Day 8 - Sabi Sands, South Africa - "It's a good day to see a pangolin."

Day 8 – Elephant Plains, Sabi Sands

 5am alarm and 20 minutes lying in bed listening to hyenas having some serious discussions about something important.  The calls were surrounding us and really close.  Always a little nervous walking out of our room to get to breakfast since it is still completely black outside on our way to morning coffee.  But we have yet to see anything other than nyala roaming the property here.  Our routine is solid now – we have a checklist we go through before we walk out the door – 2 hats, 2 binoculars, 2 cameras, 2 phones, 2 wads of toilet paper (all for me), buff, mittens, chapstick and we are ready to go.  Today I added a long underwear layer as it was another brisk morning.  Nowhere near as cold as yesterday, but still, it does suck to be uncomfortable.  Or as they say, 'being cold is a choice' and I choose to look like the stay puff marshmallow woman to stay warm.

We met our new guide, Dawie (pronounced “Darvie" or "Dahvie” - we never quite figured it out) and our new tracker, Simon.  The teams work for 6 weeks and then get 2 weeks off.  Morné and Life started their vacation today, which is why we have a new team.  Dawie continued the tradition of “what do you want to see today” and of course, I said “zebra” and keeping with tradition, Emma offered up “pangolin” (hoping maybe a new guide would magically make it happen.  Dawie laughed and said that he would love to see a pangolin, but it was near impossible, so don’t get your hopes up.  They are very rare and are typically only spotted in certain months – June and July.  Well – today is June 1^st so who knows.  Emma's dad, Darrin, threw the new guy a softball requesting giraffe.

We all sort of have established places in the Land Cruiser - mine, front row right behind the driver - primarily for questions, eavesdropping, and quick access to the stockpile of fleece blankets.   I started my interrogation of Dawie with the basics and quickly learned that this was his first game drive back after 4 weeks off because he was recovering from Malaria.  Hmm, rethinking the no anti-malarial drug choice.  Turns out that he was in another part of the bush and thinks he probably got it there as several other people in his photography-safari group also came down with malaria.  I believe it was more of a professional’s trip and not a tourist trip so they were likely places we would never go.  At least that is what I keep telling myself.  Lord knows the likelihood of a mosquito chewing through 12 layers of clothing before getting anywhere near my skin is a low probability.  We started talking about Malaria and Dawie said that his was only the 2^nd reported case in this area in 7 years, followed by 3-4 others in his group a few weeks later.  He said it was not a pleasant experience and because of the treatment he now has the liver of an alcoholic, but it should recover in time.

While the guides at Elephant Plains will generally ask what we want to see – it isn’t that they have control over it, but they do know where they are more likely to find certain animals and they can ask other guides in the area if anyone has seen certain animals, or their tracks, or any other evidence that they have been around.  Sabi Sands private reserve is smaller than Timbavati and has more lodges, so the likelihood of spotting what you want is a little bit higher since there are more people out looking who are all on the radio.  I've struck out with my zebra request on the past 9 game drives 😢 - it is the only thing we haven't seen that was on my list of musts.  Of course it is frustrating because it seems that every other person we've bumped into has seen them multiple times.  3 more drives to go - fingers crossed.

Malcom the angry hippo

We headed out and first found a pond with a single hippo in it.  The hippo's name is Malcolm and apparently he is a cranky one.  He wasn't very welcoming and stayed submerged.


We learned that hippos are territorial animals and this guy was kicked out of a nearby big pond during the drought last year and had to find his own pond.  There had been another male with him but after the drought last year, there was some territory scuffle and the other guy lost.  That conversation came up when just outside the pond we saw a huge pile of really big bones, which was the remains of the other hippo.  While we were waiting for the hippo to do something, a group of hyenas approached to get a drink and then amble on.  It seems that the hyenas are always lurking around somewhere waiting for opportunity...

Hyenas grabbing a drink in Malcolm's pond

Video: Stalking Hyenas


Not too far up the road, we saw another huge set of bones scattered in a small clearing.  Judging by the size of those bones, it was fairly obvious it was an elephant – the femur was the size of a log.  There was a young hyena chewing on the bones not realizing that all nutrients had long been eaten (elephant died of natural causes – gored by another elephant and died from wounds).  I asked how long it would take for an elephant to be reduced to a scatting of bones assuming it would be months.  Dawie said probably a week or less for it to be completely picked clean and the bones scattered everywhere.  He said that with this elephant, they had watched the scavengers for a few days, but eventually the smell was overpowering and they stayed away. Continuing on our way, we came across a group of live elephants – 2 females, 2 babies and 2 males. 

