South Africa Safari - Sabi Sabi Bush Lodge

Murray drove us to Sabi Sabi.  It was almost like another bush drive as we drove on single track dirt roads with animals in sight, including these zebras.

We arrived at our second safari destination just in time for lunch.  One thing was true for all of our time on safari - they keep you well fed!  Many of us in the group started skipping lunch and enjoying afternoon tea instead.  Anyway, this lodge is also open air, but does have a couple of enclosed rooms off to sides.  Since a different group just left it will be a while before we can go to our cabins, we sit down in the large, covered room overlooking the river they are on with a plateau across the way.  

This plateau often attracts animals since it has a small pond in it and a large area to enjoy.  When we arrive, it is being enjoyed by a huge herd of water buffalo.  Our Tauck Director, Dumay tells us this is an extremely rare site to see so many water buffalo at once.  There are also baboons and banded mongoose running around on the plateau.  

When the rooms are ready, we head off to our "cabins".  This time no deck in back but rather a small patio for each room also very private (well from humans at least).  Here you walk into a living room type area with a desk, huge couch, big coffee table and a chair. Off to your left is the sleeping area with a nice king-sized bed and nightstands.  Continuing on you come to another table and a closet area which is outside of another huge bathroom containing a separate commode room, 2 sinks, slipper tub, oversized 2 shower head shower and an outdoor shower.  One thing different about this resort is that is a little family oriented or welcoming with a child play area and we did see 1 family there.  Oh, it is a larger resort I think it had 25 rooms!

Sitting out on the back patio, we are visited frequently by wildlife.  We had to be careful to keep out a troop of Vervet monkeys from getting inside. It was fun to watch them grooming each other and an energetic juvenile that was everywhere at once.  

Vervet Monkeys on our patio

This bush buck was not scared of people at all

 As seen from the walkway

We head out for our first drive here with our new guide Albert and tracker Jack.  We also picked up another couple from our tour Chris and Sharon.  As we start to drive, we learn 2 things fast.  1.  Albert has a good sense of humor and 2. this is a private reserve where the owners' have chosen to groom the land some so it's easier to see some of the animals and it is a bit more enticing for rhinos.  By grooming the land, I mean they have pulled up some of the bushes so there is more meadow land. 

We begin our drive with you guessed it, impala who are everywhere.   Then we saw some amazing colorful birds starting with that drive and continuing over our stay.  

 Remember this is the day of the water buffalo so of course we find another herd of them.  But to make it memorable, we see the birth of one.  Literally if you watch the video we got there in time to see the sac fall from the mother.  Albert said it would be 25 minutes or more before the new calf would stand so we moved on.  He did tell us that water buffalo and cows are so closely related that if a water buffalo calf loses its mother it could be adopted by a cow and drink from that mother.

Click on Video below for live birth

Next up a small heard of Elephants with a precocious baby who thinks he can chase us off.  Mom watches, but doesn’t see us as a threat as long as we don’t get between her and her child.

Click on Video below

A little farther down the road we find a group of 3 young male rhinos.  Albert explains that until they are 10 or so they stick together then they will claim a territory.  We had seen some huge piles of dung and our guides had explained that a rhino uses the same spot regularly because that is partially how they claim an area.  If another wants to challenge the owner of the area, they will defecate on top of the owner's dung.  If a female is in the area, she does her business off to the side of the midden (dung pile) to let them know she's in the neighborhood.  

White rhinos since their mouth/snout is flat.  Allows them to graze on grass

We continue on and see a variety of smaller animals and birds of various types, but we have not yet seen a lion.  Then after our sundowners we start to head back to the lodge when Albert suddenly guns it and says we have to hurry because we are later for dinner - yeah right.  Well, we did need to get back to the lodge because just a couple of hundreds of yards in front of the entrance a male lion was crossing the road.  We saw him in the darkness but not that well.  But we had now seen all of the big 5 and time for dinner!

At night the tracker panned a large light so we could see animals.

Next morning it is a knock on our door versus a phone call, but early hour.  We are at the lodge before 6:30 to grab a bite and a sip before we head out for the morning drive.  As we are wandering around the preserve and a neighboring one, we see lots of animals like more zebra and giraffe which we stop and check out. 

an idea of the scenery 

 Then suddenly he is a man on a mission again.  Word is another group has found a couple of male lions sunning/sleeping on a large rock.  We joined the group but could never get a great view of them.  Jeff and I were having to be satisfied with a lion with trees in the middle of his body, but it was better than the night before's view. (Passed the camera forward to our guide to get shots below). 

We stopped for our break by a large rock outcropping/hill.  Albert and Jack tells us about how they have had several couples get engaged there and the one time the women said “no.”  While hearing the stories, we can see Dumay at the top taking in the view.  Scott Jeff and Chris go up and said it was well worth the climb. We explored some more and saw a couple of ostriches (not together). Strange since it was the first we saw here in Kruger, the second one we saw had pink legs and beak.  Dumay (our Tauck guide) was with us and explained it meant he was ready to mate.   

