Simbavati Lodge: Day 2-4

Our amazing (extra) long weekend at the Simbavati River Lodge has come to a close, but not without providing Peter and I with the opportunity to have some memorable experiences and make some observations...

Wildlife: The Startling, the Scary, and the Surreal

I think one of the best parts of a safari is that it incorporates all types and levels of wildlife. That is, unlike a zoo, where the elephants live in the elephant box and the penguins live in the penguin box, on a safari you see the whole interconnected mess that is the world we live in. It provides an interesting perspective on the rich and diverse environment in which we live; it also makes you realize the vast differences between the types of life with which we share the Earth.

Some of those types of life are startling. Some types are scary. And some are surreal. For example, did I ask Peter to remove a spider from the bathroom (read: murder a spider for no sin other than existing in my general vicinity)? I did. Did I get startled when a lizard the size of a golf pencil scurried across the wall? Indeed. Did I get scared when I thought that the sound made by the outdoor shower drain was an animal lurking in the shadows? Of course I did. It's very easy to be startled in/by the wilderness, and I feel that I fully reflected that fact in my behavior.

Some wildlife is, by contrast, genuinely scary. The part where I came closest to wetting myself was when we discovered a leopard had been hiding in the bushes next to our Land Rover when we'd all just jumped out to have a beer and watch the sunset. I also nearly wet myself when I was riding in the tracker seat (read: the non-seatbelt-equipped seat mounted above the front left headlamp where the wildlife tracker sits during the game drive) and we just about drove into a pride of four lions. I'll tell you right now, I prefer more than a yard between my person and a feline killing machine.

But the surreal was my favorite! The safari was a really unparalleled opportunity to see a crocodile hunting a goose, a leopard tear apart a dykka (a type of antelope) in a tree, and so on. Observe below as a juvenile elephant practice mock-aggressive behaviors on our vehicle and its occupants.

Turns out even elephant teenagers are assholes! That brings me to my next point.

General Observations about Other Guests

You might be lucky enough to get paired up for a game drive with Cathy and Sunny, two other Americans on a three-month career break and taking a world tour to celebrate (hey, you guys!). It felt like kismet to get matched up with a couple of people you'd easily have been friends with in the real world. Tip 1: Be friendly! Be interesting! Be willing to laugh at yourself and others in your Land Rover!

Also entertaining was meeting Chantal Rutter Dros, an investigative journalist from South Africa most well known for interviewing a man who'd lived with a Black Mamba for twelve years (http://beta.mnet.co.za/carteblanche/Article.aspx?Id=4672&Showid=1). Tip 2: Have a story about how a Black Mamba almost killed you to share around the dinner table! Don't have one? Make it up! I've decided that the next time I'm at a dinner party with strangers, I'm going to reinvent myself as a Komodo dragon wrangler. Be creative!

On the other hand, we encountered some South African Afrikaans-speaking expats who unabashedly yearned for "the South Africa of 30 years ago" (i.e. apartheid South Africa) and blamed our Zulu guides for "changing everything" in Pretoria. Um, not so much. The matriarch of the group also didn't hesitate to describe her husband's/daughter's bowel troubles over breakfast. Tip 3: Don't be racist! Tip 4: Don't talk about your family members' intestinal acrobatics to strangers. Tip 5: Don't do it over a meal.

Last but not least was the unforgivably sullen twenty year-old daughter of another American traveler. Tip 6: If your lovely, funny, and obviously nice father is kind enough to take you to southern Africa for a two-week safari, don't spend it refusing to come on game drives/sitting by the pool in your stupid bikini/applying eyeliner/being a dick. In the end, I think it's clear that the teenage elephant was more mature than the twenty year-old girl. A win for the elephant!

And, obviously, a win for us! Of course, the above reflects just a few observations over the course of the trip, but it was an amazing experience and a chance to observe wildlife that really made an impression on both me and Peter. If there's one thing that was a constant over the whole holiday, it was the wish that we could've transported all our friends and family there to share it with us.

More soon!