The last two days of my life have been, in a word: SAFARITASTIC!! In a span of 24 hours, I spent 12 hours in a safari vehicle on the hunt to see the animals. We got incredibly lucky on our four, three hour safari drives. When we arrived at Hilltop Camp at Hluhlue Umfolozi park (the oldest in Africa!), we immediately booked our drives. My mantra for this safari trip was "well, I don’t know if and when I’ll ever be back on a safari in Africa, so I’m going to do them all!" Our accommodation was amazing - two bedroom houses with a living room, kitchen and a huge balcony overlooking the valley. On the way to the bungalow, while hauling all my stuff up a massive hill, we saw vervet monkeys playing in the tree. Crazy!!
Our first night safari drive started off slow…but our anticipation kept us all going. We were excited by the thought of seeing….something, anything. And we definitely didn’t know what to expect. I got to play "spotlight" girl and shine the light off into the bush to help spot the animals at night. I spotted a huge giraffe, and everyone got trigger happy with our cameras. Later on we saw a huge hippo right beside the road (probably 10 ft from the truck). He was out grazing, and not in the water. At our rest stop, I was trying to teach Kori how to clog, and then she started giving us some hula lessons (she’s from Hawaii), when one of our guides joined in and attempted to teach us an African stomp dance. He was laughing at our lack of rhythm, but it was definitely a fun moment. On the way back to camp, our vehicle came upon two male white rhinos walking down the middle of the road. They just strolled and took their sweet time, we following them for a good twenty minutes. When we got back to the lodge, we ran to the buffet dinner, as many of us did not each lunch and were starving by 8pm when we returned. We hit the hay early in anticipation of our 6am drive in the morning.
Oh the perks of getting up early. It was like Elk Patrol on steroids! At 5:50 am we departed and began seeing lots of deer - Kudu, Springbok, Dyka, Impala,etc. We got some close up views of the water buffalos (one of the big 5), but the best moment was to come. The sun had just come up and we were driving on this remote dirt road, when Mary in the very back of the vehicle (each vehicle holds 10 people plus the driver - 3 rows and 3 and the front seat - all open air), started whispering LEOPARD, LEOPARD, LEOPARD! Our guide threw it in reverse and there was a small female leopard about 20 ft away from the car. She stayed there posing for us for about 30 seconds, and I was able to snap a picture or two, despite the fact that she was partly hidden behind the brush. We were totally exhilarated and our guide told us we were very lucky because he’s only seen a leopard that up close only 3 times in the 5 years he’s been doing this. High off our sighting, we continued driving down the road when we saw the male leopard standing on the side of the road! We had a perfect profile view of the profile, but the ran way too quickly to get a good shot. I still can’t believe I saw TWO leopards on the drive! When we headed back to the main road, we turned the corner and were again treated to a lone hyena returning from his hunt walking TOWARD our vehicle. We all got some great shots and were once again exhilarated! Our final great sighting of our early morning drive was the herd of five giraffes right beside the road. We stayed there for a good 20 minutes just watching them eat and mosey around. They are such clumsy, yet graceful creatures. I think they might be my new favorite animal!
There's the leopard I saw about 10 ft away!
GOOD MORNING SOUTH AFRICA!! Early morning game drive sunrise
The hyena that walked TOWARD our car!
Giraffe Family!
When we got back, we bragged to the other vehicles about our leopard spotting - we were the only ones who got to see a leopard. Lucky us! We were so amped up from our drive that we decided we needed to book the 10 am drive (we got back around 8:30), so we headed back out to the bush for another three hours of fun. Heck, for $25 of 3 hours of driving looking for animals I’ll probably never see again in the wild…SIGN ME UP! The theme of our second day drive was :baby animals. We were on the pursuit to see Elephant and Lion (the rest of the big 5 we hadn’t seen), and were treated to more fabulous encounters. Baby zebra and mom right in front of the vehicle…baby giraffe and mom 50 feet out…and the best: family of elephants in a watering hole. The elephants…ahh I cannot say enough about the elephants. We spotted them from a distance down in the watering hole, and our guide, Xolani, put the pedal the metal to get us there in time. Chris, Jane, and I were in the very back of the truck and we hit a bump and got about 5 inches of air! When we arrived in viewing distance of the waterhole there were the five elephants: 3 adults, the baby, and the young adolescent frolicking in the water. Spraying water through their trunks, drinking, marching in line…and the highlight: the baby rolling around taking a mud bath. It was just such an awesome sight….every moment in the game reserve was just amazing! On our way back to camp, we saw more rhinos and water buffalos up close, a line of blue wildebeest, and a lone baboon sitting on a branch right next to the vehicle. The thing that really surprised me about all our time on safari is how unfazed the animals are by our presence; I’m sure they’re used to seeing the vehicles all the time, but it still surprised me. When we got back I crashed, and managed to scrounge up some real food, as I hadn’t eaten anything all day except a candy bar. Ahh Snickers bar: the breakfast of champions. We did a community dinner of grilled cheese, tomato soup, tuna fish, cheese and olives around 4pm and then we departed on our final night drive.
The night drive was in a word: COLD. The animals really weren’t out at all, but we did manage to see a ton of zebras right around our vehicle, as well as a mongoose. We had the same guide all day, and he knew we were on the pursuit to see a lion - the last of the big 5 we had yet to see in the wild. He tried really hard to deliver, and even took us down some forbidden roads with a lot of tall grass. Unfortunately, it wasn’t our night. I guess I always have to have a reason to return to a place, and for my African safari experience, I need to return to see a lion.
Our safari experience ended with a small group dinner in one of our bungalows. We all shared spaghetti and swapped stories ( a la college style). One of the groups had a giant bull elephant following their truck and he got about 10 ft away from them. Another group went on a hike with a guide and his rifle. They managed to get stuck between a confrontation between rhinos and elephants. The guide had the gun locked and loaded and had to scare of the rhino so they elephants wouldn’t charge. Crazy! The night ended with some star gazing a million stars with the milky way as clear as day, a beautiful view of the southern cross, and a wish on a shooting star. I think I might be one of the luckiest people alive….
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