November 22, 2012
Arathusa Safari Lodge
1330

Well a lot's happened in the last few days.  I'm a bit thrown off balance right now.  We did leave Kruger yesterday and traveled over very bad roads to Arathusa in the Sabi Sands.  And, Arathusa does have internet.  So I received word from Delta that our flight from J'burg to Atlanta is 3 hours delayed.  Which means that we miss our connection in Atlanta to SLC and then home.  So I spent a very expensive 30 minutes on the phone with Marsha at Delta and come to find out that, even though we arrive in Atlanta about 0900 Saturday morning, Delta has no means to get us home from there.  So, either we spend an extra night in J'burg or overnight in Atlanta.  I chose Atlanta because if there are further issues it's always better to be closer to home.  More options.  Anyway, it's thrown my equilibrium off a bit.  It's the hell of traveling.  We built a day in to try and rest and recover but now that's gone.

Anyway... it's a overcast and very humid day here.  I'm sitting in a bar, drinking coffee overlooking a water hole that has about 10 hippos in it.  And the woodlands kingfishers are singing so I suppose it could be a lot worse.

The last few days in Kruger are kind of a blur.  We saw a leopard at a kill and spent a lot of time waiting for it to come into the open.  Unfortunately, it never did, being as elusive as some leopards are.

Leopard snarls at vultures near her kill

We also spent a lot of time in the company of a severely injured zebra.  This stallion obviously survived a lion attack though for the life of us we couldn't see how it could have survived.  When we first saw it, we noticed a huge gash on the right hindquarters and so we began to observe it more closely.  And then we saw a huge wound, which had bled profusely on the left shoulder and the left front leg appeared to be broken.  The zebra also had wounds on its belly, its groin, its throat.  It could hardly walk and was just standing there in 95 F heat, bleeding.  Obviously lions were all over it it and how it ever got away and motored enough to put distance between it and lions was beyond us.  We watched for considerable time in the morning, then came back at noon and its condition seemed to have weakened.  We assumed that predators would eventually catch up with this brave boy.  We came back that afternoon but it was gone.  We were completely mystified.  We search for a couple of hours and could find no trace of him. How he moved any distance at all was beyond us and yet there was also no sign that he'd died - no predators, no vultures.  A mystery.  Still, one very tough, brave horse.

Did a night drive at Arathusa last night and they have a hyena den so Gina was able to observe hyena cubs, which was way high on her list.

Hyena cub

The ranger Ryan had also reported that they had seen wild dogs the day before so we asked them to keep an eye out for them.  So this morning, sure enough, we found a pack of wild dogs and witnessed a kill of an impala lamb.  Really hard to watch.  Same drive though we witnessed the birth of a wildebeest.  It's the cycle of nature, right?

Newborn wildebeest

Am cutting it short now.  One drive tonight, a drive in the morning and then we have to hit the road hard.  Have to return the 600mm lens in J'burg at about 1700 tomorrow.  Home, we hope, on Sunday.