Our first game driver was Blues and he picked us up at 4:30pm, just after we arrived at the Kruger Gate Hotel. Jeff, our Tour Guide, advised us that the night drives are often disappointing. This did not dissuade us. We flew 5000 miles to see animals and didn't want to miss a single Impala. Imagine how excited we were to tell Jeff we'd seen three of the Big 5 – Lions, Elephants and a Rhino – as well as hyenas, dakka, bushbuck, a mongoose, a genet and more by the steady hand of Joan's spotlight from the back seat of the jeep. It was like we were on a movie set, she in charge of lighting and me manning the camera. All of these night sightings were animals perched right at the side of the road.
I was poised to take a photo of a large male elephant about 8 feet from our truck when suddenly Blues put the car in gear and sped forward. Thankfully Blues knew that when this elephant picked up his front hoof and scratched the ground he was not waving a friendly hello. This was his subtle way of warning annoyance. Had I gotten that photo our elephant friend may well have charged before I had time to take another. A few minutes after we got away a Rhino dashed out of the woods, pranced in front of us and ducked back into hiding. Though I was disappointed she didn't stop to pose for her portrait a Rhino is a rather ominous creature to encounter on a lonely dark road. I now await another look in the light of day.
That set the stage for our all-day game drive today, complete with breakfast to the sound of a multitude of birds catching the early sun and a lovely lunch overlooking slumbering hippos. "I feel like we're on National Geographic," said Joan as we watched at least a hundred Zebra saunter down the hill to drink from the Sabie River. The Sabie hosts giraffe, hippos, Cape buffalo, zebra, impala, nyala, kudo, warthogs and countless other animals and we were thrilled to have repeat encounters with these and many more. Our sighting of a Cape buffalo herd left only the leopard to round out our Big 5.
We'd heard that leopards were the rarest of the Big 5 to spot and our guide Frank hadn't seen one in 10 days. A leopard spotting was relayed to Frank over the radio (this was all a mystery to us as the guides use African languages to shield the tourists from disappointment) but it was far away and by the time we were in the vicinity it had lumbered off. We set our sights on tracking lions to no avail (though we did run across some after lunch and were fortunate to be watching as one lovely lady got up and walked toward us, turning only 5 feet from our jeep). When hunger impelled us to drive to our lunch lodge, there was a leopard lounging on the rocks. Leopards have amazing camouflaging and as our group yelled (not an exaggeration) "there it is, you can't miss it" to the ones who were missing it the leopard picked up her head as if to scold us for disturbing her nap.
We arise again at 5am tomorrow in search of a Rhino that will sit for a photograph and Zebra that will give us a close up.
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