No one told me there would be monkeys.
The flight from Machaba to Nxabega was, according to our pilot Tom about 30 minutes. It would take us 20 minutes to fly to our first stop, 5 minutes to the second stop and then another 5 minutes to our camp. Turns out he underestimated each one. It was more like 40 minutes, 10 and 12 minutes. We know. Moira timed him. It reminded me of a story Paula told a couple of nights ago. She said in Zim they have a saying when they are meeting someone or doing something that they will be there "just now." To her husband Shane, that means soon. To people in Zimbabwe, it can mean anytime from now until 1.5-2 hours. I think our pilot was on just now time.
We were picked up at the airport by Fred. That name would be easy to remember and spell. As we pulled into camp, the staff was singing to greet us. After that, we had the traditional orientatation to the camp with a new twist. We were told a woman named Kitso would be our butler during our stay. What? We had no idea what to do with this information. A butler to me is Mr. French on Family Affair or Mr. Belvedere. So far, we have found this means she shows us to our tent and is our waitress at dinner. Another nice surprise about this place is that it has a relatively decent wifi signal. Although part of me liked not connecting, I was glad to post the first part of the blog so it wouldn't all come to people at once and feel like War and Peace in terms of length.
Tom the pilot told us it was 40 degrees Celsius here today which is slightly over 102. It felt it. We spent most of the afternoon baking in our tent. When we went to tea (because that is how we roll here in Africa...high tea at around 4), we found out that Fred was no longer our guide (Fred, we hardly knew ye) and that we now had KD, who seemed very nice and friendly. He asked what we had seen already and we went through the list. Poor KD...he gets us after we've seen almost everything. When we told him about the pangolin, he was amazed. He has only seen one once. We are sure getting a lot of mileage out of that armadillo type thing. We also discovered, to our dismay, that this was another family friendly place. Trust me, we are not against families. We just had absolutely no idea that people would be bringing kids here. One of those families had just arrived and was going to meet up with us on our drive later. Ugh. On the plus side, it wasn't the family with a daughter about 4 and two boys around 6.
As we headed out, KD said we were going to try to find a new pride of lion, 6 members, that has recently showed up and who were spotted in the morning. We had a tracker (or as I was calling him, a spotter) named TT to help us. Which begs the question...are all spotters named TT? That was the name of our tracked in Lebala, although I spelled his name Te Te. Regardless, we went hunting wabbit...I mean lion. After about 30 minutes and no luck, the family joined us. We would later learn that they are Matt, Lynn, Fin short for Finley (15 year old son), and Flo or Florry (12 year old) from south of London and that they are lovely. As I said to Moira, if we had to have a family this was a good one. They are well-traveled, nice and funny. The kids are super polite but not annoyingly so and very comfortable around adults.
After following lion tracks all around and not having much luck, we started heading towards a spot for sundowner. We spotted a kudu running quickly and there, in front of the water designated for our sundowner were 4 lions. We found them! We turned around to let TT in the car without letting the lions see and then headed towards them. We were only there a short while when the two other lions joined them. A pride of 6! We got some great pics as they met up, played around a bit and then moved on (notice the reflection in the water below).
As the sun had set, we then headed to sundowner where we got to talk to the British family some more. They lit up when we said we were from NYC as Matt and Lynn lived there for a year on 84th and First before the kids were born. He is in Finance and we get the impression he does quite well. They live outside of London somewhere and it sounds like he has a long commute. They talked a lot about their travels and Fin mentioned Corsica. Not a bad gig. If we had to have a family, we realized later, we seemed to get a great one.
Dinner here is not communal. It also appears that we all have assigned seats. In a way, it was a nice break as you don't have to work as hard at conversation.
