Yesterday began in an ordinary way. We went out with the students, whom I have dubbed the Amazings, to go to Addo National Park and Schotia Wild Animal Park. Our drive out of town was uneventful. We went by the old port on the way and we saw several auto transport ships leaving off cars and loading others from the GM, Ford and VW plants here.
Although drought has been our experience in the Port Elizabeth area and dryness and tan tinges the ground, inland there had been some heavy rain and we commenced to seen green grass as we drove toward the park. As the morning mist fell away we incredibly arrived in bright sun with glistening grass and lots of bushes with small flowers on them. To me it seemed positively magical, like falling down Alice’s Rabbit Hole and arriving in a strange new land, a portal to stunning nature and beauty. Addo is known for its elephants and we were greeted at a watering hole as we entered by an adolescent elephant hurrying down a hill side toward the water. His eyes appeared runny as though he was crying and he was continually emitting a bit of fluid from his penis. He was in musth (like heat). He threw water on himself, drank, and flapped his ears to stay cool. He was a great first act! We saw over 100 elephants in the park during our tour.
We went on to see mothers and babies crossing the road in front of us. Babies suckling…moms’ mammaries are in the front and she only has two. When she gives birth, the baby falls over three feet since she does so standing up. Sometimes the babies are injured. There was one car on the road that we could see that might have gotten too close and one mama looked agitated and they moved back quickly. In the PE paper there was a picture of two elderly people’s car being turned on its top by an elephant that took umbrage at their presence. They were unhurt but the picture taken by someone behind them was impressive! Fortunately, this was in a different park.
We saw a number of antelope-like critters. A Red Hartebeest is about the same size as white tail doe. It has gracefully shaped horns that sort of form a heart shape. Also saw Kudu which is larger and has wide spiralling horns on the males. They also have manes and beards. They are an elegant beast. They make a lot of biltong (jerky) out of
Kudu and it is quite tasty.
We saw more but we need to move on to Schotia where the Big Five can be seen. That would be the elephant, the rhino, the leopard, the lion and the Cape buffalo. We did see three out of five up close and noisy. We were riding around in open safari “Landies” with about nine folks with a guide. Once again the abundance and fecundity was evident. The warthogs and their young were cavorting about. The yellow mongoose (mongeese?) were about without young but they do produce about five a summer. They are still my favorites as Kipling gave them a family motto, “Run and find out”. A motto I love!
The White Rhinos came to the watering hole had good quaff and then wandered around the people waiting to see them in the trucks. They have a broad upper lip that this rather straight across which makes their browsing grass very efficient. You could hear them as they came with sound of grass yielding to their bite. The biggest one was pregnant. Their gestation is about 16 months and the Schotia guides did not seem to know exactly when for fear of the baby coming and the lions possibly munching on it. Also they are having a terrible time foiling poachers. This is a ubiquitous problem in game reserves as the poachers are coming in helicopters. Finding the rhinos and darting them or shooting them and taking their horn. This is badly endangered animal and it is a shame. They are now confined to conservation areas like this one. Many have guards that keep track of them. News today indicates that just in this area we have two poaching incidents in less than two weeks.
We saw two hippos who only stuck up their eyes and noses during the day from their pool. Baby hippos are born underwater. Adult hippos have to come up for air about every six minutes. We came back during the night drive they obliged us by getting out and wandering around where we could see them. As they are the most dangerous of the animals because their little piggy eyes don’t see very well and apparently after spending all day in the water they can be cantankerous when they are out at night grazing.
We also saw two giraffes browsing on the tops of trees and bushes. They were rather wary so we didn’t see them too closely but with their long tongue they can eat trees that have amazingly long thorns. We also saw a number of Burchell’s Zebra. They are beautiful and are black and white to be sure but across their rump they have, between the black and white, some chestnut stripes. They are very handsome.
For the antelopes, we saw a number of types. Springbok is more like our antelope in Montana but a bit smaller. They “pronk” which is jumping up vertically on all four legs. They can also live without drinking water. They browse and will eat melons and roots for moisture. ASIDE: The Springbok is also a national soccer team and a national animal for South Africa. … The Proteas are also a prominent Cricket team…and we saw lots of beautiful Proteas in bloom. It is the national flower. We also saw the Impala which is known as the MacDonalds antelope. It has the shape of the Golden Arches on its rump. Nice for the lions. These, too, travel in herds and browse and graze. They are very graceful and pretty…Just like my old 1958 Impala.
We saw neither Cape buffalo nor Leopard but we saw the most wonderful number of Lions doing a lot of things that lions do. Remember the fullness of life I mentioned earlier? Well the first lions we saw were in the midst of reproducing. They are lying side by side. If the female gets up or even moves he is right there ready to mate. He can do this four times an hour over a period of four days. Then we saw the old male who was still the dominate lion in the pride. Later in the evening we saw him eating an impala that had been sick and was languishing in a grassy area. They eat large and small mammals, birds, reptiles and insects. It was gory as you might expect. Then at dusk when we began our night game drive we saw the mom lion with five cubs jumping on her, briefly suckling, playing stalk my siblings…they were about four months old. They also teethed on her ears and hip bones, which were very prominent. They made lots of delightful noises and I am smiling just thinking about it! Please see the pictures posted in the next blog. As the day ended and sun set a beautiful set they were called by their mom and wandered off. There was still more in the darkness to see.
The Springhares bade us adieu. They are rabbits but the South Africans call them their kangaroos because they hop on their back legs with a long tail and short ears. Hopping around in the night as they are nocturnal they look a kangaroo standing about 16 inches tall with a tail of the same length. They reminded me of kangaroo rats of the south-western U.S. except larger. About 9 PM we headed back to PE after a very, very fine day!
