October 7 2010 / Kariega Game Reserve

The next day we arose at 5:30 bright and early to depart on our morning game drive, and we decided to go back after our lion friends, as we didn’t see them too well before.  And in literally in ten minutes or less we discovered a male lion, his mate, her four cubs and a juvenile male lion, settled close together between two sets of shrubbery and underneath some POWER LIONS (PRETTY FUNNY, RIGHT GUYS?).  We crept closer in our car until we were only about 20 meters away or so.  The male lion and the juvenile male went to the right as we came closer.  All of a sudden, the cubs shot off to the left.  Seconds later, intense roaring was heard, as well as a little bit of minor crunching of brush.  The female went after the two males, and then returned later to roar a few more times.  The cubs presently came back, as did the male lion, but the juvenile had been chased away—he is starting to get too big and is becoming a threat to the alpha male lion.  It was absolutely amazing and I actually got most of it on film.  The male resumed laying down, and the female settled down again to the right, letting her cubs (I say cubs, but they were still probably at least as my big as my dog) nurse from her and climb all over her and each other, licking each other occasionally.  It was absolutely incredible and they were adorable and it was just SO COOL.  It was the Lion King come to life right in front of me, basically.  We learned that cubs are taught how to defend food, how to hunt, and then how to kill by their momma, which I thought was just… wow.  Learning about the elephants and lions just made them seem all the more intelligent to me.  Sorry Kenz, no ivory to you, especially after how human elephants seem to me now.

After about an hour or so of watching the lions, we headed off to a big field, looking for—well, just looking, but it was a place favored by many of the herds of animals—a wide plain besides many trees.  In the middle of the plain, where the water hole was (a very small water hole), was a rhino and her baby, with another standing further away.  I don’t think I have ever noticed until now that rhinos literally look like tanks.  They are walking, breathing tanks.  They were just kind of cool to see.  Then we were off up the hill, passing HUGE herds of zebra and five giraffes hiding eating leaves in the trees.  One giraffe was absolutely enormous with really dark brown markings—he was the bull giraffe.  Turns out giraffes necks are too short, as they have to spindle out their legs when they’re drinking, which makes them vulnerable to predators.  AWESOME.  :D

As we drove we noticed that the ground was shimmering.  We stopped and it looked closer—there were thousands of winged termites on the ground and beginning to launch themselves into the air—it was quite a swarm.  In the distance we could see vervet monkeys leaping up to catch the termites and eat them—it was pretty funny to see them hop up and down.  “They’re quite good protein,” said Phil.  Reaching up, he plucked one, grabbing it by the head and wings, and bit the body.

He probably meant to gross us out, but I immediately clamored up, “Give me one, I’m hungry!”  So he snatched one out of the air and gave it to me, probably because he thought I was bluffing.  I was not.  It was a big ol’ bug, probably about as long as my thumb (though of course not as thick).  I was supposed to hold the wings and head and bite the body off, but instead I just sort of shoved the whole thing in my mouth.  Actually, it tasted a little like buttered popcorn—kind of oily, and the wings felt like those kernel pieces.   DELICIOUS

Speaking of eats, we then got back to eat breakfast and then around 10AM we went on a hiking trail called the Sunset Hike—it wasn’t so much BIG animals we saw (we did see three giraffes) as it was concentrating on the little world.  We sound termites fighting ants, a dung beetle working on his dung ball, termites stuck in spider webs (which was cool because we watched the spider bite the termite and let it die).  We also saw several small scorpions on the path (with smaller tails and HUGE pinchers) so that was pretty cool too.  After late lunch I took a massive and much needed nap, and then we went out on our afternoon game drive, looking for leopards.  During the early part of this I noticed that my shoulder was hurting INTENSELY, like I had a massive bruise.  When I rolled up my sleeve, I saw the largest, most gnarly spiderbite I have ever seen in my entire life.  It was puffy, red, and stretching the skin, and I couldn’t get it to open so I could drain the poison.  IT HURT (and would only get worse for days to come).  Despite the relative heat, I kept my sweater on just because it was so disgusting to look at.

We went into an area that just had tons upon tons of open valleys and hills.  There were no leopards to be found, but we went out on an observation platform to see 5 hippos floating around in the river.  I couldn’t see their whole bodies but I know that they are godless killing machines that will pretty much destroy you just because you’re in their zone.  Many of the girls were obsessing over one of the guides, so I asked Phil about his wife and then we proceeded to annoy him with personal questions . We joined other 4x4s overlooking the plains as the sun set and drank hot chocolate and something called “Simba Chips” which I find fascinating. 

On our night drive, we found buffalo!  There were four of them moving away, so we didn’t get very good pictures, but there’s another animal to check off my Big Five list.  We also saw hippos out of the water, across the river.  THEY ARE HUGE.  They are like… the size of rhinos, no joke.  There was a babby hippo but I was not fooled by its cuteness.  We also saw a babby zebra following after mom.  It was pretty great. 

We had a “boma” dinner, which is basically like an open air dinner where the food was cooked on an open flame.  Ribs are delicious.  Everyone wanted to party that night and “have their own bottle of wine,” but I thought that was just about the silliest thing I had ever heard (we were waking up at 5AM to go on a drive at 5:30!), so I decided to pass, did a little bit of writing, postcarding, and a nice, early bedtime!