Scotia Safari

“In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight” – Solomon Linda

After lunch, we drove down the road to Scotia Safaris.  As soon as we got in the gate there were seven Land Rovers lined up in front of us – this was going to be much closer to what I thought a safari would be like – none of this safe, warm bus crap.  After we’ve signed in and had some biscuits and tea, we all load into a Rover.  The vehicle has no sides, but there are blankets – I’m a happy girl.  We start to drive around the perimeter on this two-track dirt path (no paved roads like in Addo) and it is clear this is going to be a much more rugged, less safety oriented excursion.  Our first goal is to find the white rhinos.  We drive around for a bit and see plenty of tracks and poo, but no animals.  Peter can tell we are getting board so he asks if there is a brave volunteer who wants to go sit out on the seat situated on the hood of the Rover, right above the grill. James happily complies.  Five minutes later, we round a corner and come practically nose to nose with two rhinos.  James quickly scuttles back into the vehicle and Peter proceeds to maneuver us so that we are within arms length of these animals all the while telling us how dangerous they can be.  It was exhilarating to be that close, almost without a barrier, to something so powerful.  They were interested in us but not enough to stop munching on their weeds.

We watched them until they ambled out of sight.  Peter decided to drive around behind them so we could watch some more.  When we found the rhinos again they were play fighting; hooking their horns and butting heads – and clearly did not want to see us.  So Peter drove closer. The female started to advance and got quicker and quicker.  Suddenly Peter is backing up as fast as we can go and she is charging us.  Full on, dirt rising behind her, charging. My heart was racing.  I have gotten similar adrenaline spikes from bungy jumping, I mean I guess if I’m gonna die, this is a pretty cool way to go out – it was wild!!  Peter backed off a minute and went right back in – awesome.  After about another 30 minutes of maneuvering different approaches and hopping in and out of the vehicle to get their attention, Peter drove us to this small farm house for hot drinks and homemade rolls.

Being the tourism nerd I am, I took this time to chat with our guides about how they got into thier line of work, some of their crazier stories (turns out the female rhino has tried to tip the Rover more than once) and the who’s who in bad international tipping.  They may not make a ton of money, but I think that if something goes sour in the US before I find a steady job that I love, I may be right back here doing this for a few years.  I mean they are living thier dream – taking people out and changing their lives everyday.  I think very few professions can be that powerful – doctors and lawyers maybe, and even then half the “life changing” occurrences are terrible ones.

We load back on the bus in search of lions, giraffes and zebras. Five minutes in Bradley takes out his binoculars looks straight ahead, looks right and turns around and smiles – “Which do you want to see first?”  We drive forward and 90 seconds later are smack dab in the middle of a pride of lions.  Two males (with reddened manes from their recent kill) to our right and three females and four cubs to our left.  And when I say to our left I mean 15 feet away to our left.  They look at us with mild curiosity, but their bellies are gigantic and it is clear they can’t be bothered to do more than raise a head to assure we are not a threat.  We watch the cubs milk on mom and loll around for about a half an hour and then Peter maneuvers us between the two males on the other side.  Both hold their heads up proudly, but tire of us quickly, seeing as they are as stuffed as the rest of the pride, and rest their head on their paws.  Did you know that the darker a lion’s mane is, the higher up he is in the pride’s hierarchy?  So the head of the pride has a mane that is almost black, his son would have one with light around the face and darker going back.  Seems Disney got it wrong with Scar and Mufasa in the Lion King.  The most beautiful part of these cats were their eyes – they were just huge and so authoritative.

Once we had spent our time with the lions, we proceeded up the hill to scene straight out of Hollywood.  As the Rover leveled off, the sun was in the latter half of a sunset and there were about 20 giraffes feeding on trees, zebras spread across the plain, wildebeest to the left, grazing in their herd and kudu nibbling at the ground in between it all.  The nearest giraffe was about to pop she was so pregnant, though I guess baby giraffes don’t tend to last long, due to the lions.  A we slowly rolled around I was in absolute awe.  It is like nothing I had ever seen before.  I just had to keep telling myself that this was actually my life. 

It was within this moment that I finally was able to recognize the weight of where I was – Africa.  Up until now we have not done much that is uniquely Africa.  We went zip lining which can be done almost anywhere, we’ve been shopping and attending school in a city not unlike many in the US (except for the higher consciousness of crime) and we’ve done a few beach town trips, but even those were similar to something I’d expect in Oregon or California.  This was Africa, and only in Africa could I see 4 of the Big 5 in one day.  I mean in the last 10 hours I’d seen lions, giraffes, zebras, warthogs, kudus, monkeys, rhinos, hippos, alligators and one beagle puppy.  You would get that nowhere else in the world.

I was very disappointed because for some reason it did not occur to me to charge my camera before we left, so it lasted until just after Addo and died.  In fact, most of our cameras died throughout the day.  However, the girl with the nicest camera was also the most prepared, so the pictures I will have (aka stolen) of this half of the day will be the best and hopefully do justice to the scene placed before us.  This was also a blessing in disguise because it forced me to focus on the moment and just enjoy what was right in front of me and not focus on capturing the moment for later.  I feel like 90% of what we do, we do for the future.  Very few of us can do something for the now and just be present for it.  I mean we work for money in the future, we exercise for a better body in the future, we go to school for a better job in the future.  If there was ever a better moment to be forced to stay focused on, it was this one.

This was easily one of the best days of my life.  I love being outside and even better seeing animals in their natural habitat.  Yes, I realize that it isn’t 100% “natural” because they are accustomed to the vehicles, however the people who run the game reserve do nothing to interfere with the wildlife.  If something gets sick or wounded, they wait for nature (usually the lions) to take care of it.  The day ended with dinner around a fire and then piling back into the Rover and using the spotlight to look for lions on our way back to the bus.

Absolutely incredible.