Wild Dogs!

It is my belief that a person can go on hundreds of game drives over the course of his or her life and never be bored. Hopefully the same applies to people who read a blog that contains frequent posts about game drives. Hopefully it does not become boring after a while.

I think game drives are like snowflakes, fingerprints and zebras in that no two are alike. Sometimes game drives are action packed with many different sightings. Sometimes they are thrilling as you may watch an animal stalking prey.  Other times, you may quietly watch an animal as it relaxes, drinks from a water hole or minds its babies. 

Recently we brought family visiting from the U.S.A. to the Ivory Tree Game Lodge in Pilanesberg National Park. It was the first safari experience for the group and I am happy to say everyone loved it. Happy because as SVP of Household Operations, I planned the whole holiday.  Our guide, Ryan, was excellent and we had many exciting and special sightings. 

On the first game drive after dark we spotted a leopard. Leopards are not something that you see everyday and we tried to tell our guests that but they were too busy being amazed to listen. Mr. Deep and I have heard stories of people who are desperate to see a leopard because despite years of trying they never have. 

Not a great photo.

Sometimes within minutes of the start of a game drive something fantastic happens, right out of the gate as they say, and that's what happened to us the day that we spotted a small pack of three African wild dogs. 

Ryan called wild dogs the "holy grail" of game viewing and he was so excited that we got to see them that he took out his camera out and was taking pictures. He said it had been three months since he had seen wild dogs.  When writing this, I couldn't remember why exactly wild dogs are such a rare sighting so I had to ask resident expert (on everything) Mr. Deep and he explained that they are endangered, have very large territories, move quickly and spend time hiding in dens. 

Ryan told us that the three that we saw broke away from a larger pack.  We watched them for a long while and eventually they came closer enabling some super photos! 

While the cheetah is the fastest land animal, wild dogs can run very fast (up to about 35 miles per hour) for long periods of time. Cheetahs cannot run fast for extended time periods. Wild dogs hunt in packs and are considered to be the most efficient hunters.

While in Pilanesberg we also enjoyed some more animal sightings.  

Hippo out of water. Another rare thing to see. 

Yes the birdman is still at it. 

Weaver bird building a nest. 

The family with ranger extraordinaire Ryan.

Post Lecture Fun

You can imagine that following the whole Kwaad experience we were nervous to go on another safari in Pilanesberg. That episode occurred on Friday evening and we had planned to go on at least two additional game drives over the weekend. What would we do if we showed up at the meeting point only to learn that Kwaad was our leader? 

If we were assigned to Kwaad, Mr. Deep decided that he would feign illness and announce that he couldn't go on the safari. If you know Mr. Deep personally you won't be surprised to learn that his fake illness of choice was a serious case of diarrhea.  The plan was that if we arrived on Saturday morning and were assigned to Kwaad, Mr. Deep would grab his belly, double over, announce that he was in major gastric distress and then run off toward the bathroom. I was supposed to follow him (not into the bathroom but just far enough to get away from the group) to make sure he was alright. As fool proof (and creative) as this plan was, fortunately we did not have to put it into action as we were assigned to a new guide named Jonathan.

Jonathan was a lovely guide. He was very knowledgeable and also announced that if anyone saw anything (or even thought that maybe they had spotted something) that they should announce it to the group. 

We saw some great animal sightings with Jonathan including a pride of 9 lions which we came upon both in the morning and again in the evening. During the evening game drive we saw these same lions patiently stalk and then give chase to wildebeest.  We don't know if there was a kill because the chase took them out of our viewing area. But it was exciting! 

Enjoy the photos.

Rhino butts!

Elephants greeting each other

Impala in morning light

Part of the pride of 9 lions

jackal

Walking while eating grass

lioness stalking wildebeest

This is part of the pride of 9 seen in the afternoon. They are slowly making their way toward the wildebeest.

Wildebeest take off!

Lioness in wildebeest dust but other members of the lion pride had circled around toward the wildebeest from a different angle.

I always need to include one of these.

Steenbok

Pilanesberg II: The Wrath of Kwaad

The first African safari Mr. Deep and I went on was a self drive in Pilanesberg National Park. I wrote about that adventure in this post. As we had not been back to Pilanesberg since that first trip, this past weekend we traveled there to enjoy a weekend of relaxation and game drives. We arrived Friday afternoon, sat by the pool for a bit, and then headed out for the afternoon game drive.  While self drive is fine, Mr. Deep and I have learned that we prefer a guided game drive because the guides really do know where to find the animals. When you are driving yourself you're kind of just aimlessly cruising around and hoping for the best.

