Safari! (Day 3)

   I could have stayed at the lodge for the whole rest of the trip I think.  It was so comfortable and the days were filled with really exciting encounters.

I forgot to mention in the last entry that last night I took a bath complete with wonderfully smelling bath salts. ( I was in my bathing suit of course because the tub was out in the open.)  At first, I was afraid to relax because I made the water too hot and was afraid I would pass out in the tub.  haha  As it cooled down, I was able to fully relax and it was wonderful!  I think I will have to start taking baths again when I get home!

Back to today, we had one last game drive before it was time to pack up and go.  Since everyone but one other girl was going on a special elephant back safari, we had the car all to ourselves.  

The rest of the group setting out to meet the elephants.

This game drive was especially rewarding because we tracked the lions all over the place.  (As opposed to stumbling across them or getting tipped off by the radio.)  We found the tracks right outside camp and followed them over 3 km!  

We then lost the tracks and were about to give up when I spotted one of the lionesses!  EVeryone congratulated me and I felt like a biology super hero.  haha  We watched them for quite a while as they napped.  We then drove on to give the zillions of other cars a chance to see them too.

On the way tracking the lions, our guides showed us a bunch of really interesting things about the plants as well.  We saw a tree that had poisonous sap that people used to kill fish.  Animals like rhinos and buffalo rub their horns on the tree so they poison their opponent when they fight, and to repel insects.  PEople also use the sap to get rid of tooth infections.   We also saw a tree stripped of bark by hungry elephants and got to hold some safari toilet paper.  

We also had the rare treat of seeing a hippo out of the water!

And some Mufasa killers...er I mean wildebeest nervously staring in the direction the lion's sent was coming from.  

Capping off the 4 our of 5 Big Five animals we saw, we stumbled across a buffalo wallowing happily in the mud.

I thought we were all done, but then we found the herd of elephants again on the way back to camp!

I should also mention that we encountered the most rare and interesting creature of all.  Wild girl with neck brace!  haha  Whenever we passed another tour group, they would openly gawk at me, which I am used to, so it's ok.  One man actually took a picture of me and then showed it to his friend and they both laughed.  That was a little more than I was used to, but at least I could provide some entertainment I guess.  I would have given them an autograph too if they had asked for it.  Or you know, told them to suck it.  It depends on what mood I'm in.  :0P

BAck at the lodge, I did some quick shopping and then packed up and checked out.  The ride to the airport was really fun!  We were running late so we sped at 60km/hr through the bush and over the bumps!  It was also very beautiful.  

The trip back was pretty rough on me.  I was exceedingly POTSie which hasn't happened in quite a while.  I slept a bit on the plane and that helped.  I was glad to get back to the boat and get to bed early tonight.  

Safari (Day 2, Part 2)

In the interest of time, I'm going to just caption the pictures for this entry.

Second breakfast was the best meal of the day.  The croissants were better than ones in France, the bacon was thick sliced and delicious, the sautéed mushrooms were perfect, and there was even pineapple smoothies to drink.  I hardly ever eat a whole meal at a time, but for second breakfast, I went back for seconds!

I decided to go on two extra excursions while at the lodge.  The first one was an elephant interaction!  I was the only one from my camp going, so I got a whole safari car to myself!

And I saw elephants!  Most of them were playing in the water or eating grass.  

I got to get up close and personal with them as I fed and pet them.  Their skin feels so strange!  It's like a really squishy rock with big bristly hairs covering it.  

My what big teeth you have...

An interesting note is that two of the elephants started getting a bit frisky and we had to run and leap into the jeeps to avoid being trampled!  It was really scary and exciting!  Everything was fine though.  The trainers broke them up and poor Mr. Elephant bull had to do without some lovin' for now.  

The second excursion I went on that afternoon was to a endangered species center.  Their original, and main goal is to rescue and breed cheetahs, but they also take in all kinds of endangered animals.  This zebra came to them as a baby who was trapped on a fence.  

It was raised by sheep, so it thinks it is one!  Sheep are notoriously good at raising other species because they are too dumb to realize it's not their own kid.  

And cheetahs!  This one was allowed out and about to check out the males and pick one to breed with.

And what is better than a cheetah, a few feet away?  A bunch of baby cheetahs a few feet away!  They were purring and very playful.  (Cheetahs are the largest cat that purrs, by the way.)  And what is better than a bunch of baby cheetahs a few feet away?  Nothing.  How could you even think there is anything better than that?  :0P

There were also some wild dogs.  These poor things stink to high heaven because they all pee on each other.  The lower one is in the social order, the more it get's peed on. And I thought high school was rough!

It may be wild, but it's still a dog.

On our way back, the baby cheetahs wanted to play so they sat under the vehicles wheels until the guide gave them some attention.  haha

These unfortunate looking birds are really cool!  They are humungous and very smart.  When the guide called one's name, it came running!  These birds take a long time (7-9 years!) to mature and start mating.  When they do mate, they mate for life.  Awwwwe!

   This tested my gag reflex for sure.  Nothing is wasted at the center, so all the bones are thrown to the "vulture restaurant" when the animals are done with them.  And let me tell you it did not smell good.

The birds were happy though.

On the afternoon game drive, I decided to give in and wear my neck brace.  All of the bouncing was getting to be very hard on my joints, especially my back and neck.  I may look a bit silly, but I was much more comfortable!

The lioness makes a reappearance!  

She came right up to our car!

And was scouting out something she must have seen off the road.

Just to show how close we were.

Also, we made friends with a giraffe.  

Yes, this is our guide holding elephant poo.  As one of his jokes, he told us that to tell if it was male or female elephant poop, you had to taste it.  And with that he popped some into his mouth.  Yuck!  He said he was just kidding about the male female thing, but that it was perfectly safe to eat the poo of herbivores.  Apparently it's only the meat eaters that have dangerous poo.  He asked if anyone wanted to try it.  Only two of us were brave enough and I am proud/ashamed to say that I was one of them.  It really didn't taste bad at all though.  It tasted just like hay which is kind of a pleasant taste.  Now kindly forget I ever mentioned that I ate elephant poo.

Next we came across a herd of wild elephants.  They are SO much fun to watch.  They are very active.

This was an albino elephant who was a few years old.  Still a kid.

And a nursing young elephant.

This is just about the happiest elephant in the world because it has a stick.  I guess that once one elephant starts playing around with a branch, it becomes the most sought after commodity in Africa even though there are hundreds of ones just like it.  Siblings are the same everywhere.

We also got half-heartedly charged by one of the elephants.  Someone in the car stood up and it freaked the elephant out so it started lunging at us.  It wasn't a big deal though because we got out of there in plenty of time.  The guide was pretty pissed at the kid though.  

We were really lucky to see this baby elephant that was born only a few days ago!  It was still very wobbly which made it all the more endearing.

We finally spotted a male lion!  This was the daddy to the cubs we saw earlier.  They were all hanging out on the road, playing and napping.

Rawr!

And a jackal.  It stared us down like it knew it ruled the underworld.