National Geographic Moment

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Before I left on my trip I talked a lot about wanting to experience a National Geographic moment. Well, my night drive in the South Luangwa national park afforded me that opportunity.

We drove most of the day - the very steamy day - to arrive at our campsite at South Luangwa. After a quick refreshing jump in the pool, we got dressed, covered ourselves in bug spray and got ready for our night drive through the park. The night drive at South Luangwa is supposed to be the best opportunity for viewing predators on the hunt. This was not to be for us. What we did see in my opinion makes up for it in a big way.

As we entered the park saw that a whole bunch of Safari trucks were stopped by the side of the road. For those of you who have been to Banff or Jasper you will understand that cars by the side of the road usually means an animal sighting. We stopped next to the other cars and saw Giraffe in the clearing. Now giraffe in themselves are not such an exceptional sighting - we had probably seen 20+ giraffe by that time and were a little jaded. What made this such an exceptional moment was that the giraffe had just given birth (missed it by about 2 mins!!!) and the baby giraffe still hadn't taken it's first steps. What an amazing site to see!!! The mother stood around as the baby struggled to it's legs and then tumbled over. We ooohed and awwwed for about 5 mins watching the struggle after which time our guide suggested we move on as he felt the crowd was putting too much stress on the animals and that if the baby didn't get up soon it would be some hyena's meal for the night. We of course agreed and moved on - all warm and glowy from the amazing scene we had watched.

We drove around in the dark with a huge spotlight and saw lots of small animals - a hyena out in the distance - but no cats. A little dissapointed we headed back to our campsite where dinner was waiting for us. The next day we had another game drive through the park. Although we saw elephants - one who mock charged our vehicle, lots of giraffe, a venue of vultures feeding on a buffalo corpse - probably the most disgusting thing I have ever smelled in my life, we again did not see any cats. Well that's not completely true, we did see a lioness. The problem was she was lying on the ground dying of some disease. Very sad sight to see - and so not counted as a real lion sighting.

South Luangwa was our last game viewing opportunity until the last day of the trip when we would visit Kruger. Here's hoping for Cheetahs, Lions and Leopards at Kruger!

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Comments

[Silvan]

lion
poor poor lion.... lost the fight against a gepard!