If you are just joining the adventure, we are exploring the wonders of South Africa with Adventures by Disney and we invite you to catch up on all you have missed here.
Editor’s note: Today’s post includes some semi-graphic photos depicting “The Circle of Life” — discretion is advised.
One of the biggest challenges of this trip and doing daily updates is the spotty WiFi (pronounced We Fe) each night which has caused for some very late nights here, but worth it to share all this fun with you.
Kapama Game Reserve Morning Drive
Off bright and early — well “just early” as Rassie says — to see what we can find. While this morning was a great day for spotting, as you will see in a moment, THE big moment came when finding a lion and two lionesses with a warthog kill. Now before you look at the pictures, remember these are of real animals doing real animal things not just someone throwing out a piece of meat for these amazing creatures to eat which means this is real CIRCLE OF LIFE stuff.
When we arrived, the kill had already been made and the lion was pushing away the lionesses as he enjoyed a little “big pig.” Again I can’t stress enough how real this is and also how this was all taking place about 15 – 20 feet away from our vehicle, which was so unbelievable.
The rest of the game drive brought many new and returning animals but no matter what it was just amazing!
After a fun trip to the bush and a fast trip back to the kill spot to see what had changed, it was time for something special just for this trip.
AbD Version of a Tea Time…
We had a unique stop to get some hands-on fun — including learning how to play the marimba, make koeksisters (a deep fried donut type snack), and of course sketching with Joe Rohde.
On the way back to the lodge we had the opportunity to just enjoy the beauty of South Africa and happen upon an impala carcass on the side of the road.
Once back to the lodge, we were directed to the spa area that is not only beautiful but also has a prime view of a watering hole where the African buffalo head we had encountered earlier enjoyed the cool afternoon weather.
Evening Game Drive
Our evening trek was more of seeing this beautiful reserve than new animals, but even a trip seeing nothing is better than being anywhere else on earth. We did take an old road looking for leopards, the last of the Big 5 (rhino, elephant, leopard, African buffalo, and lion) for us to see, but even though we didn’t see one, we did see some amazing sights.
One of the reasons we went looking for the leopard is our tracker Collen saw this from about 300 feet away in a moving vehicle.
For those of you who are just looking at the tree and wondering what he saw, if you look in the center of the large hole you will see two baby impala legs hanging down that a leopard drug up the tree for a later afternoon snack. But by far my two highlights of the night were hearing hippos, we didn’t see them so they could have been in the trees, and telling Dr. Mark Penning, Vice President, Animals, Science and Environment the name of his new baby giraffe Amira.
The Lion King
To end the night, we had a beautiful dinner (don’t worry I will go into how the food at a later date), then a screening of the Disney Animated Classic The Lion King. But before the film, Dr. Mark gave us a bit of insight into the upcoming “live-action” Disney The Lion King. The main thing I took away is how behind the film Mark was and he shared some information about a special program that will be rolled out around the time the film is released that is going to be great and helpful to this beautiful country…that is all I can say!
Okay, that does it for day 8. Sorry for the delay, but as I said at the start, internet and sleep have been a challenge and last night sleep won but day 9 will be on time!