It's Safari Time! Whatever You Do, Don't Run.

I finally got to go on a safari this weekend, after years of thinking about what it would be like. It did not disappoint. The interesting thing about a safari is that people go into the wilderness to see some of the worlds most deadly predators, yet disturb the their habitats, scare off potential prey, terrify their young -- and all the while fully expect not to get eaten. To be fair, in my experience, the animals have not really minded the land rovers driving around them, as the tourists are often respectful and quiet. If you remain in your seat, the animals think that the truck (and everyone in it) is just one large creature that makes a lot of noise but is otherwise harmless. Still, though - I am of the mind that if you are going to go into such an environment, you're running the risk of getting eaten and you need to be comfortable with that. We humans are slow, have poor eye sight, poor hearing, poor sense of smell, have no camouflage, and have no claws/tusks/big teeth/venom. We have intelligence, but are otherwise an absurdly easy target for a hungry cat.

At one point on our trek, we got within a few feet of eight lions consisting of three mothers and five cubs. Few things in nature are more dangerous than disturbing a mother lion who is with cubs too young to fend for themselves. Except disturbing three mother lions with cubs. Our guide told us to be as quiet and still as possible: "Do not make a sound and do not stand up. If you do, these lions WILL kill you, and probably me... and there's not a whole lot any of us will be able to do about it." Counter-intuitively, if you ever find yourself in the decidedly unlucky situation of being confronted by a large predator such as a lion, DO NOT RUN. Make yourself as big as possible (do jumping jacks and shout), to show your dominance. In a  pinch, flail your arms and sing something by Miley Cyrus -- that tends to scare away most living things. Just don't run. Food runs. Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last weekend, one of our local drivers, a Zimbabwean named Tendai, picked a group of us up to drive us across the border to South Africa to spend some time in Madikwe Game Reserve. The program coordinator of the Botswana-UPenn partnership has a relationship with the owner of Tau Lodge, one of the swankiest of the luxury resorts in the park. As such, we got a very significant (~50%) discount to stay there, therefore making it financially possible to do so. It consists of a main lodge with a few private ''cabins" on either side, all of which overlook a watering hole. Upon arrival, we spent some time on the deck of the cabin, and saw buffalo, impala, and giraffes all spending some time getting wading in the shallows.

My cousin Kenny and I had our own cabin, and we had initially hoped to sleep with the doors open and simply put down the mosquito netting over the beds. That way, we could see and hear the animals galavanting about in the distance. However, before I knew what was happening, a group of monkeys had invaded the porch, with one or two pounding on the side of the wall next to me. I looked over, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a third monkey skulking behind me stealthily, trying to steal one of my flip flips which were resting on the floor inside the cabin. It was a diversion. I got my flip flop back, scared off the monkeys, and decided that we would still get a nice view even if the doors were closed that night. A photo of the guilty monkey is below.

Throughout the course of our stay, we went on two game drives and were (amazingly) able to see all of the big five: elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, and leopard. Leopard is BY FAR the rarest of the bunch, and we saw one within the first 15 minutes of our first game drive. A young leopard was hanging out at the top of a tree, munching on a warthog that he had caught a few hours earlier (see photo near the top of the post). To give you an idea of how rare a sighting this is, I had recently spoken with a woman who had been on safari 14 times and only seen a leopard once, and that was merely a glimpse as it slipped into the bush. 

Another interesting point is that, almost universally, the animal that rangers down here are most afraid of is the buffalo. The old males are the worst of the lot, since as they age they get slower and fall behind the herd. This makes them upset. And thus they become the old male bachelors, which like their human counterparts, are some of the grumpiest and most unpredictable of creatures. They are immensely powerful, surprisingly quiet, and have a tendency to charge without warning. They have been known to even walk up a path and then loop back behind a group through the bush and charge from behind. Don't forget that these beasts have sharp horns and have no trouble ripping apart pesky lions. 

Before we came back to Gaborone, we were not only able to see lots of animals, but those animals in the wild with their young. Elephants, rhinos, lions, impala, warthogs, and more were all out and about, showing their respective infants the ropes of life in the African bush. It was an excellent experience.