Mama and baby

We watched them for a while, learned more about how they fight (one of the males was missing a tusk, probably lost in a scuffle with another bull).

This is his good tusk, the other one is gone

Dawie had mentioned that there was another pond ("the big pond") that was home to a number of hippos so we headed there to try to find a little action.  These hippos were much livelier and while we could see the eyes and ears of about 8-10 at some point, they stay mostly submerged.  They cruise around by walking under water (not swimming) and it is interesting to watch their air bubbles as they walk around.  One hippo had a baby that would pop its head out every now and then (they can hold their breath for a few minutes at a time).  I asked how the baby could get to the surface since hippos basically stand, they don’t swim.  Dawie said that the babies stand on the bottom and then jump when they need air, so the little head would just pop up every minute or two - of course I'm envisioning this little hippo baby just jumping straight up every few minutes (boing!) to grab some air and then sinking to the bottom again.  In my head it is hilarious.  Or, the mom will lay on her belly on the floor of the pond and the baby will stand on her back. 

The little bumps behind the big bumps are the baby hippo

We did get an awesome viewing of one hippos unsubmerged long enough to take an ENORMOUS yawn.  We saw full head, mouth and teeth.  Of course we missed the photo op because it happened so fast, but holy heck do they have enormous mouths and teeth.  There was one hippo who got too close to the baby and the mom chased him off - hippos can haul ass when confronted with an aggressive mom.

Green slime is algae in the pond

Moving on, still on our (my) quest for zebra, we pulled off onto “big rock” for some coffee and biscuits.  We had a spectacular view of the area.  Dawie said it was a common area to spot zebra, but of course we saw nothing.  These are some of the best times because we all just sip coffee and talk – it was just us and the family from New Mexico, whom we’ve been with for a few days.  Great people.  Sadly, the Argentinians have moved on to their next adventure.  Hopefully we will make our way to Ushuaia one day!  As we were chatting, a lone bull elephant starts meandering our way.  This is the first time we’ve been out of the car with big animals around, so kind of cool.  Of course I was remembering the story from a few nights earlier when the bull charged the safari group as they were having coffee outside of their car…  I kept a watchful eye.

Us keeping a watchful eye (not)

With less than an hour left in our morning drive, my hopes of seeing zebra were fading.  But then I started paying attention to Dawie, who kept switching to Afrikaans, and one word kept popping up – I can’t remember the word, but it starts with an “M” and since I kept hearing it and Dawie seemed very engaged in finding out where "it" was, I told Damon that it had to be the word for zebra.  Surely I could not be the only person to spend a week in Africa and not see a single zebra.  Hallelujah!  We finally scored a zebra sighting - albeit in the far off distance.  Dawie said we could get closer on another road, but it meant leaving them (sigh) momentarily.  We circled around and came up nice and close to 2 of them. 

We could see a bunch more far off in the distance, but learned that the dominant male would probably try to shoo away the 2 close younger males and keep the herd of lady zebras off in the distance to himself.  We did see the alpha nudging the two males along but no fighting. 

Move along young zebras. Nothing to mate with here.

Eventually a few of the ladies wandered into view so we did get a look at them.  To say that these animals are beautiful is an understatement.  The lines and the detail of their stripes looks like an artist painted them, and their faces are completely symmetrical.  These zebras had a grey band in between the black and white stripes on the back half, which was also cool.

Side note on Zebra.  As a normal American, I pronounce them as “zee-brah”.  Damon is struggling with fitting in with all of the South Africans, Europeans, South Americans, (basically the entire rest of the world) and can’t quite settle on a non-American pronunciation of "zee-brah" and regularly fluctuates between “zeh-bra” and “zay-bra”.  I hope this phase doesn’t last because it is really annoying.  When Damon and I travel internationally, Damon tries a bit too hard to fit in with the locals and we do struggle with weird pronunciation on a regular basis.  We are Americans - embrace our goofy pronunciations!

Very content with our find, we slowly made our way back to the lodge stopping to check out some birds in the process.  Another lilac breasted roller, which hopefully we will have at least one good picture of before we leave (we do!).  I can’t believe we only have 2 safari drives left.  Sad emoji.

