The Food Chain

As sick as this probably sounds, unfortunately we never saw a kill on our safari. Most killing takes place at night, and besides following the hyena on foot, we didn't do any late night game drives (I've actually never heard of anyone doing late night game drives).

However, we did see a few fresh kills. Here's a few lions devouring a buffalo:

Yummy...


Here's a leopard....

...guarding the impala that it killed and placed up in a tree:


We actually came back to this kill later in the day to find that it had disappeared. Another bigger leopard had come and taken the impala. We found that leopard who began to growl at us...which was our signal to get the heck out of there.

Natural Remedies

(PICTURE: Lighting up elephant poo...)

During one afternoon, Crimson took the four of us on a walk around the Sabi Sabi premises. Actually we walked exactly where we had seen this leopard the night before:

(PICTURE: I could basically pet this guy he was so close.)

Anyway, we went for a walk and learned a lot about the local fauna and environment:
(PICTURE: These sharp needles can blind you if the sap inside it gets into your eyes...or if the sharp needle goes into your eyes.)

Along the way we saw a few wildebeests and impalas but nothing that wanted to eat us. In fact, the most interesting thing we saw were clumps of dried out elephant crap. Crimson explained to us that dried elephant crap was used as a local remedy for sinus trouble and stuffy noses. He told us that the locals lit the elephant dung on fire and then breathed it in. Well, when you've got four 30-year-old guys on a safari someone of course is gonna try it. I actually quickly said, "Give it a try Chris" and Chris quickly responded, "You want me to smoke it? I'll try it!" Before we knew it, Chris was inhaling fired up elephant crap.


I couldn't let him one up me, so I too breathed in the elephant crap. After seeing that neither Chris or I had died, Dave gave it a shot too. Devin, the only guy with legitimate sinus trouble, decided to pass on smoking the crap. Yeah, it was probably a wise move since the next day I actually felt like I had my first stuffy nose of the trip.

I'm pretty sure Crimson went back to the lodge that day and collected a jar of money for being the first guide to get guests to willingly smoke elephant shit.

Hyena

(PICTURE: The only shot of a hyena I got...but not my only experience.)

About two months ago I read the book, "Life of Pi." One of the main characters in the book is a hyena. There is a ridiculous amount of information about hyenas in the book which is to say, I knew more about hyenas than any other animals going into this safari.

On our first full day on safari, a hyena walked on to the road in front of us. I was in the midst of changing lenses when the hyena casually walked back into the brush and disappeared. He was only visible for about thirty seconds or so but he completely peaked my interest. There's something absolutely disturbing about hyenas. They look like giant crazy dogs with nothing but sinister thoughts going through their minds.

After seeing the guy in the picture above, I became obsessed with seeing more hyenas. On our last day, Crimson told one of the other guides we wanted to see a hyena and sure enough, later in the morning we got a radio call that there was a hyena near us. Crimson put the Land Rover into hyper drive and headed to where the hyena was spotted. We got to the spot just in time to see the hyena gallop by us at an incredible speed. Once again I got a great glimpse of a hyena but I didn't get any pictures. What I did see though totally impressed me. The hyena was running so incredibly fast and looked to be touching the ground only once ever 7 feet or so. This only served to increase my obsession.

Later that night, at around 2:30 in the morning, Dave, myself and Crimson were enjoying a beer by the Sabi Sabi Lodge's fireplace. At some point Crimson excused himself to go have a cigarette and then quickly came back into the lodge and whispered, "Do you guys want to see a hyena?" Dave and I both nodded and then followed Crimson on tiptoes out into the night. We walked through the area everyone dines at night, then through the kitchen and back towards the Sabi Sabi dumpsters. Sure enough, there in the moonlight was a big hyena. The hyena had been looking for scraps -- a very hyena thing to do -- and then walked off slowly into the night. Once again I didn't get a picture but I'll definitely always remember this moment -- when Dave, our guide and I tracked a dangerous animal on foot...with no gun.

The Big Five

Before going on a safari I had never heard of "The Big Five." Well, once you're on a safari all you hear about is "The Big Five." According to Wikipedia, "The phrase Big Five game was coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. The term is still used in most tourist and wildlife guides that discuss African wildlife safaris."