The tent was still quite warm when we got back and the housekeeping staff had put the covers up on all the screens. Thinking it would help with ventilation, we took the middle ones off on either side with the hope that it would help create a cross breeze (remember this for later in the paragraph). We also ran the fan, but the camp cuts the generator off after a certain time at night to conserve it...I think it is about a half hour after the last person leaves the lodge area. It wasn't cool but it was comfortable and seemed to have less bugs then our previous tent, probably because it has a door as opposed to a zip open flap. There was a lizard we saw earlier in the day that I tried to guide out but it didn't work. Moira named him Larry (check him out to left of the window, towards the top).
Even with Larry around, I think we both fell asleep relatively quickly. But at around 2 AM, we both woke up to the sound of very loud crunching sounds outside the tent, on the side where our beds were. There were heavy footsteps and loud breathing, which indicated an elephant. Then, our tent shook pretty strongly like a small earthquake or, well, like a huge animal had hit it. We were both wide awake now and relatively terrified. Our hearts were pounding. By now, we were sure it was an elephant. We stayed still as we could hear it continuing to move and as it seemed to ram into the front porch again. The steps continued as the elephant made its way to the other side of the tent across from us. We could hear it trying to pull up grass but it also felt as if it was trying to upend the tent, as he went for the high grass all around it. Looking up at the exposed screen, where we had the only glimmer of light from outside, the view suddenly went dark as the elephant was in front of that screen. Keep in mind that our tent is about 5 steps up and the window goes to the top, so that meant the elephant was pretty big. It continued to pull up grass, which sort of rocked the tent. Our hearts continued to pound. We whispered back and forth "Can he see us?" "I hope the kids are okay in the tent next door." "What is he doing now" The general rule on safari is to be still and stay a part of your background, either when in the vehicle or in your tent. The animals won't know you are separate unless you move and make noise. At one point, as he quieted down a bit, I hit my fuel band to check out what time it was. Moira whispered, "Don't do that. No light!" After a good amount of time with no movement, we concluded he had gone, although we have no idea how after making so much noise. Moira eventually got up and closed the blinds. She looked at the time and said, "well, we now have 4 more hours not to sleep tonight." We didn't hear him again but it was hard to sleep. We did hear either hippo or hyena or even lion loudly making noise in the distance.
In the morning, Moira said that the inside of a tent here must be like a box of chocolates to elephants. The elephants never know what they will get. It could be two British kids. It could be two New Yorkers out of their natural habitat. At breakfast, we found out that others had visits from him or his friends as well. Oh and I forgot to mention that there are monkeys at this camp. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about monkeys. And that is that they scare me. I am not sure if it is a Wizard of Oz thing or what but I don't find them cute; I find them evil...always trying to grab things. Here, they go up in the trees and on the roof of the lodge where they wait for the opportunity to swoop down and grab some food. Like this:
Some of the staffers here, including Kitso our butler, stand there with a big stick to ward them off.
Interestingly with all the commotion caused by the elephants last night, we didn't see any on our game drive. The vegetation here is very think, with high grass, as the water table is so close by. We did see a pond with about 14 hippo in it and we found the pack of wild dogs...8 dogs, which include the alpha female, two males, and 5 pups. Unlike yesterday, they weren't in attack mode. It was more sit/sleep in the shade mode. They almost look cute until I remember how they tore that impala apart.
They have rather big ears and long legs. They are in danger of becoming extinct because only the alpha females can have babies and only once in year. This female was limping once she got up which is never a good sign in the animal kingdom. We spent the rest of the morning trying to find the lion pride again to no avail.
The afternoon was the typical hot, stillness. We tried to sit in the shade in the main area of the camp but it was still too hot. Anything that touches your skin, either clothes or a chair, makes you sweat. We went back to the tent which we are now calling the Easy Bake oven, because it is small and bakes us. It was hotter than outside. There is a pool so we decided to check it out. Even though the air was rather still, dangling our legs in or walking in a few steps helped cool us down tremendously (even with bathing suits we weremt up for the whole swim thing). Why had we not done this before? Welcome to the new place for siesta.
