On our way out of the property - not 5 seconds into the drive - we spotted 2 very large male buffaloes. Finally, we had seen all of the Big 5! Because they were sleeping and essentially on our property, we agreed to come back to them on our return from the morning drive.
Not 10 seconds later - spotted. Literally - our spotted male and female leopard friends were still going at it, more or less right outside of our lodge property. We stayed with them as they continued along mating, then walking, mating, then walking. As we were following them through the thicket, Prince calmly turns to us and says, "There's a male lion."
WHE...?! We couldn't even get the words out, because the second we all turned our heads, we realized a lion was standing directly behind the vehicle. We were so enamored with the leopards, we didn't even realize this guy was trailing us. In reality, he was likely interested in the leopards as well - which also explains their "break" and more hustle in walking. We still cannot believe it, even talking about it now... Within minutes of leaving the lodge, we had seen 3 of the 5 Big 5.
With that kind of luck, we decided to go cheetah tracking. On our way, we spotted elephants from afar - that's 4 out of 5! We also heard a familiar voice on the radio calling for Mac. It was Justin, and they were speaking in ranger tongue, but when I heard, "Tell Ali this could be her day," I knew someone had spotted some fresh cheetah tracks. We were crushing this morning so far, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. I had learned very quickly just how difficult the cheetah sightings can be!
We had some unexpected sightings along the way, but the one that was most memorable was a baby giraffe and its mother. This thing was adorable. Mac said he had never seen a baby so young before - it even had the umbilical chord still attached! The little thing looked so tiny standing next to its mother - not even the height of her legs!
We were searching the clearings high and low.... Two other rangers had been in the area previously trying their luck with our cheetah friend as well, but both came up empty handed. I had come to terms with the fact that it may be a lost cause when Claire pointed and said, "Is that a lion?" I looked to what she was pointing at and I responded, "Oh it IS a lioness!" We were both wrong, so Brandon spoke up - with his 20/20 vision and all - and said, "you guys are idiots, that's a cheetah!" I was beside myself...
No exaggeration, I was shaking with excitement. I could not believe we not only found a cheetah, but that it was sitting on a rock by the fence of the entire Sabi Sabi game reserve. It was as if it were there watching us all along, knowing this is as far as it could go. It took 4 days, but it was well worth the wait. For me, hands down THE most incredible sighting of the entire safari.
After such an amazing morning, we decided a nature walk was definitely in order. Especially since we had our new guide, we were interested to see if the walk differed from what we had with Justin. It definitely did as we went very far into the bush on this walk. I was so stressed out, looking over my back for lions the entire time, it was difficult to enjoy it. Claire and I did manage to ace all of the dung test questions though - turns out we are incredibly full of shit knowledge. Naturally... The most amazing part about this walk, however, was watching Jeanette face plant it as she tripped over some dung. Everyone was very PC, with the exception of Jason and myself. We immediately turned around and started laughing... No one saw us, but these two women from Australia were proving to be two giant pains in the ass. Karma works in funny ways, doesn't it?! May they forever live in infamy as Trip & Fall.
The afternoon drive was a good one as well - mostly because we spent the first 5 minutes of the drive looking for the sunglasses Brandon lost on the morning drive. I spotted them in the middle of the trail right before we were about to run over them... Dodged a bullet there!
While we did not necessarily see a lot on the afternoon/evening drive - and trust that Trip & Fall would go on to remind us of this until their departure - I personally think the time was well spent, showcasing just how well the guides and trackers across all of the different game reserve lodges work together. The mother leopard and her cubs had not been seen for a few days now, but someone had spotted their tracks earlier in the day. No one had been successful in finding them yet, so the rangers and trackers all worked together - often times on foot, leaving all of us in the vehicles - to go and find the animals. It was so much fun!
This went on for quite some time, so we took this opportunity to stretch our legs and hop out of the vehicle. We were unsupervised, so we did not go far, but I did finally get a chance to sit in the tracker seat. Something I had been dying to do... I just wanted to get a feel for what the trackers POV may be. Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to ride on the very front of a safari vehicle, exposed to all of the animals with no protection at all?! Pretty cool....
While we were waiting, the sun began to set. Before it went down entirely, we see Mac and a handful of other guides running towards the vehicles. Prince was nowhere to be found, but we could tell by the pep in their steps that they had located our cubs and mama leopard. Prince eventually got back to us, having been picked up by another vehicle, and off to the races we went. The teamwork was amazing, but now it was a mad dash to secure the best view of the animals before nightfall.
We got there around the same time as another &Beyond vehicle, but the cubs were on the move. Luckily, we ended up in the perfect location for photos. Well...Claire and I did anyway. Trip & Fall would once again remind us just how terrible they are, complaining the entire time that they couldn't get a picture as opposed to living in the moment... But what they failed to understand was that the light wasn't great, which was almost better - it allowed us to really enjoy the experience in real time as opposed to behind a camera. We were not with them long as the other vehicles needed an opportunity to view them too, so we made our way back to the lodge shortly thereafter.
What an exciting day! We had seen so much and been rewarded on two relatively intense tracking experiences with both the cheetah and leopards. To top off the day, we spotted two hyenas patrolling their territory on the way home. Mac was driving so fast, I swear I thought I was going to fly out of the car every time we floored it over a hill or bump in the trail.
As we pulled onto the lodge property, we noticed one of the trees at the entrance had a lot of light surrounding it. As we got closer, we realized that the lodge staff had put together a bottle of champagne and glasses, hanging everything from the tree for easy access. Because the day was such a success, they decided it was reason to celebrate - such a great end to one of the most exciting days of our entire trip.
At dinner, we couldn't stop talking about the series of events. We had no idea what tomorrow had in store, but we knew it was going to be very difficult to top what had taken place since 5:30am this morning.
Animal Sightings: Buffalo, Leopards (male and female mating & mother and cubs at night), Male Lion, Elephants, Giraffe (mother and baby), Male Cheetah, Dwarf Mongoose, Warthogs, Black Stork, Hornbill, &Beyond Logo Bird (cannot remember the name!), Hyenas, Hippos, Crocodile, Impala, Kudu, Zebra, Wildebeest.
Interesting Interactions:
1. The mama leopard was guarding an Impala carcass when we found her and the cubs. We got to watch as she plucked the fur from the body and prepped everything for her little cubs to eat. Pretty cool to see that happen!
2. To see hyenas on the hunt at night was such an eery feeling. The sight of a hyena alone feels like death, knowing they are pretty much the clean up crew of Africa, but to see them actually running and in the process of finding their next meal at night was kind of creepy. In a good way!
3. Did I mention we saw a cheetah? SO incredible. It really gave us a show too, at one point even climbing into a dead tree - uncharacteristic for a cheetah! I must have taken 1,000 pictures of this animal alone. Love!
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