THURSDAY 11/22 Thanksgiving
in Africa
My mom and really had a blast on safari. By now
my mom and I were total pros at going to sleep at 9 pm and waking up at 5 pm.
The trouble at this point of the trip was facing the fact that we only had
three game drives left. I was already dreading the fact that we’d have to leave
Elephant Plains Game Lodge the following day. We had bidden Louis and Fanoti
farewell the night before. They had already worked for six weeks straight and
they were due for a two week period of leave. That meant we’d meet our new ranger
and tracker at the crack of dawn.
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| Willie & Connie |
We headed out to the Land Cruisers at 5:20 and met Willie and Conny. They were
very friendly and took time to shake each guest’s hand as they arrived and
climbed into the vehicle. Willie was very soft spoken and Connie was even more
so. Willie asked us a question that made my heart race, “Did you guys hear the
lions last night?”
The lions (just like all of the other animals) are free
to come and go as they please. Unfortunately they had decided to wander off the
property two days before my mom and I arrived. There was no way to know when
they’d come back so my mom and I had prepared ourselves for the possibility of
seeing zero lions on our trip. Willie’s simple question changed everything.
Willie said that the lions were calling to each other all
night long. He had a good idea of what area they were in and we set out right
away.
GAME DRIVE 4
After driving for a few minutes (and carefully scanning
the road ahead) Willie and Connie agreed to stop the car and start tracking on
foot. The most suspenseful part of our trip was watching Willie and Connie walk
farther and farther away from the car until they were both out of sight.
It didn’t help that Willie took the rifle with him. My
mom, unknowingly quoting Jurassic Park, exclaimed, “He left us!”
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| I can't wait to see this movie in 3D next year! |
Just under ten minutes later another tracker emerged from
the bush. We didn’t recognize him but he smiled and said he had been told to
come get us. We looked at him peculiarly but it wasn’t because he was a
stranger to us. It was because he didn’t have a gun. He only had a slingshot!
He hopped in the driver seat, smiling broadly as ever,
and drove us over to where Connie and Willie were waiting. (These guys truly
have an amazing sense of direction and they know the area inside and out.
Willie later told us he knew every single tree on the property and Connie would
be able to find him based on a tree description alone.) The tracker then walked
back to his own vehicle which was waiting nearby. Up ahead we saw a very
welcome, much anticipated sight: four adult lionesses.
I can’t tell you how great it was to just stare and stare
and stare and these four beauties. Willie told us that this group (part of the
the Breakaway
Tsalala pride) was made up of two pairs of sisters. One pair of sisters had
been adopted by the mother of the other two sisters and all four were raised as
siblings. One of the lionesses had been pregnant and given birth in the past
but her cubs didn’t make it. Willie told us that raising lion cubs is very difficult
and it can take a few tries before an adult female successfully raises cubs to
adulthood. This particular lioness was pregnant again and the rangers are
hoping she will have healthy and thriving cubs in a few months.
The morning continued to build great momentum. We
unexpectedly came across a big 12-year-old male elephant. He wasn’t very
temperamental. In fact he was a pretty good poser.
It was good to have everyone in the car together again.
“Safety in numbers” is a common theme in the animal kingdom and humans are no
exception. Neither are hyenas, for that matter.
One of the great unexpected surprises during our time at
Elephant Plains was seeing a dazzling array of birdlife. We saw several types
of eagles. There were also many wonderful small, colorful birds. When we came
across this saddleback stork our jaws pretty much dropped.
We were still riding the “lion high” when a call came in
over the radio that there was an Africa wild dog sighting. Willie told us that
African wild dog sightings are extremely rare. He knows people who have been in
his profession for as many as 15 years who have never seen a wild dog. It was
our choice if we wanted to drive out to the sighting for a chance to see them.
Doing so would mean we’d have to drive there at top speed and not stop to look
at any of the common animals we had seen thus far (impalas, zebras, water
bucks, etc.) We agreed to go for it and Willie shifted into “Ferrari Safari”
mode.
The ride there was a total thrill. We had to drive as
fast as possible for nearly 30 minutes before we arrived at the sister lodge
where the dogs had been spotted. (Willie joked that this was all a ploy to get
us to sign up for spa services – we’d certainly need some R&R after the
crazy ride!) We met up with two other vehicles and one of the rangers told
Willie the dogs had just run off. They were chasing baby impalas all over the
place and they had already killed and eaten six of them. Willie decided to search
along the far side of the lodge. We spotted a lot of stranded impalas who had
been separated from their groups. One of the females even had a fresh wound on
her hip. Willie said, “Ah, she’s not happy. She’s just been chased.”
We carefully scanned the tall grass in the area but we didn’t
see anything. Willie got another call on the radio, listened carefully for a
moment, and then whipped us around in the opposite direction at full speed. A
minute or two later we found one of the other vehicles holding still with all of
the passengers craning at the grass nearby. The first thing I noticed was fur
with orange, black and white splotches. There was also a flurry of fluffy white
tails and a few pairs of round black ears. We had found a dozen wild dogs and
they were in the process of splitting up their freshest impala carcass.
Luckily the baby impala had been decimated and it just
looked like the dogs were playing with leftover ribs from the dinner table.
Wild dogs are extremely successful hunters (they kill 90% of the prey they
pursue) yet for some reason their population has dwindled greatly over the last
several years. Wild dog packs are led by an alpha female and an alpha male.
