Day Two and Three in Intibane

Before I start with the details of these days I will describe the people in group B. As it so happens our group is made up of 4 Canadians and 3 Americans. This makes for very interesting takes about the similarities and differences between each country. We also have Nathan and Connor, the only guys, in our group. The girls are Stephanie, Lauren, Chelsea, and I. 

Our second day in Thanda was the first day we were released out into the wild! With Villy, our tracker, who happens to carry a rifle at all times. Our bush training from yesterday has clearly prepared us for the great dangers of the South African environment we are in. As I predicted would happen the night before, my day technically started at 4:05am when I awoke with the worst sort of problem to have.  Physical pain caused by having to pee so badly is never good, especially when you can hear the hyenas and wildebeest outside, topped by having to wake someone else up to make the trip to the toilet. After contemplating my situation for a few minutes I decided it really wasn’t worth the trouble and rolled over to go back to sleep.
 

Group B (my group) was scheduled for a lecture session before lunch. Each day is broken into a lecture session and an outdoor session. Depending on the day determines if your group is in a lecture before or after lunch. Long story short our group had two 45 minute lectures on biodiversity. That afternoon we set out on our bush hike hoping to see the same things group A had. During their walk they had come across zebra, buffalo, giraffe bones, and kudu. Once again our group came up short by spotting the usual wildebeest and the comical warthogs. 

All in all the day was fairly short without too much action happening outside of camp. After dinner a group of us played an insane British card game that at first seems like Crazy Eights... but with further investigation is incredibly complicated with a rule for almost every card in the deck. Needless to say, I am catching on and plan to dominate hence forth. Afterward six of us stayed at the main lodge to bullshit until at least 9:00pm. The days here are so short that we have taken to going to bed around 8pm since we have been here. This of course has been causing problems with waking up incredibly early. We managed to talk until 10:00pm before heading back to get ready for bed. It is amazing how much you can have in common with almost complete strangers, and the stories you will share with them. I have known these girls for three days and it seems like we have been here together for weeks. 

Today (Day three) was easily the best day so far... not hard to beat, but I am still excited about it. Up until today, Group B had yet to encounter the very elusive elephants and buffalo. To make matters worse Group A had seen both these things and seen more of the animals we had seen. Not impressed that is for sure. As usual we awoke at 6:30am and I headed for the shower. I have decided to shower every other day to help conserve water... that, and I am lazy. Breakfast of toast as usual. 

Anyways, today our group had an outdoor session on bird identification so we loaded into the Safari Ranger at 8:30am and made our way to the Thanda Research Center with our guide Villy to pick up a map of the surrounding area. Our goal today was to find the watering hole to do some intense bird watching. The trip there was fairly uneventful. On the way back however, the most unexpected thing happened. As we were on the main road, surrounded by the Thanda fence line, Lauren spotted two cats basking in the sun on the opposite side of the fence line. Naturally, as soon as she started yelling stop, everyone pitched in and somehow managed to not scare off the two cheetahs. Villy slammed the vehicle into reverse and we pulled up beside the fence line. Rusty and Phil, two cheetah brothers, are apparently well known in this area. No one had expected for us to see cheetah during our stay in Intibane so we were all equally astonished by the sighting. After extensive picture taking we headed back onto the road and continued south. 

Bird watching itself was fairly dry but we became familiar with the most common species, we never did find the watering hole. Five hours later we were making our way back to camp when we spotted two giraffe grazing along side the road, maybe 15m away. To our surprise the two of them were also accompanied by a baby giraffe. Once again the truck pulled over and we all piled to the left side to take pictures. 

The fun wasn’t over yet, in 3 or 4 locations along the main road there are dried river beds in slight valleys. As we were headed into one, we spotted a small herd of Nyala occupying the road. They made their way into the brush but not completely out of view. The first three we spotted were all female, as they were smaller and without horns, followed by a mature bull with huge horns and an incredible beard. 

Stomachs growling we continued on our way until we were a minute or so from camp. As we were making our way along the road someone else yelled to stop once again. We all lifted our binoculars to the adjacent hillside to try and spot the animal that raised the alarm. The first thing I spotted was a warthog, tail projected straight into the air as he sprinted south. Just to the left of him though, moving silently through the grass, was a lion. Just like the cheetah, we had not expected to see a lion during our trip, neither did we expect to take the vehicle off roading to stalk this incredible animal. As Billy pulled the truck off the road and onto a very old track we all prepared our cameras and our excitement grew. We followed the trail for about five minutes, until just up ahead was the lion standing in the thicket. Although I did get a few decent shots, my camera decided not to cooperate by only zooming to a certain distance. The lion we saw turned out to be apart of a pride made up of numerous males and females. Nearby we also spotted a large herd of wildebeest and were hoping for an epic assault but to our dismay the two large males parked themselves under a tree to take a nap. After watching the lions nap for a while we finally headed back to the lodge.

It was turning out to be an amazing day, not only did we see incredible animals, we also had a fantastic lunch consisting of home-cut fries, hotdogs, salad, and eggs. The lecture after lunch was a brief 45 minutes so we enjoyed having the afternoon off. I had returned to our cabin when Lauren came bounding into the room yelling giraffe! The two of us quickly grabbed our cameras and booked it outside to where a female giraffe had meandered her way incredibly close to our camp. Not only did I not need zoom to get close up pictures of her, but she remained unthreatened by our presence as we followed her around the camp. 

This is where I find myself attempting to burn time by updating my non-updated blog and wait for dinner... which so happens to be an outdoor bbq that has a fancy name. My dongle, and source of internet, doesn’t work as well as I had originally thought. At the moment I have an almost-terrible connection and have been waiting 25 minutes for my page to load. This also means that I won’t be able to post any pictures as they will take forever to upload. It has taken me three days to find a spot in the main lodge where my dongle can pick up an almost viable signal... Vodacom will be receiving a call tomorrow for sure.