First Game Drive in the late Afternoon -Early Evening.

The first afternoon we arrived we had lunch and at 3:30 

we took off for our first afternoon safari drive....

YIPPEE!!!

Andrew asked what animals we would like to see 

and Bruce said," I want to see rhinos".  And off we went. 

They assigned us a guide and a tracker.. Andrew and James! 
James sat on a chair attached to the front of the truck..
and i don't know why he wasn't scared half of the time. 
It looked to be a dangerous place to sit but he could 
see well from there. 

These little guys would run as fast as they could ahead of the truck and
only fly when they were just about under the tires.

Bruce and I were in the back seat of the truck,
Elvira and Bob held down the middle
and  two young lawyers were in the front seat.
It turned out that the two lawyers knew one of the Gastaldo's
son's roommate.  The world just keeps getting smaller.

 This is a take-away bird.  I don't have a South African 
bird book, but I'll try to remember all the names Andrew told us. 

Our first look at one of the Big 5---One lone Cape Buffalo... 

 Caught in an awkward moment..

Monkey Tracks?

And then --- James and Andrew spotted the rhinos!

They were very near the road so we had quite a close
encounter with them.  Bruce was very happy! 
They were even on his side of the truck.

Andrew was a wealth of knowledge so we learned a great deal
from him..  While we were with the Rhinos he told us that
poachers had already killed over 300  plus rhinos this year
and 200 of them had been from Kruger.  SHAME!

This rhino would be really be a find for a poacher.  She had the longest horn
of any of the rhinos we saw.  These are white rhinos and apparently the black rhinos
are hardly ever seen.  The rangers watch the parks, fly helicopters and planes over looking for poachers but the poachers drop in by parachute during the night and 
then can't be seen. 

It is really disturbing that people would kill these magnificent animals
just for their horns.  And you ask what do they do with them?
Apparently it is a hot market in Viet Nam and they are used for
medicinal purposes.  They cost about the same per ounce as gold. 

 From the Telegraph newspaper:  "The trade in rhino horn has seen the numbers of rhino killed spiral in recent years. Over the border in Kruger, the South African part of the trans frontier park, 180 have been killed so far this year, out of a national total of 249. Last year, 668 rhino were poached in South Africa, a 50 per cent increase over the previous year".

She always seemed to be watching us.

The birds were sitting on them... gleaning the choice ticks from their backs and sides..

Yes, these are all ticks.  Does this make you itch or what?

As you can see.. there were a few on her snout, too!  Although some of that is drying mud.

The guys telling us all about them.

Here i have a video..... but i cannot get them to work for some reason..
If anyone knows how to help me i would be so grateful..
It acts like it is copying them and then suddenly says there has been an error.  
So sad...since you could otherwise see the animals in action!

We sat for a long time and watched them graze.  They literally pull off 
the grass as their top lip pulls back on it. 

As we pull away.. Bruce is smiling.. that was quite a first look
up close at one of the Big Five!
That's #2 of the 5 and we've only been out for about an hour.
Oh.. no... I guess we saw the elephant  on our way in  so
this is really #3 of the Big Five.

The BIG FIVE ARE: African ELEPHANTS, African CAPE BUFFALO, RHINOS, LEOPARDS AND LIONS!

A little way further and this pretty giraffe crossed our path.
We actually didn't see as may giraffe here as we do in Akagera.

But we saw more elephants! 

He was having an evening snack.

I could watch these big creatures all day long...Is he waving hello?

And then he decided to focus on us...We watched each other for awhile and then drove on.

By now the sun is getting ready to set...but there were still some animals out!

 This "Ellie", as everyone calls them...was just hanging out by himself.

Happy looking one!

And just for Bruce, another rhino!

 The sun was casting a soft glow on the mountains off to the east....

                                                  Just as it was dropping off for the night!

But after the sun set.. Andrew spotted a bunch of buzzards and 
assumed there must be a kill.
So we started driving faster... hoping...

Poised for take-out!

Andrew was hoping if there was a kill under the tree that the lions might be there, but...

no, just these not so handsome vultures.

Each day on the evening game drive we would stop and have
our sunset drink and snack time...

Andrew and James set it all up and we enjoyed! 

We had fun talking about things we'd seen and just getting
to know more about each other and the bush.

The sun is down and it really does look just like the pictures of Africa...
with the colored sky and Acacia Trees!

Our ride back to the lodge after dark was QUITE cold.. They provided heavy wool
blankets and we were bundled up in them... even me..

We saw a few more animals on the way back in the dark as James would
scan his large search light back and forth across the road as we drove.  It was sort of like
watching a ping pong ball...

Upon our return.. hot wash cloths awaited us once again...
and then it was off to prepare for dinner..

Dinner our first night was on the Boma..... as you saw earlier!

What a great first day here... Like we are dreaming....
Remember all those Tarzan movies we watched growing up?
i keep waiting to hear his voice... and have all the animals come charging to him.
Who could have ever imagined we'd actually be here experiencing this first hand.
We are so blessed.

I wonder if we will see any other animals from what we saw today, tomorrow??

Bedtime was early since we leave at 6:00am tomorrow.

Oh.. i forgot to tell you when we got back from the drive the "heat" was on
in our little house.

And that felt so good after our chilly trip back!  

They seem to think of everything...

love,
margie