Nants ingonyama bagithi baba. Sithi uhhmm ingonyama. Yes, those are the exact lyrics to the beginning of the song “The Circle of Life,” from the legendary movie The Lion King. Last Saturday, I felt like I was experiencing The Lion King first hand. It was easily my favorite day of South Africa so far.
The morning began with a very early bus ride to Addo Elephant National Park. We saw over 100 elephants that morning. Elephants are some of the most majestic and magnificent animals I have ever seen. It sounds silly, but they really are graceful. The reason why elephants are often pictured as ballerinas is because they do not have heel bones and walk on their toes.
Addo Elephant National Park is the size of 1/3 of the Netherlands. It consists of rolling green hills, blue skies, waterholes and wild animals. The first elephant we saw up close was a teenage male. When male elephants become teenagers they are kicked out of the herd by their mothers in order to prevent inbreeding and are sent off to find a mate.
Around the corner we ran into a whole herd. There were momma elephants and baby elephants galore! We stopped the bus and everyone took tons of pictures. The elephants were eating and crossed over from one side of the road to the other. They got super close to our bus – it was so cool! Elephants use mud and dust as sun block, so they look more brown than grey. They also have a gestation period of 22 months – talk about a painful pregnancy.
After lunch, we headed over to Schotia Game Reserve. This is where the real fun began. We all split up into groups of 9 or so and hopped in land rovers with our own personal tour guide. Ours was Nic. He had been working at Schotia for 3 years now and was an excellent animal expert. The land rovers were open on top, and we were sitting up pretty high. It started to feel like a real African safari. We needed to use a lot of sunscreen, because the sun was beating down and it was going to be a hot day.
The first herd of animals we saw were impala, a type of deer. The other common animal related to deer is the kudu, which have spiral horns. Then we got away from the rest of the land rovers and headed down a small path. Anders got a chance to drive, but not for long, because he accidentally drove over a small tortoise – oops! The next thing we saw was the zebras. In South Africa, zebra is pronounced differently – rhyming with “Deborah.” They were extremely beautiful to watch. The reason why they are striped is to camouflage from predators, such as lions. When they all run together, it looks like one giant zebra and is confusing for the lions.
Just around the corner came the real fun – lions! What we had been looking for all day. We stopped the rover and watched the lion and lioness for a good 15 minutes or so. I would estimate we were about 20 feet away from them. The lioness was on alert, watching the zebras and kudus up the hill. The lion was super lazy, as they sleep 20 hours out of the 24 hour day. Animals see the rovers as one unit, so if someone were to jump out, stand up, or stick out a limb very quickly, they would see it as a threat and might attack. It was very important to sit still as much as possible.
We were on our way to the land owner’s house for a coffee break, when Anders suddenly saw two black rhinos on the top of a hill. We determined that this crucial sighting made up for him killing the tortoise. We drove up the hill and ran into two more land rovers also watching the rhinos. For some reason, the male rhino seemed to be in a bad mood that day. He began to threaten the rover in front of us, by making a little charge and kicking up some dust. But, Nic, being a brave tour guide, continued to follow the rhinos on through to a waterhole just over the hill. We watched them drink water while Nic told us that rhinos are poached a lot because of the value of their horns. It was sad to know that they were the only two in the entire park. When they were finished, they wanted to get through us and head down the hill. The male kicked up some dust again and walked slowly towards one of the rovers. Instead, he changed his course and walked over to ours. That’s when I got really nervous and scared. He came right up to our rover, but nothing happened. They were on their merry way and we proceeded to have our coffee break.
After our break we went up to see the giraffes on the other end of the park. They were also on the top of a hill. On our way we looked up at the horizon and saw all of their necks still out of the trees. It was just about to sunset too. We saw about 12 giraffes in the park. They are beautiful animals as well – so grand with their height and gentleness.
Next was something I will be forever thankful for seeing. We ran into about 6 other land rovers that were all surrounding a mother lion and her 5 baby lion cubs. Nic said they were about 3 months old. The mom was just lying down while the cubs ran around everywhere, play fighting with each other and jumping on their mom. They were all incredibly cute and looked just like Simba. We must have been 20 feet from them as well. It was such a neat thing to see!
Some other cool animals that we saw throughout the afternoon included wildebeest (from the stampede in The Lion King), warthogs (Pumba!), ostriches (which Bri and I want to ride), mongoose, elands, dung beetles, red bishop birds and the secretary bird.
After dinner, which was kudu stew, we headed back out for a night safari. It was cool by then so we all slipped a jacket on. Nic brought out a giant flood light that we used to see the animals. The first thing we saw was two hippopotamuses grazing on grass for dinner. Hippos like it really cool, so they stay in the water during the day and come out at night. They can hold their breath for up to 7 minutes underwater. Hippos are also the animal that most people are killed from in South Africa. This is not because they are the most dangerous, but because people do not think they are dangerous and then proceed to threaten them. The hippos were huge and fun to watch.
The last thing we saw was pretty crazy. One of the male lions, aka Mufasa, was eating dinner –chomping down on a bushbuck, which is another deer-like animal. It was a bloody sight to see. We didn’t get too close to it which was okay with me - who would want to get close to a lion eating his prey?
Throughout the whole safari, the group in my land rover was having a blast. We were singing a lot of Lion King songs as well as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” I have been to the zoo a number of times, but nothing beats seeing these animals out in the wild in their natural habitat, where they belong. It was an absolutely unbelievable experience, one that I will never forget.
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