The afternoon game drive was a bit different in that after driving a bit, we got into Mocoros, which are really like canoes, for a ride. There were two people per mocoro with a guide. It is how the locals used to get around. We went through shallow swampland as the sun was setting. It gave us a chance to see some smaller birds and the tiniest little frogs (that are actually quite loud). After that and sundowner, we stopped on the airstrip to look a little at the stars. I wish there were a way to capture that on film or even in words. All I can say is that there are tons of them and you can see the Milky Way. As we drove towards camp, we saw lights in the distance that weren't at our camp. KD told us that they were from local fisherman. But that seemed odd as there were too many lights and they were different heights. KD drove towards it and when we approached, we realized there was a fire going and the whole camp was there. It was a surprise bush dinner! And the camp did it up well. The lights we had seen were lanterns in the trees. There was a station for us to wash and dry our hands. Next to it was a fully stocked bar. Chairs were set up all around the campfire. The only downside was that none of us knew we would be outside and we weren't dressed properly. No worries. The camp had but spray and we could get blankets from the cars. We were the last to arrive so they got this rolling right after we got to the fire. The staff members sang us some traditional songs ans then they invited us to sit down at our tables which were all nicely set. The dinner was as good as at the camp, with appetizer (tonight we start with the soup) and dessert served and the main course as a buffet. It was, as our British friends say, lovely. Moira and I were wondering if it was a Saturday thing (as it seems a lot of work). I asked KD and he told me that they do it about once every three days as they like to try to have everyone experience it and that is the length of most people's stays.
Given the elephant at our door the previous night, we were a little apprehensive about what might await us tonight. And except for some various crunching noises (I am guessing the kudo who visited camp yesterday) and bird noises, it was pretty quiet. Which was alright with us.
Another morning. Another game drive. We were headed way across the delta to try and see the other lion pride. Before that, though, we tried to find the lion that were closer and the leopard. There were a number of tracks but we couldn't locate them. We had the same luck with the other pride. Lots of tracks. No lions or leopards. Mostly we saw some baby animals. A baby tesseve. A baby zebra. The interesting thing is that baby zebras have legs that are as long as adult zebras. This allows them to be camouflaged behind adults to shield them from prey. See? That is a baby zebra in front of a regular siE one on the right of the picture.
It was a bit more of the same drill. Spot tracks. Follow them. Lose them. Pick them up again. No lions. That was okay as we had an afternoon activity of taking the motorized boat through the delta. We all got on the same boat, including KD and TT. The boat allowed us to go farther than yesterday. It also allowed us to be in the same waters as the hippos and we saw a group of about 8 of them. Of course we didn't get to close. There were lots of birds and Moira is actually getting pretty good at identifying them by sight. I am not saying she is ready to join the Audobon Society but she does retain much more than me in this circumstance. (E.g. African Jicana is also known as the Jesus bird bc it looks like he is walking on water ) At one point, two somewhat small birds flew by the boat, almost skipping their tails on the water. KD got so excited as he identified them as...wait for it...the African skipper bird. He had never seen one before and I think TT saw one once. They are endangered and are only seen in a small part of Botswana from April to January. It was fun to see the two of them so excited. With this and the pangolin, we are doing quite well.
When we got out into a more open water area, KD and TT brought out some fishing poles. It gave Florry and Fin a chance to be competitive. While they were fishing, TT set up our sundowner on the boat and Matt, Lynn, Moira and I had a drink.The Brits did not disappoint with a steady order of Gin and tonic every night! Florry, with some help from KD caught the first fish. Fin followed with one shortly after. They were both pretty big catfish looking ones. Florry followed by getting one on her own and winning the sibling contest...for now. The adults just sat back and enjoyed our respective drinks (served up by TT on the left and smiling KD on the right):
As usual, our ride back was almost like a night game drive. This was the best one yet though as we saw three hippo our of the water, moving quickly through an open area and the grass. You rarely see hippo out of the water during the day as their skin is very sensitive and burns. Which made this a good sighting. And those big things were moving! Actually it was a big one and a smaller one together...and then another big one alone. They actually leave hippo trails.
