Over the years, we at Viva Safaris have established that most of our tourists have lions and elephants at the top of their “most want to see” lists. The reasons for this are probably developed in early childhood – no doubt our first animal books and child-focused documentaries emphasise the importance of elephants and lions. It probably also has something to do with our human esteem for things big and powerful. So when our tourists are asked by the tour guides “which animal would you most like to see in Kruger?” it is very rare that the answer excludes lions and elephants.
I have enquired from some of Viva’s past tourists as to why they feel good in the presence of wild lions and elephants. I share some ideas in this regard:
With lions it is clearly the “King of the Jungle” phenomenon. Lions are feared by every animal in the Kruger Park (except perhaps by elephants). Lions are, in a sense, the rulers of the bushveld. Their prey scatter at the arrival of lions at a waterhole. Alarm calls resound and the plains game have their attention firmly riveted on the lion pride. The fact that lions need to kill in order to survive also plays a part in the respect afforded them by prey animals and humans alike. They are potentially dangerous and on our bush walks whenever we come across lions, our guests certainly experience an adrenalin surge. I believe that there is a certain regal quality associated with lions. To see the “King of the Jungle” lording it over the other animals is perhaps a humbling experience for humans who lord it over everything else, everywhere else. Viva Safaris is fortunate in that our safaris operate around the Satara area of Kr uger. The concentration of lions in this area is reputed to be the highest not only in Kruger Park but in the whole of Africa! The reason for this is the presence in large numbers of wildebeest, zebra, kudu, impala, giraffe and buffalo which make up the bulk of lion kills. Over the years we have had a fairly good success rate in spotting lions. In winter (dry season) our success rate is well over 90% but this drops significantly in the summer (wet season).
With elephants, the average tourist is simply overawed with the size of these beasts. A full grown bull may attain a mass of over 5000 kg and can stand well over 3 metres high. The facility with which elephants crack branches is also very impressive – testimony to the brute strength they possess. I recall clearly the expressions of amazement on those occasions when my tourists have witnessed an elephant uprooting large bushes or pushing down established trees with consummate ease. In fact, of all the animals in Kruger, the one that I personally respect the most is the elephant. Perhaps this respect has been learned through being charged and chased a number of times. My tourists always thought it was absolutely hilarious fun to be charged, but little did they know just how anxious, even scared, I was at the time. In a previous newsletter I expounded about the musth condition in elephant bulls which tends to get them more aggressive than no rmal – to this day, if I come across a bull in musth, I am super-cautious. Viva Safaris has not missed seeing elephants on any single safari in Kruger since one forlorn day in 1996! In fact, some of the big-mouthed guides sometimes annoy me by offering money-back guarantees if they don’t find elephants!
GAMEVIEWING NEWS
BONGANI started the month by finding five lions eating a wildebeest near the Timbavati picnic spot. He made the 1st July a day to remember by seeing the rest of the Big Five. The next day, Bongani and guests came across a lioness killing a buffalo at Ngirivane waterhole. According to Bongani she brought down the buffalo very easily which indicated to him that the buffalo was sick. The fact that the buffalo was alone probably substantiates this idea. The following day, vultures, hyenas and jackals were on the carcass. A herd of elephants came down to drink and actively chased all these scavengers away from the buffalo carcass.
On the 13th July, Bongani spotted the Big Five again. What was very interesting was the sighting of a leopard eating a civet up in a tree.
On the 27th Bongani and guests were fortunate. They came across two lionesses stalking a warthog. The lionesses crouched in the grass and the warthog seemingly forgot about them. It then walked back towards the lions affording the simplest of catches. The guests were apparently very happy to see the kill and whatever pity they had for the warthog was summarized by the one guest's comment: “He was too bloody stupid to live”. Shame!.
NELLY reports that he has never had as many “Big Five in one day” experiences as in July 2008. He reports a flurry of activity one afternoon at Kumana Dam, south of Satara: “On 24th we were watching a herd of elephants drinking. As they left they woke up and chased a White Rhino which had been sleeping under a tree. Three minutes later we saw two male lions chasing a warthog. About two km further on, I spotted a leopard up a tree about 100 metres away. The leopard was fast asleep. The clients wanted to see it move, so I had to wait almost 2 hours for this lazy cat to wake up, stretch and slowly move down the tree. At least the clients were happy”. Such are the joys of being a tourist guide!
The 28th July was in Nelly’s analysis, the “mating day”. He reports as follows:
“At the Nwanedzi lookout point, we watched hippos mating for an hour. At Ngotso Dam we found a White Rhino with a calf not more than two weeks old. Later, near Satara, we came across two lions mating .They kept on going and going”
On the 29th Nelly came across an unusual sighting. Two leopards were eating an impala up a tree and a third leopard was at the base of the tree, waiting patiently.
