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Published: March 2nd 2008
head-on zebra
I LOVED these guysToday was different from anything I’ve ever experienced. We woke up early for a relaxing morning on our patio, only to be greeted by
vervet monkeys, franklins, several types of birds, warthogs, and more. It was pretty exciting without leaving the house! After a low-key day of some grocery shopping, grilled cheeses, and naps, we then hit our first safari ride into the bush in the late afternoon. Can I just say it was SO COOL! We were in this huge Land Rover-type vehicle that seated 20. At first the animals we saw were pretty far away: a baboon troop, a couple of lone white rhinos, some water bucks. Then the real excitement began with our first giraffe, a gang of wildebeests, some impala with another wildebeest, a pack of zebras (pronounced “zeh-bra” here in SA to my amusement), another giraffe, some white rhinos up close (a little family of mom, dad and baby…actually these were very up close about 5 feet from our vehicle! Grunting!), some hippos and a crocodile, a mom and baby monkey, several birds - snake eagle, ???, etc. It was a very satisfying first day with seeing lots of fun animals and one of the “Big Five”.
Not bad for Day One!!
As we were driving around and hearing our guide’s conversation , I was thinking how simple life is out here. Eat or be eaten. Kill or die. Survive another day without being eaten. Predators and prey. The animals who stick in packs versus the animals who are lone wanderers. All of them just trying to eat enough to survive, whether that be vegetation or another animal. Some of them working on not being eaten. I tried to think about my life in terms of this simplicity. Get a job or die? Probably not. Be killed if I’m a little less alert one day? Probably not. I just felt a sense of calm regarding life in general knowing that in my world, I’m not constantly living in fear of the lion around the corner. We humans have it pretty good. Not so much fear of being eaten alive, and I like air conditioning and heat and a roof a lot too! Perhaps I’ll head home with a new appreciation of the life of the homo sapien.
Dave’s view:
Well safari is too cool. Seeing all the animals in their natural habitat with 1000’s of acres around
first giraffe!
so tall! found out each giraffe has only 7 vertebrae. not sure how that works exactly... for them to roam, hunt, whatever, instead of a zoo is unbelievable. As part of the drive they take you out to a camp and have a bush braai (safari BBQ) that was delicious. The interesting thing is that everywhere where people are there is an electric fence 100% around you. Perhaps because if the lions or tigers have not been successful throughout the day we humans are easy pickings. Anyway, it’s totally safe and I never once felt unsafe except when we encountered the rhino family. While we were sitting there starring at family with the lights beating down on then the conversation got a little loud and the guide had to shush us because the “papa” rhino turned on the truck like he was going to charge. The guide said that it would at the very least turn the truck and everybody in it over and that was the best case . Also, at dinner, we met Christina and Stephan (new people!). They are from Germany but working in J-burg. They joined us for dinner and talked about their jobs, life, etc.
Well, that’s about it. Tomorrow we drive ourselves out on safari. This should really be interesting.
Back to our RSL (rock star life!).
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Jeanie Mercer
non-member comment
Wow!!!
The photos are fabulous! What an experience it must have been to see all those animals in one afternoon and early evening. Wow!!! Your speculation that not seeing a shark was a good omen for the trip to the bush was spot on! Well done!