The first afternoon, our guide, JT, had heard about a pride of lions at a kill, so we headed out early to see what was there. Madikwe has a strict policy of no more than three rovers at a site at a time, so we needed to wait about 10 minutes before another group left and we arrived.
Along the way, we saw a Harrier with a stick – playing? attacking? JT thought it was a stick insect, but it was a stick.
Eventually, we drove to the lion kill. They had eaten their fill of the Cape Buffalo, and were relaxing, mostly.
We couldn’t figure out why the lioness was so close to the truck.
Turns out, they had parked on the buffalo skin. She pulled it out, and dragged it back to the shade. The lion cub then carried it around for awhile.
We drove around the corner to watch a Black Rhino and baby walk along.
Then, when we headed to a Spotted Hyena den with some cubs.
One of the people in our rover asked if there were any baby giraffes. JT explained that it was too early, really, to see them. We drove around another corner of the road and there it was.
After that, we started asking for all sorts of things, including baby elephants, which also appeared.
Later in the day, we saw a lioness walking towards a watering hole. We followed her, but found a young male elephant having a bath. He then got very agitated by a log in the pond. He kept trying to trample it – at one point trumpeting (sounds just like the movies) in frustration (or something), and then stomped off.
It got dark, and JT brought out a light to see what was still out. He didn’t shine it at herbivores, since he said it blinds them, but it doesn’t seem to bother the big cats (or rabbits – we saw plenty of them by the road.)
Turns out this was the weekly dinner in the bush – the lodge had set up tables and food, and we all ate together. It was fun to talk with the other guests. The rest of the time, we all ate at separate tables. The lodge had four bungalows, but one of them was occupied by a couple with a separate group, so for two and a half days there were three couples in the rover with us.
