This morning's drive was pretty quiet. About 40 minutes in, when there'd been nothing to report, I commented that apparently we've been spoiled on our first 3 drives. In fact, we've been so lucky, our group has started making specific requests of the driver: baby elephant, leopard in a tree, cheetah making a kill, etc. A few seconds after my comment, we spotted a large male elephant in the distance. But apparently elephants are now mundane, because a few comments were made, but the driver didn't stop, and nobody complained. I asked later, and the driver just didn't see the elephant, and didn't hear the comments over his radio earpiece and the engine of the truck. We came across another jeep stopped, so we stopped to see what they saw. A leopard, in a tree. I'm personally a little bored with the leopards. I am not a cat person to start with, and we've seen 3 now (actually, this is apparently the same one we saw on Monday night). But this one was actually in a tree. Apparently leopards do climb trees for a vantage point when hunting, but they don't stay up there long (this one climbed down about 3 minutes after we arrived), so catching one is impressive. I am now so impressed with our driver's and spotter's ability to deliver on requests, I have asked for a rhino in a tree.
We then drove for about another hour without anymore sightings (except maybe impala, which are like groundhogs and gophers in Canada, so prevalent nobody stops to take pictures of them), and came upon another group watching the same cheetah from yesterday. Apparently cheetah are only seen every few months, and we've seen one twice in as many days, in a completely different location.
I was starting to get sad as we drove home, no great zebra or giraffe sightings, as the only ones we've seen on drives we were on our way to the cheetah, so we couldn't stop and watch them for long. Fortunately, we got to see some giraffe near the side of the road on the way back, before they wandered off where we couldn't see them.
A little further down, 5 male buffalo a few feet off the road. These were the same animals I saw on the way in, and the driver confirmed they are most definitely buffalo, cape buffalo, which are some of the rarest animals. UG asked if they are as tasty as bison, and apparently we are to try buffalo pie in Kruger, if we can get it. We almost lost our driver to his reverie at the memory of Kruger buffalo pie.
And then back for breakfast. A couple more elephants were working their way back into the ravine just after breakfast. Close enough to watch, but not close enough for good pictures.
Speaking of pictures, I have personally taken about 700 (as of the end of the morning drive) just in the safari park. UG has a few hundred more with his own camera.
The afternoon was also quiet in the field, as was the evening drive. Most of our group left this morning, so our jeep was filled with new arrivals. When the driver asked them what they most wanted to see, they said "leopard", and UG and I almost groaned out loud. We had seen leopard 3 times by then, and had started to consider it a standby animal. "Hmm, nothing much going on today, let's go see a leopard to keep the guests happy." Fortunately, we stopped to visit a hippo first. Then came upon some elephants (probably the same ones as yesterday) in a long open field formerly used as an airstrip. We saw there for a few minutes before some impala came running out of the bush. They were just playing, as we could tell by the fact they weren't making their funny "predator is coming" noises, and were running in circles rather than a straight line as fast as they could go. But they scared the bejeesus out of the elephants, who then stampeded into the bush in the other direction. It was interesting to see how quickly they can disappear, with the dust flying off their backs as they went. The driverr was pretty upset with the impalas for ruining the view for the new people, though.
Then we came upon the leopard. This was the first male we've seen and he's quite a bit larger. He walked right under the back end of the jeep (under our butts, as UG and I were seated in the back row) 3 times! So even a boring old leopard still has some surprises. And the "new" people were so extatic. It turns out they have been coming on safari every year for 8 years, and never seen a leopard. So for them, this was the rare, epic sighting of a lifetime, and they happiness at finally seeing one was great to see.
For tonight's sundown drink, we stopped next to a dam (the South African word for man-made hole that fills with water, not a dam as we know it in Canada) with a couple of hippos in it. As we watched, one of the hippos was trying to get out of the water with a great deal of difficulty, and he finally gave up. My ankles have been hurting, and the last step out of the pools at the camp are over a foot tall, so I find myself relating to the hippo's struggle to get out of the water.
Last night, we had been driving in the dark, came to a sudden stop, backed up about 3 feet, and our spotter pointed to a bush and said "cameleon". The driver got out, broke off the branch and brought the cameleon up for us all to see. We were all now convinced this guy had special powers to be able to see a 4" lizard in a bush, in the dark at 30km/hr. When we told the new people about it, they explained cameleon never move very far. Once you've seen one, you can be pretty much sure it will still be in the same tree or bush several days later. So much for the magic! The rest of tonight's drive back was uneventful.
For dinner, we had kudu, a type of antelope. We had almost finished the main course before it started to rain and we had to move inside, out of the boma. The rain was steady, but not too heavy, and there was no wind, but we saw a spectacular thunder and lighting show from the deck off the library above the bar. The lightening was way up, so rather than hitting the ground, they were bouncing back up to other clouds.
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