On The Trail of Africa’s Legendary Big Five

Well, here I am…back in South Africa, my old African playground! For this trip, I planned not a single thing. I left that completely in the hands of my Australian buddy, Will.

He’s more of an upscale comfort traveler as opposed to me, where I’m fine sleeping on the grass outside in the middle of the Serengeti (not really but you get the idea). A little luxury never hurts once in a while (although I literally just spent a month at a luxury resort), so I told him to book whatever, wherever. “Take my credit card!” He’s one of the very few people I trusted to plan a trip for me.

He booked us a four-night stay at Cheetah Plains Private Reserve, in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve just on the cusp of the world-famous Kruger National Park. It. Looked. Glorious!

I met Will at the Hoedspruit Airport where we had a scheduled pickup drive us a couple hours to the Sabi Sand. The Cheetah Plains Reserve was a super exclusive, super private lodge situated in the middle of the wild African bush. We spotted giraffes and hippos just a few meters outside of our compound gates. We possibly may not even have to drive around, the animals are just outside! Other than the twice-a-day game drives we would participate in, the best part about the lodge was that everything was all-inclusive. We could eat and drink to our heart’s content! Fun fact: I’ve never done an all-inclusive trip in my life!

Our goal for our daily double safari game drives? To spot as much wildlife as we can including the elusive Big Five of Africa:

African Elephant

Black and White Rhinoceros

Cape Buffalo

African Lion

African Leopard

Apparently, these are the five most difficult animals to hunt on foot. This lingo was adopted into the world of safari pundits.

Each day we would wake up early in the morning in order to be ready for the sunrise game drive. We’d come back to the lodge, have a breakfast buffet, relax by the pool with drinks and do whatever. Have lunch later, then go on a sunset drive for a few more hours, followed by drinks in the bush and then a generous three-course dinner with the other patrons at the lodge. Rinse and repeat over four days!

Each drive lasted roughly three hours. Will and I sat in the back of an open safari jeep every single time. Two knowledgeable guides (a driver and a spotter) would lead us on our trail into the wilds. We saw three of the Big Five on the first day: an elephant, rhino, and a leopard.

This elephant was prepared to charge at us. Is it terrible to say that I wanted it to charge at us?

By the way, three distinct differences between the African elephants and the Asian species are: African elephants are generally larger, Asian elephants are generally hairier, and the shapes of their ears are different—Asian elephants have ears shaped like India and African ones have ears shaped like Africa. A good rule of thumb!

The rhinos aren’t very black nor certainly white at all. They are all a stony gray. However, the most prominent difference between the two is the shape of their mouths. The white rhinos have wide (white) mouths as compared to the black ones.

The African leopard is generally among the most elusive of the Big Five, but we saw more of these than any of the others.

We saw plenty of other wildlife in the reserve, including warthogs, zebras, giraffes, vultures, hyenas, and all sorts of antelope.

We eventually found two lionesses who were lounging in the middle of a pasture. But no cape buffalo at all! You would think they would have been an easy find. Arguably, the lamest of the Big Five, if you will. Thankfully, this wasn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been on many safaris in the past, including the most famous of them all, the Serengeti. I saw the Big Five there so I wasn’t particularly concerned this time around.

Each evening before the sun disappeared, our guides would drive to a clearing where they would serve us drinks and biltong, which is specialty South African dried meat similar to jerky.

By the fourth and final full day, I was done with going on the drives. Will felt the same but still, we went to at least get our money’s worth. It was amazing, but after three days of it, we had more than enough of our fill.

The Cheetah Plains was costly but much deserved and my reward for successfully making it to continent number five of my personal Quest to the Seven Continents.

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To my Adventurous Readers,

Thinking about going to the Cheetah Plains? Well, you will have to wait for the 2019-2020 season. In 2018, Cheetah Plains is rebuilding their entire property, updating just about everything. It’s gonna look even more amazing than it did when I was there!

Check ’em out!

Cheetah Plains Private Game Reserve

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Ngorongoro

We woke up on top of the crater and man was it coooold! We ate breakfast and packed up our tents and made our way to our next safari through the crater of this old, inactive volcano.

Ngorongoro Crater formed many, many years ago when the crater collapsed in the middle creating a giant bowl surrounded by walls of mountains and forests. Over time, this crater became the home to much of Africa’s wildlife, including the rare black rhino. On this safari, it was easier to spot animals because there weren’t many trees or large shrubs daunting our view. Everywhere I turned I could see herds of animals in each direction! We saw a couple of male lions, one which had a black mane…

lot’s of wandering warthogs…

more zebras…

a lake filled with thousands of flamingos…

more hippos, including this little baby one…

and finally number five of The Big Five, the black rhinoceros!

