6:00 am wake-up so that we can leave by 6:30 pm. No hot water bottles for the game drive but we still had blankets thank goodness since it was very cold again. The land here is very open so it is easier to see the animals. The first thing we saw was a pride of lions that had just killed a Wildabeast. The female lions do the hunting but the male gets to eat first (hmmm....). The females often go off for days at a time and leave the male lion so I guess all is fair! We were pretty close and watched the lion just tear into the flesh. At one point, the lion got the intestines and was eating it like spaghetti. I guess the intestines and organs provide a lot of energy so the male lion gets to eat these.
We then came upon a male white rhino who was marking his territory and wandering around. He was so easy to see since he was in the grasslands. At one point we could almost reach out and touch him which was a bit close for comfort. The rhinos cover their body in mud as that is essentially their sunscreen. Poachers are still a problem in S. Africa since their horns are coveted so the guides would not even tell us how many rhinos were on this preserve. The poaches cut off the horns and leave the rhinos to die which is quite sad.
We also some some birds, huge herds of wildabeast, impala, and giraffes.
We came back to a nice big breakfast and then much of the group went out for paintball. The kids needed an activity so they could run since we spend so much of our time sitting on safari drives...not complaining at all but you still need to move those legs sometimes! Everyone who went had a great time and the few who stayed behind enjoyed some peace and quiet. I took some time to run a bit around the camp and do a few exercises under the eyes of the staff who think I'm crazy. No one just exercises for the sake of it.
For the afternoon game drive, we arranged with the range to do a walking bush tour for the adults (their rule is you must be 16). The kids plus Hannah and Maggie (who is 19) rode with all the children in the jeep and we adults divided into 2 groups. Each group had a ranger with a big rifle up front. The safety lecture for the walking bush tour put fear in all of us (our ranger had to shoot a woman one time so she would stop running and the elephant who stop charging her). Our group dutifully followed all the rules which included walking single files, being quiet and keeping up! No stragglers on this walk! This was most interesting as we got to learn about the trees and smaller insects. He dug up an ant lion for us to see which was quiet interesting. We also witnessed a baboon fight on a the mountain that was incredible. The sounds of all these baboons running around and making their calls was even louder than Alex and Owen at their highest decibel (ha). We could see them jumping from tree to tree, running around. Our guide thought one had some good food and he wasn't sharing with the others. We have realized the animal species are not so different than ours!
We also caught a few bush pigs who look similar to our own domesticated pigs although a bit bigger and also quite fierce. Our ranger showed us lots of tracks and much of the time was spent examining the poop from the various animals. It is amazing what you can learn from the scat of animals. You can see what they have eaten, where they have walked, and how healthy they are. We also found hyena pee on the bush which is hard to miss by the strong scent. If it touches your clothes you won't get the smell out for about 30 days. Yuck! It was wonderful to get out and walk and see the landscape in a very different way.
We then had a delicious meal of beef, lamb, potatoes, rice, mixed vegetables, cinnamon bread and a chocolate brownie for dessert paired with some delicious South African chardonnay. Then it was back to our tents for the night.
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