The Big 5 & Life on the African Savannah

The Big 5 are Africa’s top five most dangerous animals to hunt; the lion, the leopard, the elephant, the rhino and the buffalo. This is brought from hundreds to thousands of years the people of Africa have been hunting wild game. Most wild game is dangerous to hunt, however, these specific animals often don’t go down with out a fight. Our safari guide, Ratief, told us some interesting stories that the Bushman believed about the different animals on the savannah. It really made our safari unique and just that much more interesting!

Buffalo – These are the most dangerous of the Big 5. Usually people think the Lion or the leopard would be the most ferocious, however, it is due to the fact that buffalo are huge animals and have a lot of power to back up a powerful punch. Hunters usually have a very limited window of time to drop the animal. When attacked the buffalo, being so large, tend to be more aggressive. Instead of running away from the attacker they fight back. A charging buffalo is very similar to a speeding bulldozer. One hit and your done! The buffalo is a herbivore, meaning they eat plants and grass. They can weigh up to 1 or 2 tons and eat a vast quantity of food everyday to support their size. They are very similar to cows and used to be considered “King” of the animal kingdom, but I will get to that later.





Leopard – My friends and I decided these beautiful cats were the “ninjas” of the animal kingdom. They are swift and silent and extremely deadly. Leopards are solitary animals that are powerful but are small and can be easily over taken by the Lion. Once they have made a kill they often drag their meal up to 3 km away and then into a tree to enjoy. This eliminates other predators stealing their catch and can enjoy their dinner on their own time in a tree. The Garden Route Game Lodge has one leopard though he is not seen often because he can easily jump the fence and leave the reserve. They are the most cunning of the Big 5 and often avoid human contact. We unfortunately didn’t see him until later on our trip.

Lion – Popularly referred to as the “king” of the jungle and rightfully so, the lion is a formidable animal. However, I find that fewer people know how or why the lion was named “king”. Our guide on the game reserve told us the story passed onto him by the bushman or San people, the last hunter gathers on the planet.

Originally, the Buffalo was the king of the animal world. All other animals were subservient to him, including the Lion. One day the Buffalo wanted to host one of the biggest parties Africa has ever seen. He wanted everyone to attend and be merry and comfortable. A party of that size requires a lot of food and drink and so the Buffalo asked the Lion to go out and bring back enough food for everyone. The Lion was asked to bring back enough branches and grasses for the plant eaters and one of each animal for the meat eaters. The Lion being wise realized that bring back one of every animal included one of the Buffalo’s own. The Lion didn’t like to run around doing things for the King all the time. So he went and killed the King Buffalo and basically “killed two birds with on stone” by providing food for the party and effectively making himself King.





Rhinoceros – It seems true to grow to the size of their cage. When the cage is the size of sub-Saharan Africa, it means they all grow quite big! The rhino is now exception to this rule; they are HUGE! They spend most of their day eating, up to 700 kg of grass a day (1,543 lbs), just to support their shear size. The park just recently had a population increase in their rhino population. They have a nine-month old baby rhino named “Hibabi” which in Arabic means ‘loved one’. The last three or four months of pregnancy of rhinos is done in alone. When she returns to her mate, the male rhino often tries to kill his own young. This is because he doesn’t recognize his child as his and doesn’t want another male’s youngster being raised by him and his mate. The female rhino is equally strong and can usually fight back and save the child, which then the male rhino accepts as his own. The female will spend the next several years with her youngster until it is fully weaned and grown.





Elephant – Elephants are the largest of the Big 5. The ones on the reserve were a coupled pair. They park has specialized workers who work with the elephants. They are very smart creatures and it’s true they and an incredible memory. They really never forget. The elephants in the park are kept as wild as possible and are allowed to do what they want and roam around. The trainers are there for safety, which was apparent when the female elephant came up to us in the truck and checked us out. We were told she was looking for a snack that some trainers bring with them, such as an apple or orange and thought she might be able to get something out of us.





Cheetah – They are the fastest land animals on the planet. They can run up to 80 kph (~50 mph) for about 3-5 km (~2-3 miles) at a time. However, they tire out easily and are not as great at catching prey as the leopard. According to the San people, the Leopard and Cheetah were once brothers. They hunted together, rested together and were together all the time. Soon, the two realized they could have twice the amount of food if they hunted separately. So they split up, and each night they would split whatever they caught for the day. The Leopard was a much better hunter than the Cheetah. He was constantly coming back with dinner and rarely did the Cheetah produce anything. The Leopard wondered why he was doing all the work and his brother reaped all the benefits. So the Leopard got smart and stopped splitting his dinner with his brother. Instead, he would take it up into a tree and eat there where his brother, the Cheetah, couldn’t follow him. This produced a deep rift between the two brothers and a deep sadness. The dust from the savannah was swept into the Cheetah’s crying eyes. This is why they have the tear drop eye markings. They split ways and that is why you don’t see leopards and cheetahs together in the wild.





