw the most common animal on the reserve, the Nyala (pronounced knee-ala), Water Buffalo, Impala, Wildabeast, Warthog, Kudu, Elephants, Zebra, White Rhinos, and Giraffe. We saw males, females, adults and babies. It was magical. My favorite part was the elephants, which are huge and seem gentle, but watching them knock over small trees to get to the roots and strip the bark off shows a different side of them. And their tusks may look somewhat fragile, but they will grab a branch full of leaves and thorns and suck off all the leaves as if the thorns don’t even exist! The giraffe were as gorgeous and elegant as expected, and we saw two babies that were huge, which seemed impossible until you saw the mother with them!
After our first 2 hours of animal immersion, we came back to the camp and had a good breakfast. After a walk and some time relaxing it was already time for lunch. Since we didn’t have any other excursions outside of camp planned yet, Jeff decided to take advantage of his free afternoon and get a massage. It was a great idea after all the traveling! When he was done we hit the pool until it was time to meet for our afternoon safari ride at 4:00. This time James had us join another small group, which was fine (but this guide was not nearly as good as James!) We saw mostly the same 7 animal groups, but in much different locations than in the morning. The most exciting part of the p.m. animal ride was when we finally tracked down the three female elephants on the side of a pretty narrow road that was up on a hill. At one point two of the three started walking, at a quick elephant pace towards our Jeep. The driver seemed unconcerned at this and simply started the Jeep and drove in reverse down the road. When he got a good distance away he would stop again, and so would the elephants. But then they would start quickly moving towards us again, and back into reverse we went. This happened 3 times, and each time it seemed like they were getting closer. I had watched too many elephant safari videos and I knew that when they approach someone and swing their head back and forth it means they’re agitated. This happened every time they started towards us, so I’d be lying if I didn’t say that once or twice my mind went to, “what if the Jeep doesn’t start?” ” what if we can’t go in reverse fast enough on this narrow road?” But eventually they seemed to lose interest in us, and at one point the oldest one even blocked the other two from advancing towards us, as if to say, “Leave them alone!” It was wild!
A shower and dinner sounded great after that experience! The dining area is set up so that you sit at a table with all the people in your ranger group (8 total). This means that we sat alone on the first night and at lunch, but we had 2 new arrivals at dinner tonight which was super fun! We immediately hit it off with them and I think spending time with them this week will be a blast!
Because seeing the animals on their reserve is great, but even that can get old, there are several off-site excursions you can choose to do during the week. We picked several today, and will do the first 2 tomorrow….an up close elephant encounter in the morning and a lion safari in the afternoon! It just keeps getting better!!
Being a safari, pictures are great, but sometimes videos are even better. Below you’ll see a gallery of photos first, followed by several videos! Enjoy!!
Carpe Diem...seizing life's adventures 