After breakfast, we did the nature hike again.  I went from 5 layers, long underwear, hot water bottle and 2 blankets at 9am to shorts a tank top and sunscreen at 10am.  Fact, not exaggeration.  Well, I had taken off 2 layers at the zebra stop.  Today’s nature walk was more focused on animal tracks, which I find absolutely fascinating.  We did see a cool death struggle where a centipede had killed a snail and was eating it in  a tree - the entire thing was about 1" long - wish we had a finger in the picture for reference.  

Back to tracking... all of the roads are sand, so it is very easy to find different kinds of tracks.  We learned about the footprint differences among birds, cats, dogs/hyena and different types of antelope.  Again, these guides have such a tremendous amount of knowledge – they can tell the most subtle differences in tracks and which direction something is going and if it is running, walking, or stalking.  I am now confident that if I’m ever in a flat, lightly sandy area with hyena, elephant or wildebeest tracks, and enough time to study the number of toes, the shape of the pad and the direction the sand is falling, I might be able to tell if I should be running and in which direction to elude danger. 

Back at the lodge, and following a quick breakfast – we have the wonderful 3 hour break to nap, write, look at pictures (we are up to about 1,500 plus about 100 movie clips) and just lounge around on the deck listening to the sounds monitor lizards make scuttling around under our deck and viewing wildlife across the river.  This is life.

Speaking of monitor lizards, not sure if this story will translate to writing, but as I'm sitting on the deck, I hear crunching noises coming from under the deck.  I thought it might be a monkey so I kept peering between the slats to see if I could see anything.  I was able to get to a position where I could actually see under the deck and realized it was a monitor lizards - about 3' long - crawling over the dead leaves.  Our deck is situated on the top of a steep embankment that leads to the dry riverbed - maybe 20 feet high.  I'm watching the lizard and go run to get my camera and I hear crunch, pause, crunch, pause, crunch, pause, then crunch tumble crunch crunch crunch tumble and total silence.  Apparently the lizard took one too many steps and fell off our embankment.  You probably had to be there, but the noise was hilarious.  Hopefully it is okay.

Final moments before it plunged off the embankment
(tail behind first post)
Note the flimsy wire in foreground - this
is to keep predators off our deck.

For our afternoon game drive, Dawie once again asked what do we want to see.  Since I had already seen my zebra, we waited for Emma’s ask to see a pangolin, but I think she has finally given up and for the first time, didn't say anything.  We told Dawie that he could pick what he wanted to search for since it was his first day back.  

We started our drive just looking to see what was around and we came across a group of baboons.  They were quite a ways away as they are not particularly fond of the trucks, so we watched them from a distance – there was a baby that we could see clinging to his mother’s under carriage – we hoped it would hop on her back and rider her like a horse, but that never happened. 

Baby clinging to mom in foreground

We eventually moved on.  Darrin (Emma’s father) had mentioned that he was still hoping to see some giraffe.  I heard the chatter pick up on the radio, most of which was in Afrikaans.  I thought I picked out a word and told Damon “I think I just heard them say ...”.  He said, no way.  Not possible.  I was sure I heard it. 

Dawie continued chatting on his radio and I heard Darrin point into the distance and say “Hey, there’s a giraffe...”  At the same time, Dawie turned around and yelled “HOLD ON” and took off like a bat out of hell leaving the giraffe in the dust.  The chatter continued and I said “Damon – did you hear it?  He just said it again” and that time Damon heard it.  We were tearing around the roads bouncing and swerving – literally.  I was pretty sure I knew where we were headed but didn’t say anything to the rest of the vehicle in case I was wrong.  I mean, it was unbelievable.

We are driving like crazy to get to something and in the distance, I finally spot a vehicle stopped with everyone out of the car – that was highly unusual - we are never allowed out of the trucks except for our coffee and sundowner breaks.  Then Dawie turns around and says “In the 8 years I’ve been guiding, this is only the 5^th time I’ve ever seen one of these animals.  We are about to see a pangolin.”  Emma’s eyes nearly pop out of her head in excitement as we are told we can get out of the truck and look at it in the grass.  