We ate lunch in the crater and enjoyed a few scenic stops on the way back home.

This four-day safari has been a pleasurable experience, even though I felt like crap. The dust in this country is ridiculous. I’m sure that’s a major contributing factor. And all the kids at school that tend to cough and sneeze on me haha!

The first thing I did when I got back home? Ran to the shower. The amount of dirt that came of me was insane! There was also tiny rocks and pebbles in my hair.

The next day, the two guys who lived in the room across from mine completed their stay here and left Tanzania. I shared a room with three other guys and so I moved into the now vacant room. I did it mostly because my nightmarish coughs would keep them, mainly Mike, awake each night and I felt pretty bad about it. It was also nice to have a big room all to myself to enjoy some peace and quiet. One of the best decisions I’ve made here. I’ll have this room all to myself until new volunteers arrive sometime next week. Until then, I am going to enjoy this.

It’s the little things that always make me smile :).

Stranded In The Serengeti

We were woken up at 5:30 in the morning to go watch the sunrise. Part of me wanted to just stay in my tent because I felt like death was taking over my body. My better part forced me to get up, get dressed, and try and not let this illness control this whole experience. It was still dark and a bit nippy outside but the stage was set perfectly for one of the most ravishing sunrises I ever witnessed. The sky was a terrifying orange with a glaze of pink stretched across the African landscape. The sun rose slowly, a giant ball of fire, as it gradually lit up the sky. This backdrop was the setting for our morning safari through the Serengeti.

We saw more of the same animals we saw yesterday: lions, hippos, giraffes, zebras, and plenty of others. By this point we have seen four of the big five. We have yet to spot the elusive black rhino. According to multiple guide books, there are only about 20 to 30 black rhinos left in the world. All of them live in Ngorongoro Crater, which we will visit tomorrow. Needless to say, they are a critically endangered species and local authorities are doing their best to protect them. Raphael told us that we won’t see a rhino here in the Serengeti. With that revelation, I decided to take a small nap in the safari jeep since I’ve seen all the animals yesterday already. That nap was very much needed.

When I woke up, my flu-like symptoms were faint and I felt fine again, except for this stupid dry cough that just won’t go away. I was now able to fully enjoy this safari. And I couldn’t have gotten better at a more convenient time because my favorite part of the day was about to happen! We became stranded in the Serengeti!

I’m not being sarcastic. It really was the highlight of my day. Lemme explain. On our way out of the park to our next destination, one of the jeeps in our fleet broke down. The rear of the jeep collapsed and wasn’t drivable. There aren’t any auto repair shops anywhere near here, in the middle of virtually nowhere, to fix it. Some of the jeeps, my jeep included, stopped and the guides all banned together to come up with a solution. That left the rest of us volunteers isolated in the great plains for who knows how long? Instead of just sitting around, a few of us decided that it was playtime!

I ran out into the middle of nothingness and plopped on the ground, back flat. My idea was to attract a honey badger by playing dead. It didn’t work. I also wanted to find a snake, particularly a black mamba. Found nothing. Usually we have to stay in our secure vehicles because it’s a dangerous world out there, but the guides were too busy to pay much attention to us. Katie somehow ended up off roading her jeep. Anne wanted to take great jumping pictures. And I thought kicking up dust off the road created a cool effect.

The best part were the Massai nomads who lived here, huts inside small villages barricaded by thorny bushes. We saw two of them walking toward us towing machetes.

They came to our jeep and spoke in their fast paced Massai language. Nicole (Australia) and I decided to introduce ourselves. One of them looked very formidable; almost scary looking. He was tall, dark as the night, and slender like a stick figure. He was drapped with a patterned sheet over his torso and was decked out in Tanzanian jewelry. He wore shoes made of tire treads and held a wooden walking pole in one hand and a curved machete in the other. His name is Sonjulo. His buddy was older, shorter and not as scary looking. I don’t remember his name. The most surprising thing about them was that they could speak in English! At least enough for us to understand. They were super friendly as well.

After talking to Sonjulo for a bit, he took off one of his many bracelets and latched it around my wrist. He gave one to Nicole as well. It was the coolest thing ever! You can buy these bracelets at the markets in Arusha, but to be given one by an actual Massai is priceless. I really didn’t have anything on me that I was able to give. He pointed to my watch, but I can’t get rid of that just yet; I need it for the rest of my trip. I felt bad, so I handed him 10,000 Tish, which he gladly excepted. I would of given him a shirt or something but they were all extremely dirty from the safari. Yes, I was a dirty boy. I haven’t took a shower in a few days now. It’s hard to out here. Just baby wipe baths and teeth brushing. I’ll tell you, these baby wipes have been essential since I stepped foot in Africa.