Later that day Nelly came across another leopard that had been “ treed ” – a pride of lions consisting of two males, four lionesses and four cubs were sitting under a large leafless Marula tree in which a leopard had sought refuge.
Nelly finished the month in grand style: On the 30th he saw the Big Five before lunch! He reports as follows: “Three km from the entrance gate at Orpen we got two rhinos grazing next to the road; at the 13 km mark we found a leopard crossing the road; after that we saw lots of elephants and buffalo and we viewed two lionesses at the Nwanedzi bridge.”
THULANI, not to be outdone by Nelly, also posted a “Big Five in one day” on his first safari into Kruger this month. He reports as follows: “On 5th July, I drove between Satara and Tshokwane and saw these animals: two km from Satara, a big leopard up a tree and then coming down; two lionesses and cubs on a giraffe kill at Nwanedzi bridge; a huge herd of elephant near the Sweni river; buffalo near Kumana Dam and White Rhino at Mazithi Dam – all the Big Five in under 35 km ”
On the 6th July he spotted three lionesses near Tremisana on a sunset drive. On 7th July he scored twin leopard sightings: “we came across a leopard up a tree and then she came to the ground and started stalking impala; later we found 12 lions on a buffalo kill at Ngotso Dam; a few km further another leopard almost catching an impala”.
On the 9th July lions killed a giraffe on the Timbavati Road literally two metres from the road.
On the 23rd July Thulani had an excellent “cat day”. He reports: “We came across five cheetah near Nwanedzi. A pride of lions had killed a buffalo between Tshokwane and Satara and we saw a leopard near the road on the Rabelais loop” On his next visit to the Park, on 25th July, he again picked up the Big Five. He repeated the effort again on 29th July, seeing the same Rhino at Ngotso Dam.
Thulani reports his sighting of the month as follows:
“On 31st July I saw a lioness at Nwanedzi Bridge – this is the one with very small cubs and she has been operating at this watering point the whole month. We watched her stalking a warthog that had come to drink at the pool. She was very expert and waited until the warthog was busy drinking before she calmly walked up to it and pounced on it, killing it in front of my guests, who were very excited – the one guest got the whole thing on video and reckons he will sell this for enough to cover his entire trip to South Africa !”.
BERTUS reports 12 lions on a buffalo kill north of Satara. Another kill was of a zebra at Gudzane East where the lions were so full that they did not bother to chase the vultures away from their kill. Bertus came across two lionesses with cubs that had pulled down a giraffe on the road near Timbavati. The experience unfortunately was spoiled by other tourists who saw fit to try to drive right over the legs of the carcass! The lions were so surprised that they abandoned the kill and returned much later. It is this sort of boorish behaviour that makes us all so sad.
Bertus reports a sighting of lions where inexperience lost a lunch. A pride of five lions had staked out Nsemani Dam for a potential kill. They hid in the shade of a tree near the water awaiting the arrival of animals coming to drink. Sure enough a herd of wildebeest arrived and the lions set up their trap. Just as they were in a great position, a youngster of the pride couldn’t control himself and charged at the wildebeest and they immediately ran off. Bertus reckons he could see the looks of disgust on the other lions’ faces.
The game drives from Tremisana on Balule Plains were good. Bertus reports the lion pride catching a young buffalo, a giraffe and a blue wildebeest all in one week. On 31st we were alerted during dinner about a lioness and cubs that had just killed a warthog down the road. Supper was postponed and our clients were grateful that the owner of Masodini lodge was willing to share the experience..
I also spent a day in Kruger on my July visit to the bush. I only managed 4 out of 5 of the Big Five, missing out on Rhino. I did, however, see a pride of lions on a buffalo kill – see photo above. I spent almost two hours waiting for two lionesses to attempt a kill on a herd of zebra. It was close to midday and it looked like not much was happening so I left for lunch at Satara. On my subsequent enquiry the following day, it transpired that a kill was made later that evening. My viewing of the leopard that crossed the road was a lot more short-lived – I saw it for all of 45 seconds!
NEWS AT TREMISANA GAME LODGE
We have appointed Eric Dlamini as our fulltime maintenance man. Eric comes all the way from Stanger on the North Coast of Natal. We are retiling bathrooms, adding additional staff quarters and revamping all the chalets, so Eric will be busy.
The waterhole outside the Guest House has had a lot of animal activity. As this is the only water in the area, we have daily visits from giraffe, wildebeest and kudu. The buffalo also pop in from time to time as do elephants, lions and impala. With the shortage of fodder, the animals do not stay around for long as they move around trying to find sustenance.
We have decided to deepen Tremisana Dam so that next season we will have water lasting a longer time. The work will be completed in August.
