The wake up call came in at 5:30. Mel was already up, so I was awake since the beautiful wood floors squeaked a lot. It was barely light out. We looked outside, hoping to see animals walking around but there was nothing. No sighting on the way to the lodge either. We had coffee and biscotti, then got on the safari vehicle and were off. We saw a red duiker in the road. Had never heard of it. It's a small antelope type creature. There were a few Nyala around, but not much else. The ranger was constantly on the radio, listening for spottings by other rangers. Someone had found a mother cheetah with 3 cubs. We sped off in that direction. We actually had to wait in line to see her. There was another vehicle nearby, and they only allowed one at a time. When it was our turn, we neared a low shrub and looked into the shadows. At first she totally blended in with the undergrowth. When I finally spotted her, she was just right there, about 20' from us. I could barely make out something near her but with the binoculars, I could see big eyes looking at us with curiosity. She had 3 cubs that were about 2 or 3 weeks old. They were all fluff and eyes. Very cute. We got a couple of pretty good pictures. It was hard since they were in the shade, we were in the bright sun. Wonderful to see such a thing in the wild. The mother just laid there looking at us then ignoring us. She knew her cubs were safe. Wonder what she would have done if one of us had left the vehicle!?
After that, we stopped for "coffee". They made a mixture of coffee with hot chocolate mix and Amarula. Alcohol before 9 a.m., that was an experience in itself! It was yummy, and I immediately bought some from the ship when we reboarded. We didn't see many more animals after that, but seeing the cheetah family was rewarding enough.
We stopped at a different lodge that had a shop on our way back for breakfast. I bought a shirt that has a list of terms used for multiples of animals, like a gaggle of geese, a crash of rhino and a geni of giraffe! Very clever. Back at our lodge we had a full breakfast, hoping to spot more animals while eating. There were impala roaming around, but they are so common, it wasn't as exciting as spotting other animals. We went back to our cabin to pack. Spent a short time on the deck reading and dozing before we were picked up to go back to the ship. Too bad we hadn't had more time to enjoy that beautiful cabin.
On the way to the port we asked to be taken to a craft market. Our driver stopped at a huge one by the highway (the roads were excellent by the way). It was a coop, so had booth after booth by different artists or vendors. We could have spent several hours looking at everything, but had little time, so selected a few things then went to pay. They wouldn't accept credit cards or US S$$, only rand. I had a few, but had to borrow some from a friend to pay for everything. Funny cuz we'd borrowed cash from them on Komodo Island weeks before. Nice friends.
Back at the port we took our luggage onboard then went back out to check out the vendors. Prices are always better when we are about to leave. Sure enough, some tiny stone carved animals had been $5 when we docked, they were now $2. Good deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment