Africa - Day 4 - Timbavati Reserve, South Africa - "Like a fine wine"

Day 4 – Motswari Lodge, Timbavati, South Africa

Pre-breakfast begins at 6:00am for a 6:30am game drive departure time, so the guides come and wake us up at 5:45am (no clocks or phones in rooms).  Given that we hadn’t showered in, well, let’s call it long enough, we woke up around 5:15am to clean up a bit.  Our first breakfast was a quick coffee and muffin just to get us going.  We packed our gear and headed to our trusty Defender. 

We had the same group for our morning drive - the Swedes and the Chinese couple.  Richard warned us right away that due to a front that had moved in from Cape Town, the weather would be much cooler, very cloudy, and unfortunately very windy.  He set expectations that viewing with the high winds would be difficult because animals tend to hide/hunker down when they cannot hear or smell predators.  We were still on a high from yesterday's lion feast, so we figured whatever the day brought would be good enough.

As I read through my notes to write this, I can’t remember which animals we saw on the morning vs the afternoon drive, so I’ll blend all of our animal sightings for today together.

It is typically not difficult to spot the many impala and water bucks that seem to be everywhere, but there were noticeably fewer of them today. 

Our first interesting find was a group of giraffes that enjoyed posing for the camera.  50 pictures but not a single one with all 4 faces turned towards us.

We witnessed another truly gross animal habit particular to giraffes.  And yes, this entire thing is caught on video.  Apparently when a male giraffe is, how shall we say, ready to get to business with his lady friend, he will stick his nose in her behind to try to get her to pee.  When the female starts to pee, the male will drink the pee and slosh it around like a fine wine to test the hormone levels to see if she is ready to mate.  I’m not sure if shooting the pee out of his mouth along with an incredible amount of slime is part of the standard ritual, but it was for us.

Click Here for Giraffe Video

Apparently our lady giraffe was not ready to mate (she had a baby with her) and the male wandered off in search of another taste test.

We drove around for a bit (there is not an animal around every corner – we may drive an hour or more before a “sighting”) and stopped at an enormous termite mound with a big hole at the bottom.  In that hole, out pops a little hyena baby. 

Jacky had spotted the mother run across the road with a baby in its mouth - we assume to scout a new home - and left baby #2 behind.  We hung out for a few minutes and then we hear this baby animal squealing as baby #1 comes running back to us with mom in full pursuit.  Jacky thought mom put the baby down for a minute and it took off.  Baby #2 heard them and ran under our vehicle to find them.  Mom and #1 had gone in front of our vehicle and were at the termite mound searching for baby #2.

With our vehicle blocking line of sight and the wind preventing scent location there were a few tense moments until #2 made its way back to the termite mound and back to mom.   Whew – family reunited.  We stayed for about 20 minutes watching them.  Mom was very comfortable with us – she stood in front of our vehicle in a stare down for a while and eventually laid down. 

The babies were typical babies and just ran around jumping on top of each other fighting, chewing on sticks, and wrestling on top of mom.  One got really curious and came right up to our vehicle and started biting on the foot step. 

Eventually they started nursing on mom and everyone sort of laid down for a nap.

Next stop – more "antelope" animals.  We can add kudu and duiker to the list and we did see a small herd of actual wildebeests (for real wildebeests, not just animals I couldn't identify) plus lots more impala and water bucks.  Fun fact:  legend has it that when god created the wildebeest, s/he just used all of the leftover parts from other animals; zebra stripes, buffalo horns, cow body, lion tail and goat legs.  Judge for yourself: 

Another good find was a big old male water buffalo.  Richard said that it was extra exciting because a huge percentage of the buffalo population was wiped out last year during a major drought – he said they were dropping like flies – dead buffalo everywhere – starvation/dehydration either killed them or made them easy prey for lions who would kill them, eat just the “good stuff” and then go kill another one while leaving most of the buffalo to rot.  Very sad – so he was happy to see this one.  This particular buffalo had a pretty ornery look about him so we watched from a distance.

We did another circle of a watering hole and saw a few more crocs and caught glimpses of the hippos, but due to the wind, the hippos stayed almost entirely under water. 

