Friday September 5th - Safari Begins

On Friday morning's game drive, our guide, Howard took us on a 3 hour drive, it was a nice introduction to Zulu Nyala.  We learned that most of the private reserves in South Africa are fenced-in and controlled.  They control the animal population and limit the numbers of certain animals like elephants in order to keep the terrain in better condition.  If the elephant population gets to big, they use birth control to limit reproduction.  This reserve does not have any lions, they do have leopards and cheetahs but we did not see any on our first game drive.

Selfie in front of our tent, with Zebra's in the background...

 

Even the private reserves in South Africa have problems with poachers, they have guards on duty 24x7 to keep watch for any poachers.  Our guide Howard, worked in the anti-poaching field for some time, listening to him tell stories is very interesting.  South Africa law now says that the poachers can be killed if if they are caught poaching.  The sad truth is they are just trying to feed their families and it will keep happening until people stop buying poached goods!  Wake up people there is no need for poached goods, the right place for these goods is with the animals.

Out on our morning drive, got out to walk around and learn about poop!




We were able to observe some very interesting giraffe behavior this morning two males fighting over a female, they lean up against each other and swing their necks around and beat the crap out of each other, no blood just a lot of thumping and bruising.  Apparently this fighting can last up to 5 days until one of the males eventually says I can’t take any more.

We got some great shots on our morning drive!

Mama and baby white Rhino... very cool! 

On our afternoon drive we found the Cheetahs, gorgeous!

Fun Facts we learned:

• A group of giraffe is called a journey
• A group of zebras is called a dazzle
• A group of hippos is called a pond
• A group of warthogs is called a saunder
• Mating habits of a giraffe - the male will follow the female around to see if she is in heat… how does he tell you ask… well he waits for her to urinate, he tastes it, and if she is ready he will get busy otherwise he will follow her around and keep testing.
• Fever Trees are beautiful trees with a yellow-green dust on the bark, originally the bush men thought the tree dust was making them sick, but as it turns out the trees are usually found close to water and the water has mosquitoes which had malaria