My Cape Town Adventures: There Is Far Too Much To Take In Here

How many people can say that they’ve stalked a female leopard through the African bush, or have watched a tired lioness roll over on her back like a house cat five feet in front of them, or have stared an irritated hippo right in the eyes in the pitch black, with nothing but a small flashlight illuminating the night? Within our last evening drive on safari, I found myself in all of these situations amid many others.

Jonno decided to introduce us to the Styx lion pride, all congregated within one area of the bush. We were cruising through extremely tall grass when all of a sudden Jonno stopped the Jeep and pointed right in front of him. So close that he had almost driven over it was a gorgeous lioness stretched out comfortably in the grass. Looking around, we noticed that there were several of them – about three lionesses and five cubs! All were enjoying their afternoon siesta, with the exception of one awake cub laying under a tree, curiously glancing around and bathing itself. I was in absolute awe – as I believed I mentioned in one of my previous posts, lions have become my favorite safari animal and sightings are much rarer than, say, elephants or buffalo.

We were pleasantly surprised to discover that our pickup from Mala Mala to the airport for our flight to Jo’burg was just late enough to give us time for extra game drive the next morning. However, Monica and Fred were heading out around 6am, so this was our last evening with them. We were all incredibly sad, but certainly made the most of it. Our last dinner was held once again in the boma and the meal was obviously fantastic. I was very surprised that the six of us didn’t get kicked out because of how loud we were laughing! We all gathered in the lounge for a drink after dinner, exchanging phone numbers, email addresses and some more laughs to conclude the evening.

I can’t tell you how much I dreaded the end of our last drive. It was very strange not having Monica and Fred right behind me in the Jeep, but as Fred said, it was not “good-bye, but see you later!” It had rained fairly heavily the night before, so to liven up the morning, the Jeep got stuck in mud and we had to be rescued by four other rangers. We bid our farewells to our animal friends (particularly Hector the hippo, a regular in our safari sightings) and somberly returned back to camp. We each got a cute certificate for successfully tracking the Big Five and tears were definitely shed in our good-byes.

This safari was by and large the best experience I’ve had in my life. It was bittersweet because it was one of the toughest good-byes I’ve faced, but I consider myself beyond lucky to have been given this opportunity. Many people go their entire lives without experiencing this kind of adventure and I fully intend on finding a way of doing it again.

I apologize for the discrepancy in timing of my blogs, but I didn’t have Internet access while staying in Victoria Falls. I wanted to give daily accounts rather than squeeze all the events from the past three days into one post so that you all can feel like you’re there with me, so that I have a vivid recollection for my own memory, and so I can relive them all again. My vacation with Dad and Jess has been nothing short of magical.

xo Em

Rhino (Big Five #5)