Africa-2 An Upgrade and Leopard Cubs

We have gotten upgrades on airplanes before. Nice, but not that impressive. Larger seats and free drinks. We certainly would have loved an upgrade on our overnight flight to Johannesburg, but that did not happen. Would have been nice, but not spectacular.

Well, we did get an upgrade that WAS spectacular. We used Africa Adventure Company to plan our trip because they did such an excellent job on all of the logistical details on our trip to Kenya and Tanzania four years ago. On this trip our first game camp was supposed to be the Mala Mala Main Camp, but I got a phone call ten days ago from Africa Adventure saying that we had an upgrade to the Rattrays camp, run by the same Mala Mala company. I was not given an explanation, but when we got here I learned that the Mala Mala Main Camp is undergoing some renovations, and that the construction was way behind schedule. So they moved us to this other camp.

This place is FABULOUS. There are only eight Khayas, from the Zulu word for house. The whole camp is built overlooking the Sand River, and right now I am sitting on our verandah looking at the river, where there are elephants and water buffaloes going past. The camp is surrounded by an electrified fence, but that doesn’t stop the monkeys who use the trees to get past the fence. When we arrived there was a troupe of monkeys outside our Khaya. We were told to not leave the doors open of the monkeys will get in. 

 

The room is gorgeous, and definitely fulfills the definition of Over The Top.

 

There are two bathrooms. The Hers bathroom has a giant claw foot bath tub, while the His bathroom has a giant double shower.

There is even a private splash pool on our deck.

We have had one game drive with our guide Joe. Because Mala Mala is a private game reserve, he can drive off the roads in his heavy duty Range Rover. That ability to go off road makes a huge difference in our ability to get close to the animals. Today we spent a lot of time with the elephants, and we really liked the babies.

We also saw antelopes, and this gorgeous bird called a Southern Yellow-Billed Hornbill (maybe the name is wee bit redundant).

The guides have been keeping track of this female leopard who has three cubs, all about 8 months of age. Leopards are usually solitary, and hard to find, but it is easier with cubs. The mother leaves the cubs for up to 36 hours, and goes hunting for food. While she is gone the cubs stay in roughly the same spot, waiting for mom to return with food. Joe knew roughly where another guide had seen the cubs earlier in the day, so we went looking for them. It took a little while to find one (we only found the one) who was partially hidden in a brushy area. Such a cute little kitty!

We have two game drives a day. It is winter here, so the days are short. We will start at 6.30 AM, when it just becomes light and the animals are most active. We return for breakfast at 10 AM. We have an afternoon game drive at 3.30 PM, returning at 6.30 or 7 PM, with dinner at 8 PM. The last 30 to 60 minutes are in the dark, and our guide has a spotlight to show us animals. They only shine the light on nocturnal animals, not on diurnal animals, because the bright light upsets the daytime animals. We were on our way back to camp in the dark, when we came across three rhinos in the road. They are diurnal, and so he did not use the spotlight on them. I took pictures, and this picture taken in the dark without flash is certainly not the best picture I have ever taken, but we did see rhinos! He then had to drive off road to go around the rhinos blocking the road.

And the food and the wine have been excellent. Foodophile Susan heartily approves. Our first night we had dinner outside in the Boma, which is a word meaning enclosure, as a cattle pen. I had the venison pie, which was outstanding.

 

And the staff sang for us! (hope this link to the video works!)

 

More animal pictures to come!