Africa Day 2: Zulu Nyala, Phinda

Our second day at Zulu Nyala brought with it the excitement that we might see lions in the afternoon as we had a trip planned in the afternoon to Phinda which is a much larger game reserve with about five or six prides of lions. But first, we headed out on our morning game drive. We started on a bit of a sad note as we came across the carcass of a large male rhino which had been the victim of poachers and, subsequently, animal scavengers. It was barely recognizable as a rhino it was almost all bones at this point, but one of the legs still had flesh and you could see the foot.

We then came upon the male cheetah that we had seen hunting the day before. William alerted us that he must have captured something small, but certainly not the large meal for which he had been hoping. We still had a chance to see the hunt and kill. How William can tell the size of the cheetah's last meal just by looking at him, I'll never know.

As William had said earlier, this drive was more about filling in with smaller game sightings. Probably the highlight of our fresh animal encounters was two large male kudu, which are large antelope. They are very skittish and each time we tried to drive closer, they would move further away. We would have a much closer encounter with these large, beautiful animals later in the week. A pack of baboons scurrying across the path in front of us, vervet monkeys, and impalas all helped to fill out our morning animal sightings. We also began to realize the amazing number and beauty of the birds in Africa. We had bought a book on Southern African mammals at the airport which was coming in quite handy and we made a game to check off as many as we could. Unfortunately we passed on a similar guide to birds in the area which we really could have used.

We met William in the afternoon for our trip to Phinda. It was about a 20-30 minute drive to the reserve and although William and another ranger, Dumi, drove with us, we were assigned different guides at Phinda. Lucky would be our driver and Josi would be our spotter. Josi's job as spotter was to park his butt on a seat that was attached to the very front of the truck so he would be the first eaten if we encountered any lions. With the bumpy ride that we experienced in the back, I'm amazed that Josi was able to remain seated in his tenuous position. We drove around for a bit, seeing some of the same animals that we had seen over the previous game drives, but then we came upon a lone buffalo at the side of the road. He was quite old and not really up for moving too much, but we now had seen four of the "Big Five" and so we took off on trail of one of the lion prides to complete our set. We did several laps around an area where the lions had been seen, looking for signs: fresh kills, dung, footprints. However, it took some time before Josie and Lucky hopped off of the truck and began tracking on foot. It was a bit disconcerting that both of our guides left us unattended, and, oh yeah, they took the rifle and machete with them. Another truck pulled up and that guide and spotter also got out and started the search.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, the guides returned with good news and bad news. They had found a large pride, but it was going to be difficult to get to them for viewing. Fortunately, we were equipped with our Land Cruisers. They circled around and got to what seemed to be a random point on a very narrow path and took a hard left directly into the brush. We navigated--or rather ran over--brambles, small brush plants, and more than a few small trees, but finally a young female lion came into few after about 50 yards of travel through the brush. We sat and watched her for a bit and then a large male came into view. Apparently this guy was the king of this reserve as he was the leader of three separate prides. After he settled down, we were able to move a bit more and get a better view of the whole pride, roughly seven or eight lions including the large male, two fully grown females, and several younger males and females. When the males reach a certain age, they are seen as threats and the pride leader will kick them out to either be loners or find a pride of their own to commandeer. I'm not sure how long we watched the lions, but they were mesmerizing.

After we finally left the lions, we thought we were heading back, but we stopped in a clearing near a fairly large watering hole and when we asked why we were stopping, Josi said it was a "gin and tonic" break. We chuckled, but quickly realized he wasn't kidding as he broke out a trunk with several bottles of liquor, mixers, and some snacks including venison biltong, which is kind of like beef jerky. While we were enjoying our cocktails, we gazed across the water and saw two rhino slowly making their way to wherever rhinos go to on a Sunday evening.

After a few drinks, we headed back. It was dark, so Josi broke out the spotlight to see if we could see any nocturnal animals. We didn't see too much, save for an owl off in the distance and some jackals which we could only barely make out in the dark. However, after we got back in our vans to head back to Zulu Nyala, we came across a young male and two females right at the side of the road in the dark. Phinda just kept giving. Another amazing day.