  

From the top of the outcropping

Then we headed for the lodge for breakfast which was a nice buffet at this lodge.  We had a couple of options for our late morning/early afternoon.  We could do a bush walk for an hour or go visit a nearby village for a couple of hours. Upon our return, a few of the water buffalo were back at the lodge enjoying a swim and sharing the pond with a water crocodile.   

Jeff and I chose the bushwalk.  Albert and another guide Quenny led us.  While the guides had always carried a shotgun with them in the vehicle, it had always been safely encased in a carrying case.  This time the guns were out and loaded.  While we walked, they explained some of the plants to us and we played a couple of games.  We learned that one kind of fern leaf like plant was a good substitute for toilet paper just be sure you grabbed the correct plant because a similar one had barbs under its leaves!  We saw wild basil, a plant that had medicinal purposes and a bush that could be turned into a toothbrush.  We also lined up to see who could spit the furthest - using impala dung which is pure grass.  Later we played a version of Simon Says.  Then we were back at the Land Cruiser to go back to the lodge.  We had about 3 hours till the afternoon walk so I decided to get a massage.  The South African rand is so weak compared to the dollar that I had a very nice 90-minute massage with tip for under $100.  Back to the room to quickly get ready for our afternoon drive.  

top plant is a giraffe favorite. left middle is an orchid that grows in trees, bottom right tree grows out of boulders and eventually breaks the boulder

For the afternoon drive, we saw a nice mixture of animals.

notice the baby

if you look closely you will see some pink on his ears which means he is only a couple of days old

For our last Sundowner Kathy and Scott brought along some champagne to share with others - seems this trip included their wedding anniversary.  Honestly by this point much of the game drives are a blur, but I can ensure you I was enjoying it immensely.  We also enjoyed the champagne during the sundowner and shared it with another vehicle that stopped by us. 

another pretty sunset

wildebeest

warthog

The sun has set and we are on our way back, but the bush drive is not done.  Albert starts driving as fast as he can on the dirt road.  It must be another cat!  A Leopard.  We did not stay long because he appeared to be hunting.

That evening dinner was similar to the previous evening - in an outdoor dining area but this time Albert joined our table, so we got to talk with him some during dinner.  After dinner he walked us back to our cabins and promised to knock at 6 in the morning. 

He kept his promise and we had our last morning safari wake up call.  It was sad to know this was our last game drive, but boy did we end it with a bang!! The previous day we had spent some time following lion footprints.  Seems there are a couple of lionesses with cubs in the area and he wanted to show them to us.  Several of the guides decided they were probably in this one area, so we went carefully offroad trying to find them.  He was being pretty methodical in his pattern and was talking with 2 other drivers.  

before the lion hunt

Albert and Jack lion hunting

One of the other drivers found them not far off from us.  It was 4 lionesses with 5 cubs enjoying a meal of zebra.  It was amazing to see.  Simply amazing.

Click below on video of wandering cub

this little guy with the dirty face was my favorite.  Mom did reprimand him for his lack of table manners

Click on video to watch the lions enjoy their dinner

That was the end of a great safari.  Early on at our first lodge I noticed a pamphlet called "My Safari Journal" inside was several pages with animals, plants, birds that you could mark when you found them.  So, I became either the kid who had something to keep them busy or the secretary for our group.  Here is the list of animals we saw: 

     terrapin (turtle unknown type), Nile crocodile, small unknown type lizards, elephant, hippo, white         rhino, leopard, lion, spotted hyena, chacma baboon, vervet monkey, water buffalo, giraffe, African         civet, banded mongoose, dwarf mongoose, blue wildebeest, bushback, cape buffalo, greater                     kudu, grey duiker, impala, nyala, scrub hare, tree squirrel, warthog, zebra Burchel's kulu. water             buck, 

Birds we saw: 

    babbler, arrow-marked; cormorant, reed; eagle, African-fish; eagle- Bateleur; eagle - tawny; egret -        little egret; francolin, crested; go-away bird, grey; goose, Egyptian; goshawk, Gabar; Guineafowl;         heron, grey; hornbill, southern-yellow-billed; kingfisher (unknown type); lapwing, crowned;                     mousebird, red-faced; Parot, brown headed; roller, lilac-breasted; starling greater blue-eared;                 starling, violet-backed; stork, saddle-billed; vulture, hooded; vulture, white-backed; warbler - variety     of types; weaver, red-billed Buffalo; whydah, pin-tailed; woodpecker, bearded; woodpecker, cardinal

Trees we saw:

    African weeping wattle, apple leaf tree, black monkey thorn, buffalo thorn, jackal berry, knob thorn,        lead wood, magic guarri, manula (which has a berry elephants love, and humans use to make a nice        cream liqueur), red bushwillow, russet bushwillow, sausage tree, silver cluster leaf, sycamore fig,             tamboti (dangerous sap), transvaal gardenia.

Our guides also pointed out some southern star constellations to us.  I got good and finding the southern cross, not so good with the others.

Final tidbit:  a group of zebras is a dazzle although kaleidoscope is correct too.  If those giraffes are on the move, it is a journey.