Safariing it.

So the final S is then checked of the list.

One speaks about “The Great Five” when it comes to safaris, which originates what the Brits came down here to hunt (still baffles me how much that remains from that time, with the servants serving afternoon tea on with linen cloths from the safari jeep when out on the morning game run): Lion, Buffalo, Elephant, Leopard and Rhino.
We saw three of them, and as for the rest of them, the leopard apparently is never sighted in this park since it’s so extremely nervous and also nocturnal, and for the elephant, I can’t really see how we could have missed them? Ok, it’s a 22k hectares big reserve, but still: how does a herd of 30 elephants hide from not only ours, but also from the trained eye of our tracer, Caesar?
And yes, being a tracer, he did what they do in all the movies – jumped down from his sighting post on the front of the open Landrover, stuck his finger in a pile of buffalo dung, tasted it, looked mysteriously in the distant, finally pointing south west with the words “they were here 3 hrs ago, headed that direction. let’s go.”
Classic. Makes you feel like in Jurassic Park.
So we’ve now chilled out at our private lodge since yesterday lunch, which could might as well be the honeymoon suite at any respectable wilderness hotel, enjoyed our private pool and minute instant room service, a nightly 4h game run yesterday in the reserve, being out in the night seeing the cheetah take down and feasting on a prey (wicked), and ended up having champagne dinner with a senior group of four here, celebrating Joan and Michaels 50th anniversary.
Quite entertaining, and quite aristocratic, I must say.

The last day here in South Africa for us boys started at 6 AM with a private morning game run with Caesar and the driver Doc, who after a while tracked down a herd of lions, who all of a sudden just appeared from the bushes, quite interested in who we were.

Extraordinary feeling to see these animals in this way. I’ll never go to Kolmården again.
Also some kudus, springbocks, white and black rhinos, hyenas, jackals and a looot of warthogs. Both near and in a distant.
Thank God for my Nikon 200mm lens (once again – pictures will appear as soon as I can access an Internet line faster than my fax).
Time for lunch on the deck now, overlooking the reserve, and then start the trip towards home sweet home via Port Elizabeth, Cape town and Amsterdam. Let’s hope things move more smoothly this way.

Long time since I felt this rested.