The civet is visiting both our lodge and Wynand’s house where it is being fed the remains of a buffalo carcass. We also have a honey badger in residence at Tremisana. Of course the inevitable happened: civet and honey badger had an altercation and, needless to say, the civet came off second-best. He has a small gash above one eye and will certainly survive to fight another day..
NEWS AT MARC’S TREEHOUSE LODGE
We are rewiring the entire camp. With the increase in numbers of tourists we were advised that the original electrical installations were likely to become inadequate. We have upgraded the guides’ room and have added new aluminium windows.
As of the beginning of August we will have our very own hostess. As a result of the very positive comments received about Pearl at Tremisana, we have appointed Lauren McFarlane as hostess at Marc’s. We are certain that her bubbly character and friendly disposition will go down well with the guests at Marc’s.
We have tiled and painted the new guest toilet. It has been one of the hiding places for a newborn nyala lamb. This lamb has shown absolutely no fear of humans and has become a big attraction with our guests affording some excellent photos.
The buffalo herd has been seen less frequently this month. We suspect that they are being fed lucerne on another part of Motlala Game Reserve..
NEWS AT THE CHEETAH INN
We have decided to add air conditioners to all 21 rooms and rondawels. It can get very hot, and, unlike the treehouses at Marc’s which are cool under the shade of large trees along the river, the rooms tend to become very warm from November to February.
 We are pleased to have appointed Toby Esplin as our resident guide/host at Cheetah Inn. Toby hails from Australia and has such a great love of African wildlife that he gave up a great position to come to SA. He has qualified with FGASA (Field Guides Association of SA) and has a great love of birds. Toby assisted us with the American volunteer group, Westcoast Connection. During the week they stayed at Cheetah Inn, Toby positively identified over 100 different species of birds.
We are pleased to reproduce an email received from Toby on behalf of Joe, person in charge of the wonderful Westcoast Connection group that did such sterling work at SHILEKHISI school in Acornhoek.
 On the two occasions that we went into Kruger Park, we were rewarded with some great animal sightings that included a herd of buffalo that would have come close to exceeding 200 animals on the H7, several large matriarchal herds of elephant, plenty of giraffe, zebra, blue wildebeest, impala, steenbok, duiker, warthog and baboon, a number of very nice lion sightings and a total of 101 different species of birds. The highlights of Kruger were on the 6th, when we stopped at Sweni bird hide and in the 30 minutes that we were there, we saw a breeding herd of hippo's (literally), impala, elephant, kudu, 2 klipspringer, bushbuck, egyptian geese with 8 goslings, plenty of crocodiles and a large number of smaller bird species, and then on the 13th, which was our last day in the park, about 7km south of the big baobab tree on the H1-3 we saw 5 cheetahs (I believe they were all males, due to the fact that they looked too old to be cubs and females are not normally seen in groups) in a clearing about 80 metres away from the road. We all got very excited when a herd of impala walked no more than 50 metres away from them, but the cheetahs were obviously not as interested in the chase as what we were?
The group also spent several days at the Sihlekisi Primary School in Acornhoek carrying out community service work that included painting two of the classrooms and after preparing the soil, planting a large number of vegetable plants that the primary school children will continue to look after. The work was very rewarding and the children and teachers all looked to be very excited about the work that had been done while they were on their school break. As a reward for the hard work that the Westcoast team had carried out, at the end of each day the team played games like soccer, frisbee, baseball and several children's games with the local children and teenagers as well as making bracelets with beads and twine.
Although the main focus of the trip was to carry out the community service work, the team also enjoyed several adventure packed days that included a trip to the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre and the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre where the team were educated on the hard work that goes into trying to save native animals. White water rafting on the Sabie river, quad biking and a high ropes adventure course with Induna Adventures and also a visit to the world famous, Jessica the hippo, just outside of Hoedspruit. This was a fantastic experience for the team as they were able to get up close and personal to a real hippo. Each member of the team had the chance to touch her and feed her pieces of corn, and two of the girls sat for 20 minutes stroking her back with their bare feet.
The 15th was the last night at the Cheetah Inn before the team made their way down to Cape Town to complete the final leg of their trip, so while we were all sitting around the fire in the boma it was quite an exciting event and a nice farewell from the bush to have a spotted hyaena rustling in the bushes next to the entrance, although I think a few of the girls, and most of the boys were not too particularly impressed with her presence?
NEWS FOR OUR TRAVEL PARTNERS
As indicated above, Viva Safaris has seen the need to employ full-time hosts/hostesses at all our establishments. As we grow bigger, it becomes important that a personal rapport is established with each and every one of our guests. The comments we have had in the Tremisana Guest Book are absolutely amazing. In short, our guests have shown that they enjoy being pampered – Pearl spends time enquiring about their experiences on the game walks and drives; asking them if everything is OK in their rooms; she sits with them at mealtimes and also adds to what the guides do in terms of sharing her experiences of South Africa. She has successfully created a homely atmosphere at Tremisana which has really gone down extremely well.
