November 18, 2013

Lower Sabie Camp

Sittng in room midday, after a nap and the afternoon pbj.  Haven’t had time to write in a few days.  It’s amazing that one can be on ‘vacation’ and still not feel that there’s any time.

But it’s been stinking hot.  One day it was about 106F but mostly it’s been in high 90’s to low 100’s.  Once it gets into the high 90’s, we’ve been wimping out and rolling up car windows and turning on the A/C.  It doesn’t much matter because no animal is moving at that point.  Every animal in the whole park is under some little shade tree, panting in the heat (except for hippos – they’re in the water).  Basically nothing moves.  So by about 0830, the light’s leaving and by about 1030 it’s starting to get so hot that there seems limited value in staying out.  We’re trying to get back sooner, sleep, cool off in our little air conditioned bungalow, and recover strength for drive each evening.

We’ve rented a VW Tiguan for this trip.  Basically we requested a small SUV because they just seem to be more robust and to have better tires for driving on gravel roads all day long.  It was a choice of the VW or some sort of Nissan model that was smaller.  The VW is just weird. Sort of typical example of German engineers trying to out-clever themselves.  It’s comfortable, I’d give them that and, so far, nothing’s actually fallen off the car, which says something.  It’s got this feature where if you drive a certain distance and stop the car with the correct brake pressure the motor shuts off.  When you release brake pressure, it starts up again.  If you put it into Park, sometimes it shuts off automatically, sometimes it doesn’t.  If you leave it in Park after it’s shut off, sometimes it just starts up again on its own.  All of this I’m sure is aimed at maximizing fuel mileage for commuters in stop and go driving, but it can be kind of unnerving when trying to observe animals at close quarters.  Often, for example, we’ll sit on the road while elephants approach but we want to be ready to start up and move if they get too close or if they begin to show discomfort with our presence. But I’m never quite sure if it’ll start up if I lift pressure off the brake or if I have to use the key to turn it off, then on, making sure it’s in Park or else nothing’s going to happen. Plus the gear selector is just vague as hell so it’s easy to grab ‘N’ when you want ‘D’. I’m sure if I read the manual, it’d make more sense to me but it’s just not that intuitive.  Don’t think I’ll be buying one.

We’ve been seeing lions, but not really the sightings we want photographically.  Day before yesterday, we found very hot, sleepy lions under a tree in the heat haze some distance from the road.  Yesterday, we were driving from Tamboti toward Lower Sabie and ran into a group of six lions walking down the road toward us, followed by a posse of cars, all just creeping along behind the lions.  It was comical, actually.  We just stopped in the road and waited and the lions walked right past the car.  They were not a healthy bunch – nothing but skin and bones.  About three adults females and three subadults.  Given that there seems to be lots of prey around, I’m assuming that they were sick.  It was impressive to have them walk within 8 feet of where we were sitting but it was also sad to see their condition.

We stopped at a picnic area on the way over here yesterday.  They have these established picnic areas where you can rent a gas ‘braii’, which is essentially a gas powered concave cooking surface – sort of like a big gas wok.  They’re actually just great.  We fried up some left over steak and scrambled eggs with onion and green pepper.  Then we ate and watched the show as the various Little Bastards committed assault on the tourists – the starlings demanded food, the vervets were there to steal and then three teenaged baboons showed up and just created complete mischief, jumping into a care containing a sleeping baby (yeah, seriously), jumping into a safari vehicle that some ranger who should have know better left unattended and stealing a guest’s bag of sandwiches and chips, chasing and hassling the vervets, etc.  At one point, the three of them just took off across the river as an attendant showed up with a red slingshot.  It was obviously all part of the game – the baboons come, create trouble, the guy with the slingshot shows up and the baboons run off.  For a few minutes.  Like I said – dinner AND a show.  Sad part is that I suspect that someone will eventually shoot those baboons. They’ll get too big, too powerful, too cocky and someone at the park will decide they have to be removed.

Today, no lions so far.  Went to a hide over a little stream this morning and shot some birds.  That was really about it for the morning.  We haven’t seen cats but we have seen some rhino since we arrived at this camp. 

This is a pretty area, but it’s also noticeably more crowded here than in the central part of the park.  It brings out my misanthropy again.  And, for the first time, my mind wandered over to the question of how many days left here.  I’m trying to stop that and stay in the moment.