South Africa, Madikwe Chapter: Safari Day 1

On July 7th 2011, my colleague Susan and I went on Safari for the first time. We were tired waking up that morning after traveling for nearly a day to get to the game reserve… Was it ever worth the travel!

On this fateful morning we saw a male lion walk less than a meter past the truck, roar and a female with her cubs walk by the other side of the truck just moments later. We saw a herd of elephants feeding on vegetation and even heard them pass gas. Rhinos and Impalas were also spotted on our first trek out into the game reserve. What a rush! The sheer beauty of seeing such majestic creatures in their natural habitat was truly breath taking.

We came back to the lodge and had brunch; the food was ok. I had a very nice hour-long full body Swedish massage while Susan had some Gin and tonics on the veranda overlooking the river with her Kobo E-Reader. Later that afternoon, we had a coffee and tea break; they also served some pastries, fruits and mini pizzas. That was when we found out the kiddy safari drive that occurred after us had spotted a leopard.

After the snack, we hopped back into the truck and headed out on another safari drive. Feeling pumped and hoping to spot the leopard, hahaha ok, last time I swear. We head out for a few more hours, see a pair of rhinos far closer than this morning and as the mother protected the young one, we truly got to see the width of the rhino. For perspective, it’s about as wide as a Yaris. It’s longer and it’s taller, it also weighs more and has a mind of its own. I now have so much more respect for the ninja turtles; Rocksteady must have been quite the force to reckon with. Forgive me if Beep Bop was the rhino, I can’t remember which was which. We followed the rhino sighting up wth a Warthog, which I alone on the truck found rather ironic, considering their pairing in the ninja turtles. There’s a saying around here, the wildebeest aka the warthog is made up of left over pieces of animals, horns from a buffalo, mane and tail from a horse, shoulders of a bull, legs of an impala and most importantly that there wasn’t any spare brains. Which is why the warthog shakes its head side to side mindlessly as it strolls around the grass grazing.

The true, wow moment of this end of day safari came when our guide Ernst got a call on the radio of a wild dog sighting, he lied about our position and reserved first standby (They don’t allow more than three cars at a time to surround any game). We drove super fast along some seriously graveled roads and caught up to the other car only to have the wild dog run by our truck. I joked about how awesome it would be to follow the wild dog in hopes he would find his friends and we could meet them all. Twenty minutes of turning around in circles through the bush, we encountered eight beautiful lanky wiry wild dogs. Incredible. The wild dogs all looked off into the East, we glanced in that direction and noticed three giraffes hoofing it across the hillside, we tried to catch up to the giraffes but they were too fast and able to traverse terrains we dared not attempt.
After all the excitement, we went to a nice quiet retired well of sorts with a beautiful camel toe bean tree surrounded by termite mounds and had some beer and biltong; South Africa’s version of beef jerky. It was an interesting combination of prosciutto and beef jerky. I loved it. Dinner tonight, was lentil soup first course with Eland main and Crème Brule dessert. We drank a delicious 2007 Pinotage from Stellenbosch and chatted by the fireplace to wrap up a beautiful first day at the Madikwe River Lodge

Baby elephant crossing

Lion beside our truck

Pack of endangered African Wild Dogs

EDIT: I realized after I typed it I made a huge mistake.. Wildebeast and Warthog.. The story is for the Wildebeast and for the record, I know there's a difference