Afternoon ride - Hyenas

After lunch, it was time to grab the horses for a new ride. I love watching them rest all together in the sand stable, they look so peaceful. For the afternoon ride, Olwen told us we wouldn’t see many animals but have some good canter (galop). We were heading to the hyena whole with some climbs and rocky parts included in the journey. But first it was time for lunch outside, after we released the horses in their open stable. Lunch time is usually from 11.30am followed by a 2h siesta until 3pm. Feels really good to have a little nap, or simple relax in the sun at the pool. At 3pm, we gathered for tea time again and left for horse riding at 3.30pm. Here we go!

When arriving close by the hyena whole, we had to descent our horses and tangle them to trees. This way we could climb down the rocks and examine the hyena whole. Olwen told us previous guests had already been lucky seeing them sunbath on top of the rocks and the crawl back in the whole, however we didn’t see them as they ran too quickly back into their whole.

Apparently, a family of hyenas is residing here, with mum, dad and children. Whenever there’s danger, they’ll go back into the cave and protect themselves. It’s a small hyena type in this domain, so they won’t attack humans. However, when you would throw a shoe or even camera towards the whole, they will come get it once we’re gone. Anything that smells like meat or has been touched by humans, they’ll eat it or rip it apart.

Hyenas are not the smartest hunters. Once they grab their prey, they won’t let go until they have that exact square piece of meat. So, when biting the back of an impala, they’ll rip out a part and let the pray run away until they’ve eating their piece of meat. Once it’s finished, they’ll chase the pray again, but it might have been escaped already.

Overall very exciting to see the whole and know they were inside it. A bit scary though, you could really feel the tense of the horses as well. Off we went back to the camp with another experience in our memories.Leggi altro