This post was originally from February 13, 2024

Yesterday was another day for the books! It started with a morning game drive, where we set off at 5:30 am just before the sun started to rise. We get to drive in a massive Land Rover where we have a driver and a tracker. The tracker has a seat on the hood of the car where he is propped up scanning for anything big or small. Our tracker’s name has been Forget and he is amazing. We will literally be driving along and in a blink of an eye he will spot something minuscule from far away. The driver then stops the vehicle and Forget points out anything from a scorpion to a caracal (in the dark no less), to a freaking hiding leopard! It’s quite incredible what this guy can see – he has superhuman sight!! Liza and I have been lucky enough to sit at the back of the vehicle. It is the bounciest spot to be in (super fun), but also the most treacherous for dodging branches and other foreign objects like spider webs. My safari attire is looks nothing like it’s out of a brochure but my beach bucket hat has saved my ass (or head I should say) multiple times over the last few days. 

The highlight of the morning drive was seeing a leopard. Leopards are incredibly elusive and hard to spot. In all my safaris,  I’ve only seen them from a far just a handful of times. This time it was pretty close to us and as it walked, it brought a fresh kill in its mouth. Liza and I couldn’t help but laugh at one of the photos as the leopard had the same expression that Theodore (our kitty) has when he is walking with his ball in his mouth. Fun fact about leopards…when searching for one in the bush you need to look out for the smell of popcorn. Why you ask? Because leopard urine smells like popcorn! Next time we are in the mall and waking past a Kernels shop we will be reminiscing about our leopard adventures!

After our morning drive we came back to the lodge where we had lunch and then pampered ourselves with a spa massage. Liza and I both chose a 90 minute full body massage called the African Awaking. What made this one a little different from massages at home was that they used oils infused with the marula fruit and the ‘awaking’ part must have been the rain shakers at our heads right at the very end (not sure how I feel about that!) Not going to lie, this massage was far more relaxing and much less violating than my massage in India! 

I have to admit that I could spend much longer than just two nights here in Karongwe. Not only is the food is out of this world, and the glamping tents incredible, but the area of land that you stay is full of entertainment from all the wildlife activity. About a ten minute walk from our tent, past the pool and massage area is a Bird Hide. Here you can sit in a covered area and watch the waterhole where this is a lot of bird life as well as other amazing creatures like hippos. Below are just a few photos from around the property:

At 4 in the afternoon we hit the open jungle for our second drive of the day. Just as night was falling we saw our second leopard siting. Two in one day – we must have had a horse shoe up our arses! 

I could go on about all the up close encounters we had but I have to tell you a couple stories about what some of our group has experienced. Our group has had to divide into two vehicles due to numbers and it just so happens that the other vehicle had far more action than expected. On our morning drive we got a call over the radio that they were stranded and needed to be pulled out of a muddy waterway. By the time we got to them you could see everyone with their pants rolled up, socks and shoes off and standing in the mud (they all had to get out of the vehicle before it could be pulled out). The guide had to literally carry some of the older people over his shoulders to dry land, And although this was quite hilarious to watch from a distance, we didn’t know the reason behind how they got stuck. You see, they came across a couple of younger lions playing and while watching them, the lions started to get too close to the vehicle. To make sure they were at a safe distance the driver had to quickly do a turn but that led to the inevitable – tires entrenched in mud! These poor folks were stuck in the wild with lions!!! Not a bad thing in my eyes but I can see how some might have been a little freaked out. They had to wait until the lions lost interest and moved on before exiting the vehicle but I am sure while they were standing in the mud like sitting ducks, everyone was watching over their shoulder anxiously. As you can see in the photo below there were plenty of lion prints in the sand!

Incredibly enough, on the evening game drive they had another mishap. At one stage we were following a group of elephants and enjoying every second watching them interact with each other. After a while the other vehicle pulled up and everyone’s faces were as white as ghosts. As we motioned to look over at the amazing herd we realized that something serious just happened. Just moments before coming up to us they had just been charged by the biggest bull elephant in the reserve. Apparently another vehicle was getting too close and kids had started to scream. The elephant started to run and in that time that vehicle got away. Amidst the chaos, the bull quickly turned and came full speed towards our group. The driver had to do some quick thinking by reversing, stopping to show its dominance and then revving the engine to make it stop. The bull stopped about 10 feet away from them and thankfully backed down. This bull was also musthing which makes them aggressive and unpredictable. Musthing is a biological phenomenon in male elephants where there is an increase in testosterone production (over 60 times the norm) and you can see this by temporal gland secretions. Even though the bull didn’t touch the vehicle, not all got away unscathed. The driver had no choice but to back into an acacia tree. If you have ever seen an acacia tree you’ll know that it’s got very sharp thorns that look like toothpicks and definitely not a tree you want to rub up against. One of the ladies was cut up pretty badly and another was hit over the head by a branch. Even though it wasn’t ideal this was literally a life or death moment and a far better outcome than the alternative.

It was funny though because one guy named Bob (an 80 year old Scottish man) was giving me a play by play after we stopped for tea and he said “it was a good thing I had a hard-on”.  “Um, excuse me!!!’ Oooooohhhhh – it was a good thing he had a HAT ON. Damn Scottish accent, gets me every time! 

I’m sure my mom will be happy to hear I was in the vehicle that didn’t experience all the action, but knowing everybody came out safe, part of me wishes I could have been there to watch it all unfold. Below are some more photos from the day: