Recently, we stayed at the Singita Ebony Lodge in Kruger National Park.
Our plane’s wheels made contact with the ground, shooting clouds of dust as we rolled along. We stepped out onto the dirt runway, and viewed our surroundings. We had landed on a mostly dirt runway, and were surrounded by short and lush bushes. We walked to our car and met our guide Leon, and our tracker, James. We all greeted each other and piled into our safari jeep. We drove for 10 minutes viewing the animals who dared to explore who we were. We crossed through the electric fence made to reject animals wanting a stay. Finally, we saw the sign for the Ebony Lodge, we all perked up as we neared our camp that we would be staying in for the next couple days.
As we arrived, we were greeted by many happy cheerful staff welcoming us into the beautiful lodge. As we walked in, we saw one of the staff with a slingshot chasing one of the monkeys trying to steal some of today’s lunch. We all laughed at the funny sight and then headed to our room. Since our grandparents were staying with us, and were going to leave soon, Brooke and I stayed with them, because they flew halfway across the world to see us. After relaxing for a while, we headed out on our safari.
In Africa, there are the Big Five, and they are: Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo and Rhino. So far, we have seen lions, a leopard and some elephants. We drove out in search for the two of the big five we hadn’t seen yet. Right out of the gates, we saw a huge herd of buffalo that were slowly moving over to the watering hole. We drove over to the watering hole and the buffalo sprinted there, and began drinking and playing in the water.
We heard about a lion sighting, so we began to drive over to where they were expected to be resting. On the way over, we saw a rhino! The rhino was very beautiful, the horns on the head gave off an aura of power, but he had sweet eyes that showed joy and happiness. We watched the rhino for a while and then when he went out of sight, we moved on to look for the lions.
The pride of lions had taken down a Buffalo and were feeding. This was a bit gross to see an animal with it’s stomach torn open, and blood everywhere, but it was amazing to see these huge powerful animals ripping apart the bloody carcass being torn with sickening crunches. One of the lion cubs had its head literally stuck inside of the poor buffalo, and it was having trouble pulling itself out. Many times, a cub would snarl at its mom when the mom would try to grab some food. If the lions could talk, they would be saying something like: “Hey! Those are my intestines. Fine, but I get the stomach!”
We drove away from the lions and none of us felt hungry from viewing the lion kill. While driving, we saw a group of baboons getting disciplined by their father. All the young baboons sprinted out of the tree and ran for the hills as their father came down screaming after his children.
On one of our rest stops, Leon brought his pellet gun, so we could shoot at a target. We had lots of fun shooting at the target. When we picked up the target, there were at least 10 different holes through the target. For the ants who were crawling behind the target, it was probably chaos, running from the bullets whizzing through or past the target at them.
One out last night, we headed out to see the pride of lions again. The sun had set before we got to the sight, so it was creepy having the giant killing machines hiding and creeping though the night. Unlike the movies, lions rarely ever roar. They do have a deep hum that alerts their pride that they are here or searching for one another.
Although, when a lion gets ready to roar, there is a special humming sound that he or she will do. We stopped our jeep, and watched the lions. Even in the dark, we could see the cubs tackling each other, and jumping around. At one point, one of the big males walked around the back of the car very near to me and Mom, and I have to admit, it was pretty scary. All the lion had to do was jump, and it could easily kill us, even inside of the jeep.
We drove away and we all really enjoyed the experience. Before we got back to the hotel, we saw a mother rhino and a newborn baby rhino that was so adorable. Since the babies are so small, they have to trot to catch up to their parents, and the baby rhino had the cutest trot ever. We had a great time going on safaris in Kruger.
Finally, at the end of our Safari adventure, we had to say goodbye to our grandparents, which was really sad, because we love them a lot and will miss them, but know that we will be home in just a few weeks, which is really crazy and a little sad.
The Big Five:
Leave a Reply