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Published: July 12th 2008
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A Fond Farewell
Monday, July 7, 2008 Still on our mission to find the Wild Dogs and Jackal, we set out early in the morning and were surprised that it felt even colder than the morning before. Gianyi had filled our hot water sacks full of blazing hot water and we tucked these in our blankets to keep warm. Nigil said his had spilled the day before but it was difficult to tell as the sacks warm so well. I understand now why we didn’t see the wild dogs earlier. Singita has a few rules with respect to game drives. The first is that only two vehicles can enter neighboring lodge land as licensing agreements permit. The second is that only three vehicles can be in the location at the same time. Because Singita has two lodges close to one another, each having accommodations of 11 rooms, there could possible be somewhere of more than 10 jeeps out at any given point. The wild dogs and Cheetah were very popular and probably the reason we couldn’t see them earlier was that the site was full.
On our way we went and seemed to again drive
for a very long time. With a waive of his write Gianyi on the front bumper brought the jeep to a halt. It seemed we ran across another pride of lions. We entered the brush. The 3rd rule Singita has is that a jeep can only offroad provided a big 5 animal (Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, Elephant, Rhino) has been spotted. Earlier in the week we had spotted a gorgeous Eagle from a distance, but weren’t able to get close to him. We traversed the bush and came upon the lions. An awesome sight - there were five females and one young male. The male was strikingly different from the male we saw our first day. This male looked almost fully grown, but his mane was golden blonde and he still moved with the inexperience of a youngster. He accompanied the Lioness’ through thick and rocky bush. Our jeep was thrown around on the uneven land and we bobbed around like a pendulum on a clock. Although the going was rough, we were able to track these Lions for about an hour uninterrupted. Two females in the front led the way and would pause every few minutes to smell, sense, and
look around. A female in the rear kept laying down and wanted to nap and the male, the man of the house, as always keep to the rear. Ironically, the male in the pride only have one use - making babies. The females have the babies, hunt for food, and provide for the pride. The males take what they want. When males, such as this one we were following are old enough, the older males in the pride chase them away so they start their own colony somewhere else and leave the pride behind to take care of itself/
There were no cubs with this group - likely because this group was mostly young themselves. The mother seemed to lead the pack and when she stopped, after the rest who were walking single file behind her caught up, they would stop as well. After a long walk and watch of these ladies and gentleman, two other Safari vehicles finally found us. The Lions didn’t seem to mind, however it seemed like they were closed in from all sides. The girls crossed an overgrown dirt road and disappeared over an embankment with the other two vehicles in two. The male,
who did look like an older Simba, had lagged behind and lost their scent. He passed our jeep within a meter, headed down the road, turned around, growled at his loss of the pack, picked up the scent, and also disappeared over the embankment.
We resumed our journey to the wild dogs. Another vehicle had waited for them to come out of a den all morning while we gleefully got up and close with the Pride. The vehicle had been successful but as we approached the den (an evacuated enormous termite hold - one of thousands we saw), all was quite. Nigil was turning into a professional tracker and spotted one of the dogs sleeping - success. The wild dogs were the only pack in the entire area. Five adults and a handful of pups, Nick was excited to see their numbers improve. Wild dogs were notoriously a nuisance to farmers in the area who would deal with them severely. The dogs resembled small German Shepherds. We spotted another soon after and the dogs laid peacefully while we watched. We didn’t get to see the pups and probably missed playtime by just a few moments.
Hyenas operate under
a different class system. The lowest female is still considered within their pack to have greater status that the highest Alpha male. Another termite hold not far from the dogs was the den of a male, female, and young Hyena. The male was snoozing at the base of the den and the female near the entrance at the top. We were very fortunate that a baby Hyena decided to come out of the den and say hello. He was fairly uncoordinated and only a month old. He also seemed a bit scared of us, but took the morning opportunity to grab a bite and fill himself up. The baby was very cute and it’s difficult to believe that as they get older, they become less so.
We arrived at camp for our last breakfast and Nick, Nigil and Liz joined us for our farewell eggs benny. After another filling breakfast, we bid our friends farewell and made our way to upstairs. Yvonne, the house manager had called for a paramedic for Tabitha who had gotten some kind of rash on her legs and arms. Turns out we think it is from the Malrone. Tabitha also was disappointed the day
before at the store when she found out that the shop didn’t have any sweatshirts her size. Yvonee surprised us and let us know that she would get the size and mail it to us at no charge. We packed our gear and waited for Nick in the library to take us to our flight.
Saying goodbye to Nick, Ginanyi, and Singita was a sad parting and a tear crept down Tabitha’s cheek. We boarded the miniature plane with a few of the same people we had flown in with a few days earlier, took off, and were at JoBerg in only 1 hour. We picked up all our checked baggage we had left at the hotel, made our way to International Departures and made an earlier flight to Dubai. This flight would get us in at 6:00AM rather than 8:30AM and give us a little more time to check out the city before we left for Maldives. On our way to board the plane Tab picked up some skin ointment and we settled in our exit row seats to Dubai. Tabitha was lucky to grab an entire middle row and slept most of the way.
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Erin
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Malarone???
Malarone? Malarone? Sigh. Obviously all the prior wisdom I did for my safari was not taken. Next time, go with doxy... a much better choice. Glad you guys had such a great time on your safari. It's something everyone should exerience, don't you think?