CHRISTMAS EVE GAME DRIVES

This is an impala. Impalas are all over the place in the African bush! They hang out in big groups and unfortunately for them, they are preyed upon by many other animals. Lucky calls impalas "the McDonald's of the Bush"!

OK, how gross is this? It is a Dung Beetle! Dung Beetles live off of, you guessed it, animal dung! They roll the dung into balls and can roll up to 50 times their weight. Fascinating stuff,huh?

The male dung beetle does all the work, rolling the ball in a straight line while the female follows along nagging him! :)

This is one of the wild dogs (Cape Dogs) that was chasing down the baby impala. The poor impala didn't stand a chance. The wild dog chased it into the bush where the rest of his pack (about 15 of them) lay waiting. It was a cruel death for the impala, because wild dogs do not kill their prey first-they simply pull it apart while it's still alive. By the time we caught up with the dogs, they were enjoying their kill and many of them were carrying around body parts, crunching bones and shredding what was left. A nasty brown hyena showed up to challenge the dogs and tried to share their meal, which agitated the dogs and a chase ensued. It was hard to watch, yet fascinating to witness nature taking its course. Our adrenaline was pumping as we plowed off-road and followed the dogs, but we never felt threatened as they paid no attention to us whatsoever. FYI, the wild Cape dogs are the second most endangered species in the world. Also here's another factoid - hyenas' poop is white because they eat the bones of the animals they kill.


This is a herd of wildebeest

Wildebeests running down the dirt airstrip. Lions prey on wildebeests.

Remember Pumba the Warthog from Lion King?

Warthogs are the noisiest eaters and sometimes move along the ground with their front knees bent!

On Christmas Eve we came upon a pride of 18 female lions with their cubs. They were lying in the grass, some were resting, some walking around and playing with one another. We got as close as 6 feet away from them! I was afraid to even breathe. A couple of them circled our vehicle as if they were stalking us, and for a moment there I was convinced that we were going to be their next meal! This was definitely one of those situations where you have to pinch yourself to make sure it's real! :)

Drinking water from a mudhole

They spotted a wildebeest who was nearby but the wildebeest was smart and got out of there!

The female lions are the ones who go out and hunt for food for their family

These cubs are about 4 months old. The lions are very affectionate towards their young.

This mama lion was nursing her cubs. Check out the teeth on the other one! He was yawning!

We saw the same two lions with two cubs a couple days in a row and they were so fun to watch! One morning we saw them resting down in a shaded area and Lucky pulled the vehicle up pretty close, facing them, and the vehicle got stuck. We were high-centered over a stump and Lucky had to rock the vehicle, trying to gun the engine to make it go forward then backward in an attempt to free ourselves. Every time he gunned the engine and we lurched forward, the lions snarled at us and showed their teeth, letting us know we had gone far enough! This went on for longer than any of us felt comfortable with, and we were all sweating and praying and offering suggestions to Lucky ("call for another jeep to come get us!") when finally we were able to reverse and get ourselves out of there. After that incident, Kasey really didn't care to see the lions again.....

The cubs loved to roll around and chase each other. Aren't they cute?

This is my favorite picture from all the thousands that we took! The cubs were so playful and liked to grab each other's tails!

Lions just hanging out! You can see another safari vehicle in the distance, with their tracker sitting out in front

We asked Lucky which animal he feared the most, and his response was the elephant, because he had his vehicle charged by an elephant before. He said he always keeps his distance from the elephants and always makes sure he has an escape route. This particular elephant was part of a big herd that we had followed to the river. He evidently didn't like us being there, because his ears started flapping and he trumped a warning signal which scared us to death! We were about 15 feet away from him, and took off as he came towards us. Scary!

This elephant is getting ready to take the plunge!

It was neat to watch the elephants bathing and playing with each other in the river

This big herd of elephants seemingly came out of nowhere! They are very quiet and believe it or not, we never heard them coming until we saw them walking by. They just kept coming! There were over 40 elephants of all shapes and sizes. We followed them down to the river.

If you double click on this photo you can see the little baby elephant walking along with the herd

Lucky told us that elephants eat around 250 kilograms of leaves per day, drink 210 liters of water per day, and poop around 100 kilograms per day.

Mama and her baby! Elephants walk faster than you think they do!

Check out those tusks!

This elephant was all by himself, having a mudbath. He sucked the muddy water up his trunk, then sprayed it all over himself, over and over again. :)

It was just wild to drive down the road and see elephants, zebras and giraffes hanging out

Zebras were just about everywhere you looked! Lucky pronounced it "zebra" like "Debra". Zebras hang out in groups for protection. They sleep standing up and form a circle facing outwards so they can keep a lookout for lions. They also hang out with giraffes a lot.

Double click on this photo and you can see the bird sitting on the zebra's back

This zebra was having the best time, rolling around in the dirt! They do that to coat their skin for protection.

I just had to get a close-up shot of the zebra stripes to show you that they are not all black and white! This breed is black and white and khaki stripes! Every zebras stripes are different, and that's how they tell each other apart. They all looked the same to me!

The zebras were pretty active and liked to run around and chase each other.

You couldn't always see the giraffes in the bush unless you looked up to see their heads! They were usually eating leaves from the tops of the trees.

This was a baby giraffe and light in color

They look so awkward when they get a drink of water! They have to spread their front legs far apart so that they can bend over to drink.

I like this picture because the giraffe looks like he's off to see the world! :)

Close-up of giraffe's spots

Double click on this photo and you can see the giraffe sticking his tongue out! FYI, giraffe's tongues can be 18 inches long. Eeeww!

