A Chronicle of Amy and Sean's World Travels

Baboons Take Over Kruger

Posted by Amy on Oct 9th, 2010 in Africa, On the Road, South Africa | 2 comments

Baboons have quite the reputation in South Africa. At Cape Point, you’re warned not to get out of your car when baboons are near. At Kruger, you’re warned to turn your refrigerator around so the baboons don’t get in and eat all of your food. The man who loaned us binoculars to check out the lions compared baboons to the devil, and told us about the time they broke into his house, destroyed everything in sight, ate all of his food, and pooped all over his house.

I’m sure baboons are evil. But we find them to be irresistibly cute, even when a group of them took over a bridge in Kruger one morning, making it impossible for cars to pass.

Swerve to the left? They’ll get in your way. Swerve to the right? They’ll jump on your car. Try to speed up? They’ll distract you with cuteness. I mean, seriously, aren’t they adorable?

Day Four on Safari: Day of the Lion

Posted by Amy on Oct 8th, 2010 in Africa, On the Road, South Africa | 3 comments

On our last day in the park, we woke up early and left camp as soon as we could. Within ten minutes, as we drove along the road out of the camp, we saw other early morning safari-goers crowded on the road. We saw that they were watching a female lion down in the valley below.

Pretty cool way to start the day, we thought to ourselves. Little did we know that the lion sightings would just get better. Shortly after we left the area with the female lion, I got out of the car (don’t worry, in a permitted area, although I’m not sure what the difference is, considering there are lions roaming about). I was just about to photograph the sunrise when Sean started shouting for me to get back in. There’s a lion up ahead, he exclaimed. He just crossed the road. Get in! Get in!

We set off in pursuit of the lion. We finally spotted him walking around a clearing set back from the road. It was a male lion, with a full majestic mane. I snapped as many pictures as I could, but since he was on the move and in between brush many of them turned out blurry.

As he paraded around, he periodically let out giant roars. Sean and I were both awestruck at the sound – not something you hear every day.

Then he was on the move, and so were we. For the next half an hour, we followed the lion in our car the best we could. He crossed back and forth over the road and seemed to be patrolling or marking his territory, just like our cat does at home.

It was thrilling to be on the hunt with the lion, but eventually he disappeared out of our sight.

We hung out for a little bit, hoping he would make a return. While we were waiting, we chatted with a South African man in a nearby car. Hear the roars? The man said. There is a lion pride in the valley below. We all grew silent and listened. Sure enough, a low rumble came from off in the distance.

The man then started playing a CD in his truck that contained sounds of a lion roaring. This didn’t seem like the best idea to us – at best, it is just too much interference with the lion’s natural habitat; at worst, for all we knew, it could provoke the lions into attack. Nevertheless, the lions did respond. He would play the CD for a few minutes, and we would then hear the answering roar. But the lions never materialized in our view again.

A couple of hours later, we came across one of the most fascinating – but simultaneously disgusting – scenes from our safari. Sort of the grand finale, I suppose. Even though we were late to the scene, we somehow managed to grab as good of a viewing spot as one could get. Two female lions had recently killed a buffalo near the side of the road. We watched for at least a half hour as one lion stood guard off to the side while the other one had herself a morning snack. We were so close we could hear tearing of the skin and muscle as the lions went to town on the buffalo. Eww. Real life Discovery Channel, I suppose.