Africa Travels

The first part of our trip to southern Africa with Sky and Telescope to watch the June 21st total eclipse took us to the Ngala Private Game Preserve. Ngala means the place of the lion.

This big guy is the leader of his pride. He had a "territorial dispute" earlier in the day, which explains the blood on his face. Lest you wonder, yes, I took this picture ...from about ten feet ...from an open vehicle. More on him later.

The funniest thing about our stay at the game preserve was the form one fills out to have laundry done. In effect it says that there are no fences, there are wild animals (including white-faced monkeys and baboons), on sunny days they hang the laundry to dry outdoors, and they cannot be held responsible if the baboons make off with your laundry.

To be sure, the wild animals in the compound don't limit their activities to laundry theft. There are no locks and keys on the bungalows in the city-traditional sense. Instead, there are latches. The latches wouldn't slow down a human thief, but thieving isn't the real problem. USE your latches! The baboons have been known to invade the bungalows and, when they do, they are very, very bad boys.

You really do want to take a look at the notice. It was written by The Masters of The Obvious(TM)!

The sign is a re-iteration and a reminder of what is in the release you are required to read and sign when you check in. The release is a few pages telling you not to do stooopid things, delineating a large number of actions that constitute stooopid, and reminding you that, since you are in the wild, they are hereby indemnified against any and all claims for bodily harm, etc. At least they let you sit at a table to partake of refreshments while you read the thang.

By the way, if you read the last line of the sign (click on the image to enlarge it), you'll see that it says: "Under no circumstances is a guest to walk in the camp at night unless accompanied by a guard." And they mean it! What they don't say is that they are armed guards. Like the sign says, there are no fences and wild animals are free to roam the compound.

The last night we were there, I slept like a rock till my brother woke me at the appointed hour. He was already showered, shaved, and dressed. Why? He said because the lion roaring outside our window had awakened him a couple of hours earlier. What lion, I asked? A couple of minutes later he obliged. The guy was at least a mile away from the sound. No wonder I slept through it. I'm used to owls hooting and coyotes yipping outside the truck when I'm camping. (It's people wandering around that keep me awake.)

Ngala Sights

Sunrise was brutally cold. It was, after all, June and the altitude was high. Think: January on the north rim of the Grand Canyon ...high desert in winter.

Blue wildebeest (gnu to you computer geeks) were an uncommon sight and they were shy.

The giraffe were beautiful. We didn't even try to approach the white rhinos. Rhinos have bad vision and hate elephants. What do you think a Range Rover sounds like coming through the brush?

Cape Buffalo are among the "Big Five," but most of the pictures came out really shakey. This gives a whole new meaning to the term "wildlife," don't it? Impalas were a common sight -- so much so that we soon became bored with them and started referring to them as "Chevys."

For some reason, we could never get very close to the zebras.

Sunsets were beautiful! ...but it got stupendously cold really fast once the sun set.

The Game Drives at Ngala

Actually, for the morning trips, they get you up in the middle of the night for a cup of coffee, a glass of juice, and a quick knosh. Then they put your near-freezing rear into an open Range Rover (with a blanket!) and drive at serious wind-chilling speeds through the night air over wheel-track roads to the site they believe will be optimal for viewing what you haven't seen yet. (They use the so-called "Big Five" list as their starting goal, but you get to let them know what you're most interested in seeing. We got to see and hear some really cool birds once they knew we were interested.)

Once the sun is well up in the sky, most of the critters are in hiding from their preditors, so it's time to go have breakfast al fresco. They take you to a large clearing where the folks from the lodge have been cooking a massive breakfast over wood fires. (Boy! do the fires feel good about then! The air temperature still wasn't much to speak of ...without the use of expletives.) After breakfast you are shuttled back to the compound, again at wind-chilling speeds. (One of our group had to fill his bathtub with hot water and plunge himself into it for over an hour to thaw out sufficiently after our first drive which was a night drive. My brother had to plunge his hands into hot water to get functional again.)

You get to spend the middle of the day thawing out (or cooling down, I assume, in summer), catching up on the sleep you missed when they got you up in the middle of the night, having a lovely lunch, swimming (in summer), strolling about the compound (staying on the paths thus avoiding stepping on -- and being bitten by -- the highly poisonous Puff Adders), sitting in the open-air lounge while reading from their collection of books, sipping on a beverage, or chatting with folks while avoiding being bitten by the various disease-carrying insects (in summer), and shopping in the gift shop.

In mid-afternoon you collect yourself (and every piece of warm clothing you own as you recall the chilling experience of the morning) and climb back into the open Range Rovers. The trip out to the afternoon's viewing range is at even higher speeds, but the sun's out so you can see the road and it's still reasonably warm, so you can sit on the blanket. Once the sun has set and twilight has turned to night, they race you to another open-air venue for hot cocoa and snacks while milling around wood fires. Then they whisk you back to the compound where you are given an opportunity to thaw out and clean up for a wonderful dinner of local cuisine. And, since you are dining in open air, you may get a glimpse of "the locals" watching you -- hyena, baboon, monkeys, ...