If you're not sure of what "The Big Five" are, here's pictures I took of all of them:

RHINOS (this baby Rhino was just so damn cute):


BUFFALO (this bird picking his nose reminded me of Vietnam):

LEOPARDS (I was within five feet of four different leopards over our trip):

ELEPHANTS (This guy kept fanning his ears to stay cool):

LIONS (This male lion was taking a rest in the grass after having eaten a buffalo):

I knew our safari was amazing when I was on it, but it really hit home when talking to other people who had been on other safaris. A bunch of people said things to me like, "We saw four out of the five big five on our trip!!!" Not to brag, but we saw four out of five big five on just one of our game drives.

Like I said, I never heard of "The Big Five" before going on this trip. However, when I called home to talk to my parents, the first thing my dad said to me was, "Did you see the Big Five?!" Yeah, my dad needs to go on a safari ASAP!

Sabi Sabi

(PICTURE: The front gate of Sabi Sabi)

First off, a HUGE thank you goes out to Devin. Devin treated myself, Chris and Dave to an absolutely amazing four days at Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve. If going on a safari is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I'll never have any doubts that we did it right when we did it. Sabi Sabi was by far the nicest "hotel" I've ever stayed in. From the accommodations to the food to the staff, I've got zero complaints (minus literally gaining six pounds or so).

To get to Sabi Sabi, we took the smallest plane I've ever been on.

(PICTURE: Right after landing on the Sabi Sabi airstrip.)

We were greeted at the airport by our guide, Crimson:

(PICTURE: Crimson...whose name I'm gonna spell wrong but it was pronounced like the color.)

Crimson was basically the fifth amigo for the next four days. He led all of our game drives, ate dinner with us every night and told us everything we needed to know about the animals and the local environment. Crimson couldn't have been a better guide and we could definitely tell he enjoyed having four dudes to drive around for a couple of days rather than his normal guests.

Crimson's side-kick was Million, our tracker:


(PICTURE: Million preparing some hot chocolate in the morning. During the game drives he would sit in that chair in front of the Land Rover.)

After being picked up, we drove about three minutes before we saw our first animal. Immediately I took out my brand new Canon SLR (the same one I had stolen from ninjas when I first moved to Hanoi) and started to shoot away. This was the first picture I took...the first of over 1,600!!!!

Picture Preview

To give you a little preview of my future safari blogs (written in my head but not on paper/internet), here's a picture of a lion cub that I took. How cute is this little guy?!

Letters From Management

For the last two weeks, we've been staying at the Hotel Apollo in Ramsburg. Ramsburg isn't exactly the ideal location to stay in Johannesburg but it's done the job. We were originally supposed to stay at another hotel but at the last minute were changed to this one. Apparently the other hotel didn't actually exist. Ole Ole told us that they booked the other hotel four years ago; the hotel then was an office building and supposed to be converted into a new hotel for the World Cup. For whatever reasons the hotel was never finished and hence we ended up in the outskirts of Jo'Burg.

The Hotel Apollo is a nice hotel but seems like it isn't 100% ready for business either. For example, my bathroom is missing a toilet paper ring. Another person's room was missing outlets. Also, all of our sheets and pillow cases seem to be right out of the packaging; they smell and feel like they've never been washed. The staff was also putting more furniture into the common areas the other day and even yesterday they were painting the staircase.

The other indication that this hotel hasn't been up and running for a long time is the unintentionally comedic letters the hotel keeps putting under our doors. Here's the first letter we received, the day after checking in, which lambastes all the hotel guests for apparently eating in the rooms:



The irony of this letter is:
a) Um, don't people always eat food in their rooms? Has this hotel never heard of room service?
b) Upon check-in, the hotel had a welcoming spread of cookies, jerky and drinks in the lobby. People were taking some food, getting their hotel room keys and going to the room.
c) In the room is a hot water heater and coffee/tea packs.
d) There is also a cabinet in the room which is clearly meant for a mini-fridge. I would bet that the lack of a mini-fridge is only because the hotel isn't 100% finished yet.

The second letter wasn't quite as ridiculous. However, the punctuation is embarrassing (says the guy who constantly has grammar/spelling issues on his blog). On top of that, it's sort of strange for a hotel to tell its guests when they should leave their rooms in order for them to be cleaned.



Anyway, after living in hotels for basically three weeks, I'm ready to return to my own apartment where only Huyen can tell me what to do!