Mindful of the success of Pearl at Tremisana, we have now embarked on a program of employing a host/hostess also at Marc’s and Cheetah Inn. Lauren McFarlane is the daughter-in-law of Garth McFarlane, owner of McFarlane Safaris based in nearby Hoedspruit. We believe that she is young enough to fully appreciate the needs of the younger tourists that frequent Marc’s Treehouse Lodge. Toby Esplin has shown how effective he is when he dealt with the Westcoast group. He is also qualified to take safaris into Kruger, so his duties will be an exciting blend of hosting at Cheetah Inn and spending time in Kruger, doing his favourite thing: birdwatching.
With the success of our first few outreach programs based at Cheetah Inn, we are seriously looking into making Cheetah Inn available for Volunteer Safari groups. We will develop a program that will allow volunteer groups to effectively make a difference in the schools in Acornhoek (about 10 km away from Cheetah Inn) and, at the same time, have fun. We are pleased to offer such volunteers (on organized groups) reduced rates on accommodation and safari experiences. We will make available our builders and handymen/carpenters to assist in showing volunteers how to make building blocks from cement and river sand. The builders will also be available to give directions in terms of actual building. We look forward to making a positive contribution to the welfare of our local communities.
I include an email from a satisfied client who had shown some concern about some negative comment she had read. As explained to her at the time, although we try our best, we would be fools to believe that we can satisfy everybody all of the time. Recently I had an email from a client complaining that he had not seen rhino on one of our 4 day safaris. He even hinted at a possible refund. I can assure you our guides try their very best, but on some occasions, the luck is not with us.
Piero,
I stayed Tremisana Lodge at the end of May. I wanted you to know we had a great time. You may recall that I told you about a negative posting on Frommer's. I added the following comments to the travel forum.
"I posed the original question about which safari to choose. My daughter and I decided to go with Viva Safari and we were glad we did. All of my questions were answered quickly and thoroughly as we planned our trip. We had a really great time. We stayed at Tremisana Lodge. The atmosphere was very relaxed....just what we were looking for. The accommodations were clean and comfortable. The food was served in in a thatched open area. At night we sat around a fire and talked to other guests from around the world. The food was delicious and plentiful. The staff made us feel like part of the family. They were great. Our guides were excellent. We saw many animals, including the big five. It was fun and exciting. I highly recommend Viva Safari. It was a wonderful trip."
We did have a great time. We stayed with Anthony for a day on each end of the safari. He was very accommodating. We enjoyed his hospitality. We did run into a lot of traffic which made it a long trip from the airport, but it worked out OK.
Pearl and Bogani were great. Thanks to you for all of your help as we planned our trip. We had an adventure we will never forget.
Regards,
Debbie and Heather Mackey
USA (we didn't call any groups of animals...a bunch)
Included are comments from our Guest Books from clients who experienced our safari in July 2008 :
TREMISANA
Alisa Thompson: “Thank you for showing me the Big Five. I loved the Amarula Carrot cake. I have the disease (it is a saying of Bongani to mean – "come back to south Africa ”).
Ruth Wallach: “Thank you for looking after us so well. Delina, your carrot cake is superb! Guests all thrilled with Bongani – what a guy! Many thanks.”
Annie, Lorraine, Josh and Joe: “This trip was truly unbelievable. It exceeded every hope and expectation! Tremisana is a beautiful place with beautiful people. Everyone was so nice and hospitable. Delina was especially helpful, Bongani was so funny and his keen instincts enabled us to see the Big Five plus many more, Thanks to you all ”
MARC’S
Peter Helmecke: “This is my third trip with Viva to Marc’s Treehouses. I will come back again ! I really hope so. Zum esten mal sahen wir alle 5 in einer tour seh mag alles hier ! Alles ! ”
Seany Cowless: “Great place to stay – I am so sad to leave! I go with many happy memories. Thanks very much to you all.”
Panny Rice: “Awesome 3 day safari! Lots of fun in little time! To funny with the monkeys playing around our treehouse.”
I have decided to share with you, on a monthly basis, some amazing photos in my possession:
The astonishing spectacle of a leopard savaging a crocodile has been captured for the first time on camera.
The photographs were taken by Hal Brindley, an American wildlife photographer, who was supposed to be taking pictures of hippos from his car in the Kruger National Park.
Another rare sighting! Crocodile with lion prey captured along the Olifants River in Balule.
Regards and best wishes,
Piero
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