For our last dinner, our whole car group - the British family (who we now know as the Edwards), KD, Moira and me - first started out sitting around having a pre-dinner drink and chat in the outdoor area. Thuli the camp manager asked if we would like our tables pushed together for dinner and everyone thought that was a good idea, especially if KD joined us as well. We had a really fun and long dinner, talking about everything from reality tv to snow in NYC and Britain. You tend to meet a lot of nice people at places like this and at times, exchange contact infrimation. But it often falls through after that. However, they are coming to NYC at Easter and want some recommendations. And they would love to meet us for dinner in London if we get back to Wimbledon. We shall see.
It was a rather late night as we had to shower, pack and be ready to go after the next morning's game drive. It was also a night where we didn't sleep well. Not because the elephant...or as Moira now calls him, Harry Elefante...returned but because the winds kicked up and they caused the tents to make a lot of noise during the night. The canvas flaps against the poles loudly. The blinds flap against the canvas. And so on. We were all dragging a bit in the morning. And we were tracking the lion again which requires a lot of patience and going back and forth. There was a lot of head bobbing in the jeep, and Florrie even fell asleep. There were tracks but what was different today was there was a rotten smell, which indicated perhaps a kill. After almost two hours of this, I almost wanted to tell them it was okay to give up. But then KD stopped the car and got the binoculars (this in itself was not unusual...he did it multiple times) and said, "I think I see one." We all looked off into the distance as well and what looked like a bump between a tree and some brush was actually the head of a male lion. It was far away so we couldn't take pictures that showed much, but after two days of work, we found him. And within minutes, he decided to lay down. KD tried to pull in closer but the ground was marshy and it looked like the lion had found himself a bit of an island to sit on.
KD suggested that we go have our morning coffee break and then come back a bit later to see if he moved. KD also called the other drivers from the camp to let them know. We drove far enough away to do the break that we weren't in any danger but close enough that we could easily come back. When we did, the other two drivers/cars were there and we could see the head a bit. The cars were kind of stacked up along a termite mound and the guides let us stand in the jeep and even on the termite mound a bit to try to take pictures. It was still quite far away but then the lion, noticing us, decided to assess the threat. We quickly got back in the vehicles and drove a little to an opening where he walked out. He was a nice size male, probably 8 years old according to KD. He walked by the cars and then behind us, where he laid down under a tree and began doing the things that lions do. Yawning. Cleaning his paws. Checking out the landscape. We got pretty close and got some amazing pictures. KD said that when the lion saw the individual people standing on the mounds he may have seen it as animals, potentially after whatever he killed back there. Coming out, though, he only really saw us as there big vehicles. Which is fine by me.
It was a great way to end safari. But here is still one more story to tell. You know how I am scared of monkeys? Today they gave me good reason. We were having a quick brunch before heading to the airstrip and really finishing it up when a squirrel came by. Moira was trying to shoo it away when I told her I was more worried about the monkeys which were back in camp. Lynn had come up to say good bye when all of a sudden, one of those evil monkeys swooped in and started to shovel food from our little bowls on the serving tray into his mouth, mostly pasta and some of the pork. We tried to scare him a bit and he gave us an evil snarl. Somehow Lynn got him to go away and then she grabbed the monkey stick to keep him at bay. But not before he got a fair amount of food and left a mess behind. Thus confirms my fear that monkeys are scary. I think even Moira will agree now.
We said farewell to the Edwards with hugs all around. As we got into the car to pull away, all the staff members came out to see us off (a number would greet us each time we came back with huge waves and smiles, making us feel like they were truly glad to see us) while singing. The Edwards all joined in. It was very sweet and marked our second good bye. We got a third later as our MackAir charter flight was a bit delayed and we ran into them at the airstrip. But third time was the charm and we took off, with the same pilot Tom who dropped us there, bringing it all full circle, and headed back to Joburg for the next leg of our trip.
Total number of flights: 6
Total number of game drives: 17
Total number of flat tires: 4 (unchanged)
Total number of close encounters with elephants: 3
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