They are the only pair that reproduces in the pack. One wild dog litter can
contain 12 pups. The pack will create a den while they collectively raise the
pups. Everyone in the group gets along as long as they cooperate and are
willing to play a begging game to share pieces of food with each other. The sad
thing is that if either the male or female alpha is killed (or if they are both
killed) the pack will soon after split apart, wander off and die. Perhaps that
is why their numbers are endangered.
These small dogs are beautiful and even though they have a
small build similar to most medium-sized dogs, they would make terrible pets.
Make no mistake – these dogs are efficient and brutal hunters. Once they get a
hold of prey they simply rip it apart. My mom told us that a toddler had been tragically
killed by wild dogs at an exhibit at the Pittsburgh Zoo earlier in
November. While it may have been exciting to see the dogs actually take down an
impala in front of us I was somewhat relieved to not see them in action.
We left the dogs behind and started to make our way back
to our lodge. We immediately spotted a group of wildebeest and Willie told us
that one of the wildebeest was in labor. The rangers had made it abundantly
clear just how dangerous it was to be a baby animal in the wild. Even though
the wild dogs were a few hundred yards away this group of wildebeest seemed
perfectly safe. I looked at the female in labor and realized the umbilical cord
was visible. Much to his surprise Willie spotted the calf on the ground and
pointed it out to us.
The next few minutes were just spectacular. The baby
wildebeest made one or two attempts to stand up. It is extremely important for
newborn animals to be up and on their feet within minutes or else their odds of
survival plummet. (Baby giraffes have to stand up within 15 minutes or their
mothers will leave them behind.) This wildebeest mother stood close and
encouraged her baby to try again.
Once the baby got on its feet and took its first steps
the others came over immediately to meet him. It was one of the greatest moments
of our trip.
After the game drive was over we had several hours of
down time. I spent at least an hour watching two crested barbets putting on a
show to attract females. They were very loud and they waited very patiently
with food in their beaks. I was reading my mom’s safari companion book and
eventually fell asleep.
After I woke up I wandered around the lodge taking
pictures so I wouldn’t forget how beautiful everything was. My
mom and I also took advantage of the movie room and we watched an episode of
National Geographic’s “Great Migrations.”
The morning game drive was thrilling and we were pumped
for the evening game drive. Willie knew that my mom and I had seen four of The
Big Five (leopards, water buffalo, elephants and lions) and we were just
missing the rhinoceros. Would tonight be the night we’d find one?
GAME DRIVE 5
The safari experience once again proved to be completely
unpredictable. We spent a good deal of time tracking a rhino but his tracks
eventually led to an adjacent private property which we were not allowed to
enter. Along the way we saw another group of water buffalo. This group was a
little more sightly than the mud-caked “old dagga boys” we had seen two days
prior.
We had another great elephant encounter. A small group of
elephants crossed our path. They were a bit difficult to photograph because
they moved quickly and disappeared into the trees as fast as they had emerged. Regardless
it was totally awesome to see them.
We saw many of our other common animal friends. Eventually
we pulled off for our evening beverage break and chatted with our group. The
biggest challenge of the game drives (besides drinking too much water and
ignoring the fact that I had to go to the bathroom) was to curb any frustration
I experienced when we had a relatively “slow” morning or night. It was very
easy to assign blame to the person in charge (in this case Willie) but I had to
constantly remind myself that he doesn’t control the animals and he is doing
his absolute best to find them. Each staff member we interacted with had an
obvious appreciation and respect for the animals. Willie emanated a real love
for the animals and it was clear that this was his dream job.
THANKSGIVING
DINNER
On Thursday night my mom and I enjoyed
Thanksgiving dinner with two other Americans who were seated to our left. The
table to our right was empty for a while and then Willie and his wife came into
the boma and sat there. (We had already raved about Willie to the woman who
worked at the front desk without realizing she was his wife!) It was great to
sit there and ask more questions about how he learned his tracking skills and
what he liked to do on his time off. He had taken a one-year wildlife course to
become a ranger. He picked up tracking skills over the past several years.
“It’s something that only comes with experience.” He said there is nothing
better than waking up at first light and setting out to find fresh tracks. However,
the process of tracking is mentally exhausting. Just by looking at a partial
leopard track he can tell which leopard he was tracking. (They all have names
and known territories.) When it was finally time to go on leave he’d either
head on a bass fishing trip, an excursion to Kruger National Park, or to his
in-laws’ home. Visiting the in-laws, of course, was his last choice.
I had noticed one major difference between Louis (our
previous ranger) and Willie: Louis always wore a radio ear piece and Willie
never did. Instead Willie would just have the radio turned down low or turned
off altogether. Willie told us he preferred to be out on his own as opposed to
taking his car around to every major sighting that was called in over the
radio. Seeing the animals was wonderful but finding them on his own made the victory
even sweeter for him.
I supposed many, if not all, good things come to an end.
Willie and his wife told us that eventually he’d have to find another job that
paid better so they could raise a family. The thought of Willie having to give
up being a ranger made the dread in my stomach well up. Tomorrow would be my
mom’s and my last day on safari and there was no telling if we ever even be
able to return to Africa. We were thankful for so many things but the only
thing that would have made this trip better was the presence of my dad, sisters
and brother-in-law. Even if all good things come to an end perhaps it is only
to make room for great things. Maybe having a dream job or being on a dream
vacation is just “good” in the grand scheme of things. I truly hope the best is
yet to come.
TO BE CONTINUED!
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