We checked in for the drive and were assigned to one of the safari vehicles.  While we were waiting to "take off" we saw the driver/game drive leader of the other vehicle jump on board in a jolly and enthusiastic manner to excitedly greet his safari goers. He introduced himself and proceeded to let everyone know what a fun adventure they were in for. Meanwhile, on our bus, our driver boarded without any greeting at all. As if this weren't strange enough, when he tried to start the vehicle it wouldn't start.

At this point, Mr. Deep jumped from his seat and began offering the use of his ResQ battery to anyone who would listen. Instead of taking Mr. Deep up on his offer to save the day, our driver tried to pop start the vehicle with the assistance of some other guides. Finally, the vehicle started and we were on our way. 

We drove into the park and our driver stopped the vehicle to welcome us. When I say welcome us I mean that he stood up facing us and the other passengers expressionless and silently staring until everyone gave him his full attention. Then, without telling us his name or giving any instructions or information he mumbled a few words and we were on our way again. He did not seem very enthused about the game drive ahead. In fact he seemed quite annoyed. Mr. Deep inferred that he was angry that he was assigned to the vehicle that wouldn't start.  Since our guide never told us his name, I'm going to call him Kwaad which means means angry in Afrikaans (according to Google.) 

When on safari everyone wants to see lions. Often you will not see them as they spend most of their time lying under trees and sleeping. Shortly into the drive one of our fellow passengers started yelling, "lions, lions." Instead of being excited by this news, Kwaad stopped the vehicle (reluctantly I might add) and said, in annoyed tone "are you sure?" This was a strange reply because it can be difficult to spot animals on safari and usually people are encouraged to shout if they think they see something. As they say many of sets of eyes are better than one. Our fellow passenger insisted he had seen lions and so begrudgingly Kwaad started to back up the vehicle. While he was doing so some of the passengers were trying to guide him, as there was a lot of brush which was blocking the view of the lions. Kwaad was not interested in any critique or feedback about where to stop the vehicle. He abruptly stopped the bus, turned off the engine and began to lecture the group about how we "had no respect for each other." It seemed like he was just mad that he hadn't seen the lions first but who knows what set him off. His rant gave me flashbacks of when our elementary school bus driver used to pull over to the side of the road to yell at us. Kwaad went on to sternly tell us that "the lions were on the road earlier but since our group was late getting started we missed that." He closed his lecture with "if you want to be selfish then you should rent a private safari vehicle" because there are "22 people on this bus." 

His diatribe really seemed to come out of no where as I didn't witness anyone doing anything out of the ordinary. People get excited when animals are spotted and they grab their cameras and try to get photos. Of course there are situations that would require a safari guide to lash out at passengers, like if people had their limbs hanging out of the vehicle or if they were tossing raw meat out to the animals but in this case I am not really sure what it was that people on our bus did to warrant such a tongue lashing. And, in fairness to all of us, Kwaad never explained any rules to the group when we set out. Other guides we have had in the past have shared rules such as stay in your seats and reminded people that not everyone is going to be the correct side for viewing every single time. 

Following Kwaad's monologue, we continued our our way, spotting hippos, elephants, zebras and a leopard. During this time, Kwaad seemed to relax a bit making some jokes and acting like his earlier tirade hadn't happened. Then, about two hours in to the drive, it was time to stop for a break. We exited one of the park gates so that we could safely get out of the vehicle to enjoy a drink and a snack.  Just prior to the break we had just seen an elephant walking nearby. Kwaad told us that once we stopped we could walk along the fence line and watch the elephant drink from the water hole. Several people from our group walked up to the fence only to be scolded by Kwaad moments later for "scaring the elephant away."

At this point, Mr. Deep and I were trading glances at each other over this absurd conduct. But the craziest behavior came at the conclusion of our break.

Most of us at one time or another have been on a group tour or at a work meeting where there is a break. And if you have, you know that most people don't really observe the break time allotted and have to be herded back so that things can get started again. This break was no different. While we were enjoying drinks and snacks Mr. Deep and I began talking to a nice couple. They were telling us all about their trip across America by rail when we felt a set of eyeballs burning into our backs.  The eyeballs belonged to Kwaad. He was standing nearby, arms folded, glaring at us. We took this to mean that break time was now over. We quickly boarded the bus hoping to avoid being yelled at. 

