Safari Tails Pt. 4 - Kapama
Trip dates: April 3, 2017 - April 6, 2017
And we have come to the last of our Safari Tails series, sad! This last tale is from the only safari that we did in South Africa on this trip. Eric has already blogged more info about the lodge we stayed in and our overall experiences here. So without further ado, here are some highlights that stuck out to us from our time at the Kapama Private Game Reserve.
Like many of our other Safari Tails, this one starts with a highlight on cats. Our first drive at Kapama was an afternoon/night drive. After our cocktails at sunset, we drove around a bit more in the dark, looking for the glowing eyes of cats as we slowly made our way back towards the lodge.
As we were driving along, I saw some glowing eyes down the road! As we pulled up to where we saw the eyes though, we couldn't find who it belonged to. In my mind, it was a leopard. Anyways, as we drove on after spending some time unsuccessfully looking for the cat, we came across some lionesses just walking along the road.
We, along with a couple other vehicles, followed them for a while until they plopped down and decided to rest.
Little did we know that finding lions and lionesses at night would become a nightly ritual. On one hand, it was great because we always wanted to see lions, but it also felt like we were starting to take the sightings for granted. We'd end up getting a call on the radio and head over to where lions were last seen, chill with them for a bit, then generally head back.
On our second afternoon drive, as the sun was setting, we found ourselves surrounded by giraffes! There were so many around, majestically eating, looking serene, and... yup, chasing after a female giraffe! There was one female that had a gaggle of males following her around. One in particular was very possessive of her, stamping at other males that got too close and even chasing them off when they wouldn't move away.
The female kept playing coy though, and wouldn't let him get any further than some nuzzling. Nothing to see here, they were waiting for some privacy I guess. It was still pretty cool to watch their flirtation dance, not to mention the beautiful sunset with the mountains in the distance splitting the light as the backdrop. Looking at our pictures now, it seems fake or photoshopped but I assure you, it was not.
On our safari drives so far this trip, we didn't get to see any male lions. Given that our only glimpse in Botswana had been of the male lion hiding in the bushes and barely visible, we wanted to see some majestic facial hair!
We ended up seeing multiple lions in Kapama. The first one was already moving away from us, so all we got to see was a glimpse of his fringe and a swishing tail. Soon after that though, we came upon a lion and lioness just hanging out and relaxing in the daytime heat. Luckily, we got some pictures in before they both laid down to go to sleep.
Later that evening, we heard there was a lion sighting near us so we started to head over. We were barreling down the road and just as we rounded a bend in the road, we came right across a lion! He was laying in the middle of the road right after the curve and barely glanced at us as we pulled to a stop in front of him. He sat up and looked at our lights for a little bit before settling in to wait and see if any prey would just wander across his path (or at least that's what I'd like to think he was doing).
After moving around to get better pictures, he heard some noises in the brush and walked a ways over to check it out. We were hopeful that we might be able to see him make a night-time kill (or at least go on the hunt), when all of a sudden one of our new passengers said she really had to use the toilet! She had asked if there were bathrooms earlier and we had all jokingly said there were plenty of 'bush toilets', but I don't think she actually got the hint and so she was holding it for hours and hours. Sadly, we then had to book it back to the lodge and didn't get to see any action. Such is life when it's not just 2 of us on a safari!
You might have noticed that we haven't had any pictures of rhinos until Kapama. Rhinos are still endangered due to poaching, and there's only a very small and super protected population in Botswana (not the areas we were at). Luckily, the rhino population is doing pretty well in South Africa.
We saw rhinos relatively early in our drives in Kapama, but there were 2 walking in the brush just off the road and we didn't have great visibility to them. Shortly after that, we came across a group of 3 white rhinos that walked right past us in great view.
We followed these tanks for a bit as they headed towards a pond. Then, one of them actually used a tree branch to clean/sharpen/rub his horn against it! It was really cool to see it live, though it did appear to have bloodied his horn. I assume it was intentional, but guess there's more research to do about the reason why.
Rhinos might look chunky and not so fast, but they're like linebackers and can really hustle! We came across a couple rhinos in a shallow pond and as we approached, something spooked them, maybe us? Anyways, they shot out of the water and into the trees so fast. We never expected such big animals to be able to move so quickly!
Since we had friends with us, we got to take some more silly pictures too. Eric thought it would be funny to take pictures of our friend, Linda, every time she used Facebook. He couldn't keep up with her FB usage though!
We also used the truck for some very authentic photo shoots of our safari experience.
Hope you enjoyed reading about all of our time on safari! Writing the blogs has been a great way to re-live the experiences and realize how much we enjoyed our time in the bush.
Next up, Cape Town!