During a 3-4 hour game drive, we typically stop for a food/drink break about halfway through - ahhh... second breakfast.  During the morning drive, we get coffee, tea and snacks, and during the afternoon drive, we get wine/beer/alcohol and snacks.  They set up a sweet spread for us and we all have the opportunity to stretch our legs.  Always in an open area with good viewing distance - don't want those predators sneaking up on us!  Although whenever I ask how far I can safely go when nature calls - they are always like - no worries - just keep an eye out!

Every day after the am drive, we get a HUGE breakfast (count, that is breakfast #3) followed by a mid-afternoon break.  Because lord knows we need to rest after 3 breakfasts and 4 hours of very intense sitting!  The free time lasts until our next feeding, I mean lunch, at 2:30 and the evening game drive at 3:30.  One would think that offers so much time to just sit around and relax, but somehow, the time just flies.  Admittedly, we did take a 2-hour nap, but that was well-deserved and much needed.  Around 2pm we wandered around our lodge property and spotted some elephants in our river bed and watched them from a bench swing for a while – they never got too close.

As part of the evening drive, all of the guides had been discussing whether the lions would return to the buffalo kill.  As soon as we got word that they were spotted, we raced back.  Apparently there are only about 2,000 lions in all of Kruger (over 7,500 square miles), so seeing them is pretty impressive.  When we arrived, the lions were in full on chomp mode and had gotten through about half of the buffalo.  When it comes to predators, lions are the kings.  Followed by leopards, hyena and wild dogs (I think in that order).  Lions can take their time with their kills because no other animal will come near until they are finished.  As soon as lions abandon a carcass, all of the other predators and scavengers move in.

We watched them rip and tear at the skin – buffalo are tougher than you might imagine so it was definitely gross – and work their way from hind quarters to head.  Eventually we had to make room for another vehicle and headed back to our lodge.

Click here for Lion video (GRAPHIC)

Side note:  Our afternoon drive introduced us to a great new group of people – a couple from Ushuaia, Argentina (Camila and Martin - pronounced "Martine") and a couple from Munich (Astrid - Austrian/Brazilian and Sven - Tanzanian/German).  We all really bonded and had a great group dinner together.  Damon and I always find it interesting meeting and talking to people from other countries – their mastery of English (all 4 of them) was truly impressive and we all have a love of travel.  As it turned out, Camila and Martin will go to the same second lodge as us and Sven and Astrid will be in Cape Town at the same time as us – so we all made plans to re-group.

When we got back to the lodge after our afternoon game drive, Jacky spotted a huge bull elephant in the trees right outside of the entrance.  The guides are very careful about where they shine the lights as it is possible to "blind" certain animals and make them easier prey or otherwise incapacitate them.  Elephants are included in that group, so we just knew that somewhere in the pitch black right outside of our camp was a giant bull elephant.  Richard gave us an “oh crap” type of sigh saying that there was a decent chance the elephant would wander through camp and he would have to stay up all night trying to shoo it out.  I faked like I was sympathizing but I really wanted that elephant to come through camp!!!

Dinner was with our safari group again but prior to that, during happy hour, we heard a really scary story that another group experienced.  Apparently they stopped for their afternoon sundowner and because it was so windy, they did not hear a huge bull elephant approaching, and presumably the elephant did not hear them.  There are different versions of what happened, but apparently the elephant is known and is mean and aggressive toward people – it is not afraid of people, which is unusual, and it charged at the group.  The guide stepped out in front and started waving his arms and yelling at the elephant until it stopped a few feet from him.  Rumor has it that death by elephant is pretty brutal as it involved getting slammed by 6,000 lbs of mass moving at up to 25 mph, then gored with the tusks, and then if you are not dead enough, you get kneeled on but the elephant.  I suppose that group is pretty thankful tonight and maybe an elephant in camp is not such a good idea.  Here's to hoping that the elephant outside of our camp is not el loco.

Another delicious dinner (I can see there will be challenging to not gain 80 lbs on this trip) and we headed back to our room.  We have the luxury of being right across from the dinner area so we can make a run for it in the dark without an armed guard.  Everyone else needs an escort due to the potential for animals in camp.  Dead asleep by 10pm.

Random picture of giant spider because why not.  It was huge.