Day 4 Safari by Millen

After I was woken up by a bright light shone in my eye, I looked up expecting to see a lighthouse but instead found dad, as he switched the torchlight off, I crawled out of bed and hobbled into the shower and quickly changed. After gulping down my tea, we climbed into the safari vehicle and set off into the wild.
Being shaken up by the bumps in the road and the cold wind galloping into our faces really makes you wide awake. Luckily, we had our hot water bottles and blankets to keep us warm. After victory with the lionesses the night before were hoping for victory with some real lionesses today. Bryony was determined to spot a cat, so we headed to the south, an area that the camp didn't go to often. Luckily for us, we were about to find out the south would be abundant of safari spots ! Within minutes of setting off, we had spotted some impalas, even though they were probably the most common animal we had spotted, they never disapointed. Watching them run like profesional long distance runners, while the dominant male would give us a stern looking at, before bringing up the rear was always incredibly exciting. Within minutes of finding the impala, we found our third big 5 animal, a WHITE rhino. 2 Non-dominant males. Bryony could tell because it did a poo in the miden and didn't wipe it on its feet. One of the rhinos had been dehorned for its safety but they were still very cautious of us, munching away whilst never taking its eye off us! After almost half an hour of watching them eat, the rhinos and us decided to part ways as we carried down south.
We drove down this long tarmac road, and even though the sun was out today, the cold wind was still biting . As we were driving Bryony spotted something and everyone looked where she was pointing, Gasping and gazing. I followed the finger to a wildebeest, and I was a little confused as even l though I know how much of an amazing animal it is, it didn't fully appreciate the wonder of this creature until I saw it …as I began to blurt this out, I saw a zebra poke its head around the tree and, realising what everyone else had been looking at, I joined in the gasping and gazing. Then further on Arushi spotted, ironicly, a zebra crossing the road. These were called the Burchell's zebra named after a british conservative who discovered them. One of the zebras had a large scratch mark which Bryony told us were from a lion attack. The zebras then continued on, walking towards the giraffes who are apparently their best friends.
We kept on driving on the tarmac road but soon we stopped on the side of the road to have snacks while staring at the birdlife around us, even seing a brown eagle. After delicous cookies and rusks, which is similar to shortbread we hopped back in the cruiser, I spotted a clan of spotted hyenas menacingly walk in our direction, as they got closer they walked around us, they were so close if we reached out we would be able to touch them. They occasionly glanced at us but generally were unphased. It was very surreal!
A few minutes later we passed through where we were originally going to stop, next to a lake. It had a huge pod/ float of hippos, there were 10 females and 1 large male in the centre of the float. Bryony shockingly told us that they can't swim, which is crazy as they spend all day in the sun, and only come out the water at night to eat vegetation since their skin does not do well in the sun for too long. We then returned back to the lodge spotting lots more impalas, girrafes, elaphants and even some mongoose on the route .
We got back just in time for breakfast, where we had these south african scones, that tasted very similar to muffins. We met the other family staying in the same lodge, they were from switzerland and had an 8 hour journey to get to the lodge which should have been a 3 hour journey. However they saw a lion, so in my opinion it was worth it.
After we headed back to our place, we just slept, read and swam. The weather was very warm today but we still couldn't stay in the freezing pool for more than 2 minutes. 5 Hours of resting later and we had lunch, which was chicken wraps, and the veggies had avocado wrap. They were so good that me and Eashan asked for another one. As for dessert we had this pannacotta which I don't think mum liked but I was happy to wolf ours both down. After lunch I had a quick shower before joining the others in the cruise to drive in to the bush.
Unfortuantly the afternoon drive was only half as busy as the morning one. We did still see a herd of buffalos, which even though the herd was split up there were still over 100 there, these buffalo were a lot calmer then the ones we saw before, some of them were even lying down. We then had our evening stop at the area where we saw a hippo on the first night, this time he was a lot clearer in the light and he even tried to alpha dog me by opening his whole mouth and showing us all his teeth, which was pretty awesome but mine were better. As the sun began to set and mum put on her "12th layer", we began to head back, driving in to the sunset, we stopped by an elephant graveyard where there was a femur bone from a dead elaphant that had been chewed on by a hyena, after checking it out, We got back to the lodge to find an elephant in our garden tearing up a tree, before being shooed away by Dani. The elephant then procceeded to eat the soil, which apparantly was because they sometimes don't have all the minerals they need.
After sitting round the fire and watching the cheeky elephant trying to sneak in again, the drums were beat - our signal for our meal and we made our way for dinner, where we had this delicious pork chop and potatoes and the veggies had a vegetarian steak. As we finished our last dinner at the lodge and started to walk the last 30 second walk from the main building to ours we took in all the smells of elephant poos and general wildlife that we could. Then tucking into bed early to get up the next day.Read more