Everyone is standing around this little armadillo like thing – it would curl up in a ball and then stretch out and move around – it had a tiny little face mostly buried in the tall grass.  To say that the guides were excited was an understatement.  One guy had just randomly spotted it in short grass as they were driving by on their way to a completely different location right before it moved into the tall grass.  A few seconds either way and it would have been missed completely. Even though the guide was from a different lodge, he radio'd Dawie immediately - I think we had first dibs on everything with Dawie because everyone knew this was his first day back post malaria.  Drum roll please - what the heck does a pangolin look like???

Full extended, face buried in grass

Getting defensive in a ball

Best face shot we could get, zoom waaay in.

Pangolin selfie (well, I didn't take it, but still)

Video: The exciting movement of a pangolin

Everyone took selfies with the pangolin and we even got to touch it.  I don’t think we truly understood what a rare sighting this was, but Dawie had it Instagrammed out within seconds of our arrival.  We spend about 10-15 minutes looking at it - they don't do much - but as there was a line-up of vehicles forming to see it, we had to move on.  Not a bad first day back for Dawie.  He was literally beaming the rest of the day.

Oh, now you want a picture of me?

We headed back to the giraffe we had so rudely left in the dust a few minutes earlier so Darrin could get a closer look – giraffes are a little easier to spot! 

Post-giraffe, we were driving around deciding what to do next when Dawie obviously changed course – another sign we were headed to something interesting.  More chatter in Afrikaans but I didn't recognize any of the words.  We hit a “main” road – possibly the only straight flat road we’ve been on all week – although still dirt.  This road had a huge fence as far as the eye could see on one side – we learned that we were at the Northern border of the park (the park is not a square, so it was “a” northern border toward the south of greater Kruger).  The fence is electrified and gives a little zap if animals get too close – it also signals to the anti-poaching teams where the animals are so they can drive them back into the bush where they will be safer or alert the anti-poaching squads that someone is trying to cut through the fence.  Poaching is not a huge problem in the private reserves because they have more money for security, but it does still happen.

We turned off to get back on the smaller roads and eventually stopped and I hear Dawie trying to work with another vehicle – each truck would rev its engine and then we would drive a little bit so they could try to figure out where each other was located.  We were trying to figure out the best entry point to go off-roading. 

Simon giving the "turn here" signal

We eventually headed into the bush and started plowing through the brush – these vehicles can ram right through anything!  After a few minutes of searching, we popped out of the bush onto the next road.

Finally Dawie let us in on the sighting and said that we were looking for white rhino, which had entered at the same place as us and had just popped onto the road.  We finally found them and watched two of them for a while.  They gave us some nice photo ops when they crossed the road and walked up it for a few meters – rhino faces are hard to capture but rhino butts, not so much as they always seem to be walking away from us.

Baby got back

Video: Rhinos in the road

The sun was starting to go down and all in all, even though we still had another hour or so, we were pretty happy with the day.  And then… the chatter starts again and I hear the one word I definitely know “Ngali” – lions!

We take off again and we are on a bigger road.  I see a car in the distance and as we get closer, I see a female, followed by a male lion just marching up the middle of the road. 

Now we’ve seen lions before, but typically they are sleeping or laying down – watching them walk, up the middle of the road, is an interesting sight.

Video: Lions in the road

We drove by them to plant ourselves up front so we could see them approaching.  Although there were several vehicles in the area, it did seem as though Dawie was given preference.  The light was fading so we had to be quick.  And, as we learned, the road we were on was a border road, so if the lions chose to turn left, it was private property and we would not be allowed to follow.  We passed the lions and parked up the road to wait for them to approach.  The lady lion makes her way to our car and then lays down right across the road from us – about 6’.  The male lion stopped a little farther back and laid down. 

We are about 6' away

The grass is officially someone else's private property

Go figure, a tired lion

Aaaannnndddd.... nap time.

We haven't been this close to awake lions yet, so we took about 800 more pictures until the light (or lack of) made photos harder, and then truly happy, we went for our sundowner.

Our last sundowner.  So sad.  Dawie found us an amazing spot to watch the sun set while we sipped wine and gin and tonics (and cream soda), and I tried to capture the magnificence of an African sunset.







We recounted what a fabulous day we had, enjoyed each other’s company and threw down the gauntlet for what Dawie would show us to “one up” himself for our last safari in the morning.  Spoiler - he didn't let us down!

Back at the lodge, another great dinner with our new friends from New Mexico, and then right to bed. 

Damon's artsy shot during lunch - one side of the dining area is open, overlooking a patio, pool and the bush.