Soon, other nomads from Sonjulo’s village came to see what all the fuss was about. Unlike Sonjulo, they could not speak English as well. Some of them came to help the guides fix the jeep using rocks and slabs of wood. I wanted to have a little fun with them. I took out my ipad and opened the photobooth app. It’s an app that takes your photo and alters them in silly ways. I had some of the nomads look into the camera so they could see themselves and see how funny they look with the distortions. They laughed like children! It was funny to watch and they were highly amused. What was more amusing was when I all of a sudden heard a Justin Bieber song playing from Sonjulo’s cellphone. So two important observations: these guys aren’t completely shut off from the outside world and Bieber Fever has spread to even the most remote parts of Africa. I couldn’t believe it. Also, where do they charge their phones?

After a couple hours, Raphael and the other guides managed to “fix” the broken jeep. I put fix in quotations because they used rocks and wood pieces to hold the jeep together. They must of done this before because it worked. Some of the Massai hitched a ride on the side of our jeeps, closer to their villages they wandered off from. Being stranded could have not been more enjoyable.

We made way to the site of our new camping grounds, on the top of Ngorongoro Crater. It was mighty chilly and there was poop everywhere! Just goes to show how wild we are roughing it. As we were eating dinner outside, the biggest elephant I have ever seen invaded our campsite! I’ve seen many elephants, but this one was gargantuan. It had long thick tusks and a superior build, like he was the king of all the elephants in the world. The elephant came and drank water out of the camps water supply gorge. This elephant must of done this before because it knew exactly where to go and what to do. It didn’t seemed phased, even in the slightest, by the presence of us humans. I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of this awesome event. I beat myself up; I usually carry my camera everywhere I go with me, to capture unexpected moments like these. None of us had our cameras handy. It was so cold, I just wanted to eat dinner and go to sleep in my cozy tent. I didn’t think to bring it. Absolutely surreal.

This Must Be Where “The Lion King” Was Filmed

I woke up to a mass army of critters chirping, hooting, screeching, and any other animal noise you can think of. I’ve never heard anything like it! We packed up and hit the road. Five hours of driving, we would hit the Serengeti plains. Within those five hours of driving, I developed another case of motion sickness. What else is new right? To fight it off, I had to cover my head with my sweater to keep from looking out the window. It was hard because there was so much cool scenery out there. But yeah, pretty much the whole way my entire head was covered. Motion sickness has been my worst enemy on this whole trip in Africa so far.

On the way to the Serengeti, I was reminded of my main intention here (besides helping the kids of course), to find Pride Rock and a honey badger which is better known as a ratel here. Refer to the first post in my blog for more information about that. I found some potential Pride Rock candidates…

Pride Rock?

I asked Raphael if we would see any ratels on our safari. He said only at night is when I would see them. Shoot.

We made our way through the long, dusty road and eventually made it to the beginning of our next trek through the Serengeti plains. This is exactly what I see on the Discovery Channel at home! I had my safari gear on, the sun was beating down on me, the plains went as far as my the eye could see in every direction. Our goal was to spot The Big Five. In Africa, the Big Five are animals that are considered the hardest to hunt and some of the most sought after in the whole country. Lions, leopards, buffalo, rhinos, and elephants make up this group of elite beasts. There were plenty of elephants and buffalo around. We spotted a leopard lounging in a tree with his tail drooped over a branch. We even spotted the carcass of an unlucky gazelle that was dragged up the tree. After some time, we finally spotted three female lions, one of which just killed a zebra!

Another highlight was when we saw a cheetah creep and stalk a group of Thomson’s gazelle. Once it got close enough, it burst into incredible speed after a targeted gazelle. Unfortunately, the gazelle escaped unscathed and I didn’t get to see what I only see on TV happen right before my eyes. I was loving every moment of this!

All of a sudden, I had to sit down. I didn’t feel good. I felt like a flu was coming on. I became drowsy and cold, even while it was still very hot outside. Add in the fact that I still had this stupid cough, all I could think was, “Not right now. Not now.” This was horrible timing!

After a long day exploring the Serengeti, we finally made it to our campsite which was set in the middle of the plains. It could get so dangerous, that the field guides told us to always walk with another person and at night, don’t go to the restroom. Go directly outside our tent.

I immediately layered myself in clothes, cocooned in a sleeping bag, and passed out. I hope I would be able to sleep of this flu. Regardless, I will not let it ruin this amazing trip.

I may be smiling…but I feel like utter crap inside.