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On photographic safari with Cindy Wheeler |
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Day 2 Game drive and the ever elusive Aardvark (Ant bear)
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Late afternoon, we embarked on a game drive. Saw some Kudu, Impala, Gemsbuck and a whole lot of birds that surface late afternoon. This whole area is rich in Acacia species. Getting to know and identify the trees are the worst for me as the one looks like the other. Fortunately we had an expert with us and our tree of the day was a Camel thorn or better known as Acacia Erioloba - Chris stopped at one of the trees to show us how to identify this tree. It is actually easy as the thorns form a thick base and the pods are shaped like an earlobe……easier than I thought…..
 We enjoyed a sundowner on the plains and at last light set off to enjoy yet another dinner at the Lapa at the lodge.
One of the very rare species that occur in this area is the Aardvark. They are however hard to spot and do not surface until last light or after dark. Prior to Cindy's trip, I promised her that we'll try and get her close enough to an Aardvark to photograph it. En route (by now nearly completely dark) one ran across the road and the Mahindra came to a screeching halt. Puma (tied at the back as she likes to chase things) was going nuts and tried to set off after the Aardvark. Aardvark do not see very well but their hearing is quite good. Sometimes they are so complacent that you could walk up to them and Chris said he'll try and catch it for us. We all went after it, but close by was an old anthill and it either disappeared into that or just the way nature intends it, escaped under the protection of darkness that was setting in fast.
It was too dark for pictures anyway and Cindy said that she did not have the right flash for the amount of light we had available.
Last year during Ann's visit, we did our own cooking. Around the campfire one evening we attempted to make some "Smores" with South African biscuits, marshmallows and chocolate. Ann told me about the tradition and last year we decided that this time around we'll have some "real Smores" with Graham crackers. Ann brought some Graham crackers all the way from the US and Cindy told us that she had some Hershey bars - that evening us South Africans tasted real "Smores" for the first time and we cracked up laughing when we discovered that Chris has a "thing for marshmallows". Earlier that afternoon I caught him in the kitchen eating some marshmallows and I told the girls, so Chris became the "Marshmellow man". Come to think of it, we were to think of a penalty for him sneaking off with some of our marshmallows but completely forgot about it. We will have to think of a penalty for next year…….we were doing the real girl-scout thing.
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Self catering