When everyone was back on board, Kwaad announced that we had taken more than the ten minute allotted break time and that the gate to the park where we had exited was now closed. This seemed pretty ridiculous since we were standing right next to the gate the whole break time and I am pretty sure the gate was manually closed by someone working the gate. Kwaad went on to say that since we didn't follow his instructions we would have to drive around and re-enter at the main park gate to get back to the hotel. It seems like an announcement could have easily been made to say get back on the bus now before the gate closes, since we were all standing within about 50 feet of the bus, but no such announcement was made. We were clearly being punished for our earlier transgressions. It reminded me of how the airlines love to blame passengers for flight delays. "Since the boarding process took too long and there were too many carry on bags we couldn't leave the gate before the thunderstorm rolled in so now we are delayed."

As the park was now closed we ended our game drive in an unusual manner of driving the last 20 minutes along a main road outside the park in our safari vehicle. I'm also pretty sure we witnessed a car jacking while we were making our way back to the lodge. 

Mr. Deep and I found the situation amusing but I do feel badly if there was anyone on the drive who saved their money to go on safari and then spent the afternoon getting yelled at. 

And we still don't know what it was that we did wrong. 

Pilanesberg National Park

On Sunday we visited Pilanesberg National Park in search of wild African animals. I am sure over the course of this blog there will be lots of posts about safaris and wildlife. The next time we go to see animals I will have a better camera! Using my phone and the ipad is really not cutting it. 

Pilanesberg is over 2 million years old and is one of only three alkaline volcanoes in the world. Do we have any geologists out there who have any idea what this means? Pilanesberg was declared a national park in 1984 and the park covers 220 square miles (572 km2.) It is the philosophy of Pilanesberg to conserve biodiversity while maximizing the park's economic contribution to the regional economy. 

The trip to Pilanesberg takes about 2 hours each way from where we are staying. We woke up at 4 a.m. and got on the road by 5 a.m. It seems the first rule of wild animal viewing is that in the summer (which it is here now) animals get up early in the morning to go to the water holes. As the day gets hotter the animals tend to lay low and they are harder to spot.

The first part of the trip was kind of harrowing (depends on who you ask because Mr. Deep would say it was totally fine) as we drove through some not great areas of Pretoria in the dark. Once we got on the motorway things improved and we drove through some really small towns and saw some interesting things. First of all the phenomenon of highway pedestrians continues. There were so many people walking along the roads and this was before 7 a.m. on a Sunday. I am thinking people were probably going to church. There are also a lot of people trying to hitch rides. At first we were confused because the would be hitch hikers were not using the thumb gesture as you would (or more likely wouldn't because you wouldn't be hitch hiking) in the U.S. They kind of wave or make like a slow down gesture by moving their palm in a downward motion. We also saw a lot of shanty towns, which is something unbelievable to see and I will definitely write some posts about this in the future. There were also huge fields of sunflowers in full bloom. I tried to get pictures of some of this but there really was no way to pull over so they turned out kind of blurry and as usual don't do the actual scenes justice.

We arrived at the park just a bit around 7:15 a.m. After paying at the gate you get a map/booklet and go into the park and just drive along dirt roads looking for animals. First, we made our way towards a water hole. The first exciting animals we saw were hippos. Just like you'd imagine they were kind of lying there and you can only see part of their bodies and their huge eyes.

A bit later, we saw a male lion. He was in the grass so it's practically impossible to see him well in the pictures. 

We saw a lot of what we started affectionately calling "deer" including impalas, kudu, springbok, eland etc. Here's a short video of a wildebeest walking right by our car.

There were many zebras out and about which was quite cool. Here's a photo and a short video of some zebras just hanging out and eating grass.

You would not believe how intently you are staring when you are trying to spot animals. It's exciting but exhausting because you are looking so hard at the landscape. I can't tell you how many times one of us yelled out "wait, what's that?" only to discover it was just a rock or a tree. I will say though that I think I am a pretty good animal spotter. 

Mr. Deep and I were really hoping to see elephants and finally we did see one. Back to my earlier point I realize it's not a competition but I did see it first. When we first saw him he was alone just eating grass. Then I guess he wanted to walk toward the water hole and he started walking down the road. We ran into some people who clearly didn't read their map booklet because they pulled their SUV up close to the elephant. You're supposed to back up and stay out of his way! Mr. Deep may not get nervous about driving around sketchy Pretoria in the wee hours of the morning, but he was none too excited to have an elephant walking toward the car and he was definitely not taking any chances. We later saw more elephants at another water hole. Below is a photo and a short video of some of the elephant sightings.

We didn't get to see any giraffes, baboons, vervet monkeys, cheetahs, leopards, buffalo or rhinos. We'll definitely go back to Pilanesberg and will also visit different parks in the future! Here are some more pictures of beautiful scenery from the park and one shot from the ride home. 

Some kind of nests that we saw a lot of throughout the day. I tried to Google to figure out what they were but couldn't find anything. 

Isn't this just how you'd picture an African sky to be? 

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