3 April 2015
Another day,
another safari. It was the start of a quickie safari so time was short.
Their first day
they set off on a sundowner safari where they got treated to some lovely
Amarula as the sun set. But some animals also joined in in the fun, as they saw
plenty of elephant, impalas, kudus, klipspringers and vervet monkeys.
The highlight
though, was two elephants that were flanking the road on either side of the
car. They were close to the road and so they had to wait for the elephants to
move off so they could get by safely. Before they walked of however they had
plenty of time to observe the gentle giants up close. Dinner was postponed by
thirty minutes because of them, they didn't mind.
4 April 2015
Early in the
morning we set off once again and straight away we ran into an elephant just
outside our camp. As one of our guests was listing zebras as her favorite
animals we were then lucky to come across a nice harem of them. At first they
were shy and all we could see were their bums and their tails swinging. But for
our patience we got rewarded with side views and then even frontal views. One
was kind enough to actually lift her head and stare at us long enough for a
great photo.
Our second highlight
was the amount of white rhinos we had seen. Every sighting of them being great,
as the guests had not seen a rhino
before on a previous safari in Kenya.
Downside was
that one rhino seemed to have a shot wound through and through in its neck. It
was still bleeding as if fresh, so we reported it at the nearest camp upon
arrival. Later we saw a helicopter circling the area as well as two cars with
each 4 ranger being deployed, so hopefully they were trying to locate the
wounded rhino and maybe catch them some poachers too.
Poaching is a
very big problem in South Africa. Last year 1215 rhinos were slaughtered just
for their horn. Most of them shipped to Asia (China, Vietnam) where they
believe it has medicinal properties. Well, no, it does not. It is exactly the
same compound as our hair or nails. However, with demand in Asia being high,
rhinos in Africa are slaughtered for it anyways. As this weekend is a full moon
weekend, poaching incidents are spiking as with a full moon they have better
vision.
Let's hope this
time the rhino won and the poachers got caught!
Other animals
seen: giraffe, vervet monkeys, hippos, crocodile, purple heron, egyptian goose,
yellow-billed hornbill, blacksmith lapwing, elephants, steenbok, more zebras,
chameleon, waterbucks, wildebeests, kudus, and of course impalas.
After saying
goodbye to Ainsling and Ciara, I straight away picked up new guests and set off
on a new safari. Upon arrival at Nkambeni we checked in and then the guests
went on a sundowner safari.
This time the
sundowner wasn't so great. First of all it was a cloudy evening and thus no
sunset that they could see. With the clouds obscuring the brilliant stars,
there was not much there to see either. Secondly it was a rather quiet drive
with just sightings of impalas and a kudu, both of which we already had seen on
camp road upon arrival, and 1 buffalo in the distance.
They were
treated to dinner with a show afterwards, which they enjoyed. But as we do
personally, they had sneaked out when they were looking for volunteer dancers.
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