Lions and rhinos and tongue jerky, oh my!

We go on two game drives each day, at 8 am and 4 pm. The morning one usually lasts 3.5-4 hours, the afternoon one is shorter, 2.5-3 hours. It gets dark around 6 pm so after that time the guide will use a spotlight.

We ride in a truck... James, our guide, drives up front and the truck bed has been converted into 9 stadium seats. The sides are open air but the top is covered. We have two retired couples in our group and one younger couple and their 4th grade son. (Ryan and I are among the youngest people here.

On our first morning drive, we saw many of the same animals we saw the night before. James told us interesting facts about all the animals and stories about his own life growing up in "the bush." Like how as a kid, he and his friends would hunt monkeys so they could eat their brains -- the Zulu people believed eating monkey brains makes you clever!

That morning we also saw the adult female cheetah and her 4 cubs. They were taking a break after eating some impala that she had caught that morning. The cubs are about 5 months old and so cute! We also found the three elephants on the reserve and I don't think they were very happy about it. One of the adult females repeatedly "mock charged" our vehicle...great photo opportunity even if it was a little scary!

That afternoon about 15 people from our reserve decided to take the afternoon drive at a neighboring reserve, Phinda. Phinda is a lot bigger than our reserve (how much bigger depends on who you ask...I thought the guide said 20 times bigger than our reserve, Ryan thought he said 100 times bigger!). Because it is so much larger, it has all of the Big 5. The Big 5 are elephants, leopards, rhinos, buffalo and lions (Zulu Nyala has all but lions). The Big 5 are considered to be the five most dangerous animals to be hunted on foot, a term dating back to long ago when these animals were hunted.

Phinda is a little different from our reserve. The vehicles are open air and accompanying the guide is a spotter who sits on the front of the vehicle. Our spotter, whose name I never got, was incredible. Our guide, JP, was also very good, a 22 year old kid who had just graduated from university in December and was taking some time to be a ranger before starting his career in accounting.

They were very amped up to find us some lions, so we headed to the mountains where they had saw a pride earlier in the day. On our way there, we almost ran into an elephant! A huge male elephant was hanging out in the road when we came around the corner. He was very startled by us and another car on the road, so did a couple mock charges towards us. Another good photo op....but still pretty scary.

We came across a small pride of lions near a watering hole....two lionesses and 4 cubs. They were pretty inactive so we continued up the mountain. On our way, our spotter spotted a pride from literally a mile away! They were just white specks on the mountain. This pride had 2 lionesses, 4 sub-adults and 3 cubs. The cubs were adorable, playing with each other and their mama. We also watched two failed hunting attempts by a couple of the sub-adults. About 14 months old, those lions are still honing their hunting skills.

After watching the pride for awhile, we headed back down the mountain to find the black rhino. An endangered species, there are less than 2000 of these rhinos in the world. Poachers also love them because of their horns, which can bring in about $5000 on the black market. (Our reserve has white rhino, but no black.) We found a black rhino and two of her babies, a 3month old and 3 years old, headed to a watering hole. Black rhinos are much more vicious than white rhinos so we kept our distance. They were fun to watch and listen to.

By that time, it was getting dark so we met up with one of the other groups for a "sundowner" in the bush. Our guides set up a mini bar and pulled out some snacks -- corn nuts, dried mango and beef tongue jerky. This is when I embarrass myself in South Africa. I know, I'm surprised it took this long too.

I had heard one of the guides saying the jerky was "tongue" from beef. So I wouldn't go near it...tongue? No way! One of the other guests asked if the jerky was beef or tongue, I shouted both! It's beef tongue! And then the guides started laughing at me. The Afrikaans word for jerky is biltong, and when spoken, the "bil" is very silent, leading some of us (or just me) to believe it is tongue jerky.

Anyway, after a few drinks we packed up and headed back to the Phinda lodge. It was very dark by this point so the spotter was using a spotlight and spotted a hippo out and about. It is very rare to see a hippo out of the water, so we felt very lucky.

Going to Phinda cost a few extra dollars, but I think we were all thrilled with the trip. Fun guides, some new scenery and incredible animals!

Finally, we would love to answer any of the questions you may have about Africa, the reserve, or what life is like here. So please ask 'em if you've got 'em! (Holly DR, we'll get to your questions in the next post!!)

Thank you to anyone who is still reading this ridiculously long post. I promise my next posts will be short and sweet!