We all agree that Christmas Eve day was our best day at the game reserve. We saw more animals than you could possibly count, got a little too close to a herd of elephants, and encountered a pride of lions too! Our jeep got stuck a little too close to two mama lions and two cubs, and they let us know we were invading their space! The highlight of the day was watching a pack of wild dogs chase down an impala and eat him for dinner. It was truly like something right out of National Geographic magazine! After lunch the staff sang African songs and danced, which was really fun to watch because they were so enthusiastic! They insisted that Wes join them in the dancing, so you can imagine we got a big kick out of that!

CHRISTMAS ON SAFARI

This year we planned a trip to South Africa for Christmas, with 3 days at a game reserve near Botswana followed by a week in Cape Town. We flew to Johannesburg on December 23 - an eleven hour flight which we all remarked was not bad at all compared to the 24 hour flights to the U.S.! Guess we really are becoming seasoned travelers! After our arrival in Johannesburg, we transferred to a puddle jumper flight to the Madikwe Game Reserve. This tiny aircraft had only 4 rows and carried 12 passengers, with the cockpit not separated at all from the rest of the seats. Kasey and I were very uneasy about being in a plane so small, and our fears were justified when we saw the pilot and copilot flipping thru a manual before take-off that I was certain was the "Flying Airplanes for Dummies" manual! Once we were in the air, that little plane dipped and dropped like a paper airplane on a windy day! Needless to say, it was a nail biter for the next 50 minutes until we finally landed (thank God!) on a dirt runway where we were met by our game ranger from the Thakadu River Camp. His name is Lucky, and we were soon to discover that he lived up to his name! Being a game ranger in South Africa requires a lot of knowledge not only about animals, but also birds, plants, trees and all things related. Lucky is a wealth of information and very excited to share with us all that he knows about the eating habits, sleeping habits, and mating habits of every thing we saw. He explained to us why certain animals prey on other animals, how they protect themselves, how they care for their young, and can track an animal by looking at paw prints in the mud or even a pile of poop. He drives a big LandRover type vehicle and many times took us off-road in pursuit of something interesting. The first thing Lucky told us were his two rules: No screaming and no standing up in the vehicle. Believe it or not, the animals in the wild regard the vehicle as another animal and really aren't too interested in it, unless you stand up or yell or do something to draw their attention. Believe me, we were quiet as could be, except for the occasional gasp and the constant sound of the camera shutters clicking! We really enjoyed getting to know Lucky over the next several days, and were intrigued to find out that he has never left his village, has never flown in an airplane, and never cares to do either of those things! :)

Sunset in South Africa

Here's Lucky with Wes and Kasey on our evening game drive, day one. A typical day began with Lucky calling to wake us up at 5:00am and we loaded up and were on the trail by 5:30am to catch the sunrise and the animals feeding. He always brought hot coffee, tea and hot chocolate and biscotti along for a mid-morning snack. The morning game drive usually lasted until around 9:00am, at which time we returned to camp for a hot breakfast. Then we had some down time (go back to bed or go to the pool) until lunchtime at 1:00pm, afternoon tea at 3:30pm, and the evening game drive began at 4:00pm, with a stop for happy hour. Lucky always brought gin and tonics for me, local beers for Shelby, and drinks and snacks. He would stop the vehicle in a safe area, pull out a makeshift "table top" attached to the front of the vehicle, and set up happy hour. It gave us a chance to get out of the vehicle and move around a little bit (and for the guys to "mark their territory" if need be!) We returned to camp around 9:00pm, ate dinner if we could keep our eyes open long enough, then went back to our tents, showered and went straight to bed, exhausted! Usually too exhausted to even wonder if there were any animals wandering about......

Here is our "tent" at the Thakadu River Camp - a 5-star, luxury canvas tent complete with electricity and showers, and a deck overlooking the Marico River. Wesley and Kasey shared a tent just down the trail from Shelby and I. I loved sleeping under the mosquito net! The days were very hot and dry, but the evenings cooled down quite a bit, making the early mornings cool and crisp as we drove along. We usually snuggled under a blanket on the early morning game drives before the sun came up and the evening game drives after dark. There were only 12 people staying at the camp over the Christmas holiday - a honeymooning couple from the U.K., a family of six from Montreal, Canada, and our family. The staff at the Thakadu was awesome! The meals were very good and more than we could ever eat, dessert at every meal, a full spread at tea time every afternoon. We felt like we were constantly eating! They were so friendly and so genuine and we enjoyed our interaction with them. All meals were in the open air dining room, and it was fun to share stories of our game drives with the other families and hear what adventures they had experienced.

This was the first animal we encountered, on our way from the airstrip to the camp. It was almost like the giraffe was just there waiting for us to drive by! Whenever we saw an animal, Lucky would stop the vehicle so that we could take photos and videos, and he would tell us about that animal.

This elephant was the second animal we saw on our way to the camp. Elephants are surprisingly quiet and can just sneak up on you without making a sound! We felt like he was posing for us! The first day was full of gasps as we saw lots of different animals for the first time. It was just amazing to see them in their natural environment, and not behind bars in a zoo. Some animals were loners and others were in a group. Lucky was a cautious driver and always parked the vehicle so that we could make a quick getaway if need be. It was kind of funny that by the last day, we were like "oh it's just another elephant" as if we were so used to seeing them already! :)

Arrival at the Madikwe airstrip

Here's the little plane that caused so much motion sickness! They had to clear the runway of giraffes so that the plane could take off!