Friday, August 18, 2006

... South Africa - The Safari

Below is a list of the various types of animals I was fortunate enough to see. You can click on the link to find out more about each animal.

Hippo
They say these are dangerous but I wasn't so impressed. Cath says that is because they were in the water and I was on land. I guess I just don't want to be between them and the water.


Giraffe
Lovely creatures to look at. Calm. We often saw them with Zebra. Apparently they have different strengths and can aid one another if needed.




Hyena

Genet

Leopard
Cath and I were driving between camps in our Volkswagen rental car when something ran across the road. Glowing red eyes watched us and then a flash of the most beautiful skinned, graceful creature ran in front of us. Of course my camera could not focus but I didn't hold that against Cathy. She still showed me Big Five. If you look carefully at the photo below, you can see red dots. That is the leopard staring back at me as we tried to position our car to take a closer look.


Rhino
They say you usually have to go into the bush and track rhino by foot but we stumbled across these two very relaxed guys.


Zebra


Wildebeest


Warthog
They would come drink from our watering hole every few days. Kinda cute really.


Vervet Monkey
The monkey were all over camp. They are sneaky little things-- trying to break into the huts to steal food and toothpaste.


Lion
We saw two lovely lion cubs. For a number of nights in a row we could hear adult lions using the cloud cover to bounce their calls back and forth in the night. They were very close to our camp. We tracked them for a while and could see that they were tracking an old herd of buffalo for food. We found three eight month old male cubs right by camp. They apparently just know to sit and wait until their mom comes back with the food. It was cute to see them lounging in the sun and wrestling around. We took Emma, Cathy's little sis, back to see them. She roared at them a few times to let them know who was boss and then was ready to move onto more animal.




Kudu


Jackal
One full moon night we happened across a male jackal and turned off the Landrover to watch for a bit. It started calling out to a nearby female- and she answered with a similar sound. Back and forth they called trying to locate one another. Oooh, it was a sound that sent chills through you. Very high pitched and primal. Definetly something to fear if you were alone in the bush at night.

Impala
These beautiful, graceful creatures are everywhere. They've become accustomed to the Landrovers and only stop to look at us when we drive by. The first few days I was there I was like "oooh, Impala" but by the end we just drove right by them with hardly a notice. And... I did eat some Impala stew. I thought it was strange that they serve it on a reserve, but it was yum.




Mongoose
I was able to see a whole heard of these-- like 70 or so-- scoot on by Tanda Tula one afternoon. They make a most interesting squeaking sound.

Buffalo
Apparently these are the most dangerous animal in the bush. I was told that if I was caught outside the Landrover by any animal, to stay put... unless it was Buffalo, then to run like heck. They don't look so intimidating but I believed them.


Bat
These would swoop down at us while we ate dinner at night. They weren't too frightening though.

Baboon
These guys were our African alarm clock. They tended to find refuge in the camp when the lion were near. That meant they would be bouncing on our straw roofs in the morning. Thud!

Actually, my first real animal experience was baboon. Cath and I stopped on the side of the road at a scenic overlook and came across an entire family of baboon. They were pretty much just chillin'. One male, two or three female, and a few babies. They babies were playing and wrestling around. Before we knew it, one of them hopped onto the car and was trying to open the door. Thank goodness Cath had just suggested locking the doors. If it had gotten into the car, I'm sure we'd of had some not so happy mommies. It gave Cath and I quite a startle and a great laugh.





Elephant
My favorite animal. Elephants are a matriarchal society meaning the males only come around to mate and then leave. We did see two males at a watering hole, but most of our encounters were of various breeding herds. They are very large animals but so graceful. You don't hear them walking and they tend to sneak up on you. Literally. One day a few of us were out picking dried leaves for the wedding. I was the only one outside of the Landie when we heard a noise. I asked if it was Ele but another thought it may be Buff and another Lion. Sally instructed me to get in the landrover immediately. As we looked up from our task, we saw that a herd had surrounded us. Cath was a bit nervous as any escape route we had was blocked and you never can tell if the mothers are going to be protective that day. As it turns out, they were all calm as could be. We even had one of the baby ele's mock charge us. It started stamping its feet, waiving its nose, and flapping its ears. The cutest thing. At another elephant encounter our tracker actually called the mother ele over to the Landie. She tapped her head on the hood and reached out to him with her trunk. Absolutely amazing. A VERY rare event.












Steenbok

Nyala

African Wildcat

Puff Adder
Puff Adder are one of the most poisonous snakes in Africa and we had one living outside our hut. Cath was taking pictures of some flowers when Mia yelled at her to move. I was in the shower and ran out to catch the action. Cath, crazy girl who apparently takes after her father, started stamping the ground near the snake to watch it puff up. Eventually the gardener came over and caught it. It's still up for debate whether he let it go or ate it for dinner that night. Either way, we watched the ground a little more closely when we ran through the grass by our hut.


Penguin
Yes, I saw penguin... on the coast. They bray like a donkey. Strangest thing.

Hornbill



Vulture


Egyptian Geese

Gecko


Squirrel
Yes, squirrel. I was lounging on a chair and suddenly a squirrel hops on me. I squealed and Cath pulled it off laughing at me. Yes, I was afraid of the squirrel- it kept jumping on me. How often have you seen a squirrel do that? Little did I know it was a tamed pet squirrel. Still. It was freaky.



Lilac Breasted Roller


Yellow-billed Stork


Orange-Breasted Sunbird


Rock Dassie


Cow


Duck

Hadedah

Ostridge

5 comments:

Catherine said...

Hatti Dattis??? LOL!
I'm sorry I missed those, I only saw the hadedahs :)

Charissa said...

Wow! I am soooooo jealous! Can I come next time? I'm actually looking at going to Peru and/or Brazil next July - wanna go with me?

Michelle said...

Hmmm... that's an idea. :-) I have a friend leaving for Brazil next week. He'll be doing medical work there for a month. I'll totally keep that in mind Charissa. What brings you there?

Charissa said...

My brother spent last fall semester in Peru. At Christmas, I had gifts from Europe for everyone and he had gifts from S. America. Not only were his cooler but WAY cheaper!!!! So I decided my next trip was south :0) You can get so much more for your money there. And when I was checking out hostels, there were some really super great deals in Rio De Janeiro right near the beach. Sounds good to me! A friend I met in London (who is from Argentina) may meet up with me in Peru - we'll see. A family from Brazil came to pastor's college and interned in Phoenix, so I may go visit their church and then wrap up on the beach. Still very up in the air, but hoping it will work out.

Michelle said...

oooooo..... nice! :-) Sounds like a great time!!!