I had hoped to be able to update my blog regularly during my
safari but unfortunately I was just too busy having fun so I will try my best
to fill you in on what happened during the amazing eleven days I spent on tour
based on the quick notes I jotted down in my tent at the end of each night.
During my last night in Johannesburg I was sharing a room
with a guy who had just finished the first 7 days of the tour I would be
starting the following morning and he told me he was very disappointed in the
tour which left me a little apprehensive but he must have had ridiculous
expectations because it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever
had!
Day one was fairly uneventful. I woke up at ridiculous
o’clock and was picked up at my hostel at 5am. I was driven to another hostel
and transferred into another van. The tour the previous week only had for
people on it so I was pretty disappointed to learn that there would be 13
people on this week’s tour and the van would be completely packed. It took a
while for the van to fill up but by 6am there were 13 girls and our lovely
driver Jo-Jo packed into the van and ready to go.
We spent most of the day driving so it wasn’t an overly
exciting day but I guess it was a good chance to start chatting with the other
people on tour although none of us were overly chatty since we were all
functioning on very little sleep. I
finally got to eat at Wimpy’s during our lunch stop and I was super excited
about that since I had been craving it the entire time I was on the BazBus but
never got a break long enough to order it. I was incredibly disappointed
though. I waited almost half an hour for a BLT, never got the side of mayo that
I asked for and had to wait close to 15 minutes to pay my bill.
We arrived at Khama Rhino Sanctuary shortly before dusk to
setup camp. The only other solo traveller on the trip was an Australian girl
named Gayle who I had met a few days previous and while we didn’t sit together
we decided at our first rest stop that we should be tent buddies. This was only
night (aside from our time at Kruger) that Gayle and I didn’t have to set up
our own tent but we helped a few other girls with theirs. Once we had set up
camp Jo-Jo set to work cooking dinner. He had very limited equipment and still
managed to make the best meal I had had in weeks! It was a fairly simple meal,
pasta in a cream sauce with some vegetables but it was amazing! I went back for
seconds and felt much better about my chances of surviving the length of the
tour even though I'm such a picky eater. After dinner we all headed to bed,
well actually most of us got lost trying to find the bathroom and then we went
to bed preparing for an early wakeup call.
The next morning we got up just before the sun to head out
on our first game-drive. I tried to find the bathroom before we headed out but
got lost and ended up walking around in circles for a while before giving up
and deciding to hold it as I saw the driver on his way to our campsite to pick
us up. The drive started out pretty spectacularly as we spotted a pair of
hyenas who had just finished dragging their latest kill (a wildebeest) in to
the middle of a watering hole to keep it away from other scavengers so they
could go to bed and feast on it later. We also got to watch the dominant male
from a pack of wildebeest take on a couple of intruders, which was fairly
entertaining. We also saw several impalas, some zebras, springbok, warthogs,
and numerous birds (that Emma our crazy bird lady pointed out at every
opportunity) but we weren’t finding any rhinos. Our drive ended up being
extended as it took so long to find them but eventually we stumbled upon a
mother white rhino and he calf, and later a lone male rhino. Our group had been
split into two for the drive and the group in the other vehicle saw 8 rhinos
but we probably had better banter so that totally makes up for it.
We ended our day at Elephant Sands, the itinerary said this
was a good place for animal viewing but I never dreamed we would be so close to
the wildlife. While setting up our tents we noticed a great deal of elephant
poop around and the campsite and realized that being trampled was a very real
possibility. Melting to death was also a possibility so once we set up our
tents we made our way to the pool and that’s when the magic started to happen.
While we were all cooling off in the pool someone noticed an elephant in the
distance, and then a second one and we all started to freak out! Jo-Jo and some
of the staff where we were staying told us to calm down because we hadn’t seen
anything yet but I was blown away by the way the even unfolded. We all
continued to hang out around the pool and bar overlooking the watering hole and
by the time I went to bed I had seen at least 40 elephants. They came in small groups to drink and splash
in the water. Sometimes different groups would come at the same time and there
would be small disputes although despite my rooting for it things never really
kicked off in a big way. I did however learn that trumpeting is not the only
noise that elephants can make; they also make a scary growling noise.
I would have loved to stay up all night watching the
elephants coming and going but we had to be up by 4am the following morning to
cross the border into Zimbabwe before there was a massive line at immigration.
We all managed to make it through the night without being stepped on by an
elephant but I will leave the rest of my stories for another time.
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