Zebra – The zebra is a beautiful creature. The question remains: are they black with white stripes? Or are they white with black stripes? And how did they get these stripes? The San people believed that when the gods created the animals he made them all white. The Lion, the “king” of all the animals, saw this as a problem. He couldn’t keep track of his subjects and tell them apart. So he asked the gods to provide cloth to the animals so he could tell them apart. The gods, in their ultimate wisdom, told the Lion that they would give him the clothes he needed to make clothes for the animals so he could tell them apart. The Lion, took the clothes, and instead of make the clothes himself, he called a meeting with the animals. They were all to come and pick out their cloth and make clothes for themselves. The Zebra, however, loves to eat. He eats all day and was oblivious to the appointment set by the Lion. So they missed it, and as the day grew long the Zebra began to see animals coming back from the meeting. They were dressed in the most amazing of cloths fashion into fabulous coats. The Zebra immediately went to the Lion, who was cleaning up the rest of the cloths to give back to the gods. Seeing that the Zebra hadn’t chosen a cloth to make clothes out of he handed the Zebra a black cloth of poor quality. When the Zebra fashioned his coat, it tore in different places. Over time the cloth wore down into stripes and that is how they got their magnificent stripes.





The San, who had never actually shaved the zebra, never knew their true color. The only way you can decide on color of an animal is look at its skin. This is often covered by thick fur or hair. Physiologically, the zebra is a black skinned animal. This means, that the zebra is actually black with white stripes. However, don’t let that minor detail distract from the San people’s story.

Interesting stuff, huh?

Spring Break: First Stop – Garden Route Game Lodge

This place was amazing and came highly recommended from several people in Stellenbosch. Their recommendations were exactly what made the start of our trip amazing! The lodge is situated on a small reserve that supports tons of wildlife including the Big 5. When we arrived in the mid-afternoon the place seemed rather deserted. There were very few people staying on the reserve that night so the lodge upgraded our night to private chalets (luxury cabins)!!!











With every up there swiftly comes a down to knock you off your pedestal. Once I got settled into the cabin I went to grab my sunglasses that were supposed to be in my cup holder on my backpack. Unfortunately, they had fallen out in the trailer and were now headed down the N2 with BazBus! : ( It was mildly upsetting, but was perked up by the natural beauty of the landscape around the lodge. This place was gorgeous and the best part was is we realized the size of the reserve almost immediately. A rhino and baby were standing at the fence just down the hill from our cabins! A small reserve means less space to roam and more visibility among visitors.

We boarded our sunset safari with our guide and set out into the reserve. Our guide asked us what we would like to see which everyone replied with Big 5! Ratief, our guide, took note and let us know some basic safety and ground rules before we set out. Our first animal of the Big 5 we saw were the rhinos, which hadn’t moved much from the fence when we first encountered them. All three were there, mom, dad and baby. Ratief gave us explanations about the rhino’s diet and behavior and moved on.
We drove through a herd of zebra and wildebeest that were grazing together. We were explained that both zebra and wildebeest tend to be found together because of the shear safety in numbers. Although both herds were quite small, consisting of only 10 or 15 individuals. This is due to the reserve not being able to support vast amounts of animals.













Next we came across elephant, which were in a separate part of the park. Apparently the rhinos and elephants couldn’t get along and were competing for territory. This led to some rough scrapes between the two animals and resulted in the separation. The female elephant took fancy to us and came up to the vehicle. I think she just wanted to say “Jumbo” (Swahili for “Hello”) but was called back by her trainer. I never realized how big elephants are until they are only a meter away.











After looking, unsuccessfully, for the cheetah, we made our way to lion’s area. Along the way we saw several different types of antelope, such as kudu, impala, springbok, grey rhebok and eland. The lions were amazing and slightly terrifying. It’s one thing to see the king of the jungle in a zoo, but a whole other thing to be separated from the lion by a few meters of grass. They took little interest in us until the rhino showed up on the other side of the fence. We vacated the premises quickly once the lion’s began to literally hunt the rhino. Obviously, there was no way for them to attack the rhino due to the fence but still they might try for us and we decided against seeing if they enjoyed human steak!