A Story of Lions

The drivers and watchers on the game drives live in a small village near the compound. They grew up there. They just about know all the animals on a first name basis and were able to tell us about each family group, herd, pride, etc. and about the behaviors of most species. Our driver told us about the two lions you see below.

The sun was down and it was quite dark when we heard on the radio that lions had been located. Our driver put his foot down and raced us over there. When we arrived there was already one Rover on site. The lodge has a rule that only two vehicles at a time are allowed in close proximity to the beasties (whatever the beastie be).

We slowly crept up, holding the lions in our headlights and spotlight like the Rover already there. One was laying down and the other was coming out of the bushes toward him. These two are brothers and, unlike human siblings, once lion siblings grow up they don't fight each other for territory, supremacy, mates, etc. They only fight males from other families, other prides. The second guy was only coming over to hang out with his brother. The guy you see alone is also the guy on the left in the pictures of the pair. He's the leader of the pride.

Earlier that day the lead brother had a big fight for territory. He got pretty beat up, but he was the winner. His brother is licking him to help clean up the damage to the places he can't reach such as his face. You can almost hear him saying, "Like, dude! What have you gone and done this time? Hold still while I get this spot over here. What am I gonna do with you?"

After a while, the lead brother got tired of hanging out in all those headlights and spot lights. He got up and started to wander off ...or so we thought. He wandered to the left in front of our Rover, out of the headlights. But then he turned left again and headed down the left side of our OPEN Rover. (OPEN: as in no roof, no windows, no cage, no nuthin except a couple of roll bars!) I wanted pictures really badly, so I kept my camera out and kept talking quietly while I took his picture. (This is the method I have used in the past when taking pictures of wildlife that might take exception and do me grievous bodily harm. Mind you, I don't do stooopid things like try to pose on top of bison at Yellowstone.) He got almost past me when he decided that this was a nice place to flop ...and pose for a very nice portrait!

Just to impress you further, I took these at night, from an open Range Rover, with the rifle still latched to the dashboard, by the light of a spotlight and my meager flash. Now that's the Place of the Lion!

The Snake That Wasn't

Well, it wasn't a snake at all! It was hundreds and hundreds of green caterpillars forming one long conga line! Apparently they dine separately -- tho all in one clump of bushes -- and, when they've mostly finished off that clump, they form up into this conga line to cross open territory. Birds would just love to pick off several of the little caterpillars, but they're not gonna bother with a big snake that might fight back!

They Know Things

I am a bit of an amateur birder. I was asking our driver about some of the birds I could see. (He had mostly been ignoring the birds. Apparently most of the tourists are after the Big Five and don't give a whit about birds.) Anyway, I asked about a bird I saw. He said it was a Long-Tailed Shrike. Trying to match patterns with birds I know, I asked if it was a meat eater. (Yes.) I asked if it was also a songbird -- like the Shrikes in North America. (Yes.) At that point he started making some whistling noises. The Shrike returned his call! And then it continued. It had a very beautiful song!

I guess brothers can be good for something.

A Spot at Dinner

A boma is a dining arena enclosed by a fence or wall. At Ngala the boma is enclosed by a wall more in the style of a Mexican patio. A large pair of doors normally closes it off from the covered dining area. You seem to have a choice of closed at the sides or closed at the top, but not both when it comes to dining. Either way, there are warm throws on each chair to use as a lap robe or shawl.

Our first night we dined in the covered area. The second night we dined in the boma. The tables were set in a large, wide U with chairs both inside and outside the U. Our little group sat at one tip of the U nearest the pair of doors. I was seated facing the doors, across from Richard and next to Jeff.

Baboons and monkeys watched us from on top of the walls and thatched roofs surrounding us. The large doors were left open so the staff could scurry in and out as needed. As I looked up at one point, I saw a hyena scamper through the covered area past the doors. I said simply, "Hyena" while pointing out the doors. Jeff noticed me pointing and asked "What?" Again I said, "Hyena." "What are you talking about?" "I just saw a hyena scamper past the door."

Just then our hostess sailed in and stopped by our end to ask how things were. I thanked her for the entertainment. What entertainment? The hyena that just scampered past the doors. "Oh! That'd be Spot. He lives here near the compound."

How to Hold On

Each bench seat could accommodate four really trim, svelte adults. Four of the five in our group were not all that svelte. As it turned out, our little group of five got one Rover all to ourselves! I sat on the back-most, highest, bounciest, most wind-blown bench. It was perfect for me. Only two of the others in our five were willing to try it. Apparently it was a little more adventure than they wanted.

There are no real roads in the park, only areas that had once been graded. Additionally, we weren't confined to those areas that were pretending to be roads. We drove over and through brush quite a lot. So, between driving fast over the roads that aren't really roads and driving over brush, downed logs, standing snags, rocks, ruts, etc., things were a little bumpy and jostle-y. The truck didn't just bounce up and down, but right and left and forward and back and all of the above at any given time.

Except for the seat next to the driver, all seats have a rollbar in front of them at about chest height. Something to hold on to? Well, unless you have Mt. Everest gloves on, not really. The metal is freezing cold plus your hands would be fully exposed to the wind-chill.

So, how do you hold on? Why, with your butt-cheeks, of course!