Call of the Wild

This week I’m traveling as far as I will probably go while based in the UK. I am spending the week in South Africa split between Johannesburg and Cape Town. After traveling for nearly 24 hours I arrived at the first part of my adventure in South Africa which was spending a couple days on safari in the Madikwe Game Reserve at the Motswiri Lodge (about 4 hours outside of Johannesburg). If you ever get a chance to go on safari, I’d definitely suggest doing it as there is no other experience like it. Being this up close and personal with the wild animals is a very humbling experience. Immediately when we arrived at the Motswari Lodge we dropped off our bags and went for our first safari drive as the time was getting late and it was beginning to get dark. As we drove out we saw our first herd of elephants walking along side the rode. Later we saw some impalas and wildebeests. Due to the lateness of the hour we were only able to stay out for a couple hours before heading back to the lodge. When we returned we were greeted with fresh towels and glasses of sherry and were led out to the veranda to have the first of several delectable meals. All the food for the lodge is made from scratch on-premises and can easily rival many of the hotels in Europe.

The next day we had an early morning with our first safari drive starting at 5:30am. Although I was very reluctant to get out of bed it was worth it to see the sunrise and the wilderness wake up. We spent most of the morning on the hunt for lions but ended up seeing mostly impalas, wildebeests, and zebras. After about 4 hours we headed back to the lodge for breakfast and some rest. Since the evening safari drive didn’t start until 4:30pm I was able to take a nap, take a bubble bath, shower, and read. It’s amazing how calm and serene the setting is. The lodges are just amazing and very reasonably priced due to the exchange rate. I had my own separate free-standing villa complete with four-poster bed, jacuzzi tub, and enclosed outdoor shower. The surroundings of the lodge are so quiet and natural. There was even a watering hole where elephants and monkeys came up next to the lodge for a drink. I actually had one of the monkeys peering over from a tree while I was taking my morning shower, a bit of an eerie experience.

Since we didn’t see any lions on the morning drive, our ranger, Ranger Kevin (Kati I have a picture of him just for you), was on a mission to find us some action. He’d heard that there was a pride of lions feeding on a wildebeest kill at the northern end of the reserve so we made our way there as quickly as possible. On the way there we ran into a herd of elephants that included a baby about 1 month old. This was really the only time I felt as though I was in any danger. The mother was very protective of her young and watched us for some time before she decided to charge the vehicle twice. We had to quickly make our way out of there by driving through some brush. On the other side of the brush we ended up finding ourselves right in the middle of the herd which is where Ranger Kevin informed us was the last place you want to be. We then had to find another route around the herd and was able to safely continue our journey to find the lions. After some more driving and a few false alarms we finally reached the area where 2 lions were feeding on a wildebeest . We followed them for a bit and they led us to a large open area with a watering hole where we found the rest of the pride. There were about 7 lions at the watering hole resting and playing and I just couldn’t believe that we were just sitting there less than 10 yards away. Our presence didn’t seem to bother them at all so we stayed and took photographs until the clouds rolled in and it seemed that thunder and lightening would soon be upon us. We managed to make it back to the lodge before any rainfall but we had a bonus lightening show on our way back. When we returned we were treated to a BBQ over an open fire which seemed appropriate as November 4 is bonfire night (Guy Fawkes night) in the UK.

Since I’d had enough of an adventure the day before I decided to forgo the morning drive the next day for some extra sleep. We’d also seen 4 of the big 5 (elephants, lions, leopards, giraffes, and rhinos) so it wouldn’t kill me if I never came in close contact with a leopard. After breakfast we packed up and headed back into Johannesburg. In the evening we went to a restaurant called Carnivore where we were able to eat quite a few of the things we’d seen the day before and then some. The menu included antelope, wildebeest , crocodile, ostrich, venison and warthog in addition to the standard pork, chicken, and beef. The meat was served in a similar fashion to a Brazilian churrascaria where the waiters come to your table with humongous chunks of meat on a sword and slice it onto your plate. I’d have to say that warthog was my favorite.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the pictures up soon so keep an eye out on the side bar. I'm signing off for now and will hopefully be able to write again in Cape Town.