On the way back to the lodge we ran into the rhino again. Wild animals protect their territory by marking it with various excrements and the rhino is no exception. He came upon our vehicle and paused. He seemed confused has to why this other huge animal was on his turf. The rhino was about a meter from the vehicle and due to their poor eyesight could probably barely make us out in the dimness of dusk. That was when one of the genius visitors thought it would be a good idea to take a great close up of the rhino. The flash spooked the animal and as Ratief backed off the rhino took its opportunity to state his dominance. HE CHARGED! Ratief back up further then stopped and revved the engine. The engine roar stopped the rhino and he decided he had had enough of us and lumbered back into the brush.

That night, Dana, Sarah and I had an amazing dinner at the lodge. What made it better was the fact that it was free! It was covered in our fees to the lodge! We went to bed with full stomachs and woke up early the next morning for our morning safari.
The morning drive was equally impressive as the sunset drive. Especially cause we finished up seeing the Big 5 by seeing buffalo and with the help of radar we located the cheetah. We also saw giraffe, blue crane, a secretary bird and more zebra, springbok, eland and kudu. We relaxed that afternoon as we waited for BazBus to pick us up and headed to our second stop in Oudtshoorn.

Spring Break… in South Africa!

I got back today from Durban, South Africa, ending a ten day journey across the country. I traveled with two other friends over our holiday break from our studies. We saw some amazing sights, ate some awesome food and stayed at some incredible places! Here is a brief overview of my travels over the past week. I plan on giving more detailed info on each place I stopped with pictures, stories and fun facts soon in the future!



We started our adventure by being picked up by a company called BazBus, a hop-on-hop-off bus service across South Africa. Our first stop was in Albertinia, just three hours down the road from Stellenbosch. There we stayed at the Garden Route Game Lodge and took two safaris before heading to Oudtshoorn (our second stop for the trip). We toured Oudtshoorn, went caving at Cango Caves and rode ostriches at Cango Ostrich Farm. Most of this was déjà-vu from my last trip to the Klein Karoo.

Our third stop was in Plenttenbergbaai (Plettenberg Bay) were we stayed at one of the nations top recognized hostels. We toured Monkeyland, a primate sanctuary, Birds of Eden, the largest aviary in the southern hemisphere (and one of the largest in the world) and toured Tanikwa Cat Reserve. All three provided up-close and personal encounters with monkeys, tropical birds, cheetahs, leopards, wild cats and other large indigenous cat species. My friend also bungee jumped the worlds tallest bungee jump at 216 m (709 ft)!!!

Our fourth stop at Addo National Park near Port Elizabeth marked the end of our journey along the Garden Route. After spending some time in the park and a night safari to view nocturnal animals we headed out early Friday morning for an all day drive to Durban. We passed through the Transkei; birthplace of Nelson Mandela, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and first black president of the Republic of South Africa. We finished our trip with a lovely weekend in Durban.

We flew back this morning from Durban. This was the most incredible spring break vacation! I don't think any trip in the US would be able to top something like this!

Cuteness Abounds on the Edge of a Continent

I traveled to Boulder Beach and Cape Point with some of the gang. South Africa never ceases to astound and amaze. I know I have said it before but this is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

Boulders Beach is home to about 200 African penguins. Due to uncontrolled egg harvesting and guano scrapping they were nearly driven to extinction. The penguins used to be called Jackass Penguins because of their donkey-like braying call, but due to the fact that several species of penguins in South America make the same sound their name was changed to African Penguins. They generally feed off of squid and shoal fish. African penguins, like many other species, are monogamous and breed with a single partner for life. The penguins were extremely cute and very well dressed. They played in the surf and were nesting eggs when we showed up in the morning. Many even seemed to pose for pictures.















Cape Point is the peninsula that extends south of Cape Town and creates the west coastline of False Bay. It is also the meeting place of two main ocean currents: the cold Benguela current and the warm Agulhas current. It is popularly known as the meeting place between the Indian and Atlantic oceans; however, geographically the meeting place is farther south at Cape Agulhas. We ate at Two Seas Restaurant and explored much of Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. They both provide vast panoramas of the Atlantic Ocean. You get the feeling that you are standing on the edge of the world.





















There is plenty of wildlife on the cape, including zebras, otters, birds, lizards and snakes. We also encountered several baboons that walked amongst visitors while carrying their children. The baby baboons were incredibly adorable. Although, the pamphlet as well as signs warned us that baboons were wild animals and dangerous and we were not allowed to feed them or eat around them. They apparently go quite literally ‘bananas’ for human food. Baboons have also been known to dig in pockets and take anything from wallets to keys to purses and backpacks. The ones we saw seemed desensitized to humans and were unbothered by us taking pictures and pointing fingers.