News June 2010

June 2010 will always be remembered as “World Cup Month ”. It has been absolutely awesome ! The response of South Africa in general has been nothing short of
“ Wunderbahr ” , “ Favoloso ” and “ Magnifique ”. The predictions that the event would be chaotic, the recommendation that players wear bullet-proof shirts, the diffidence relating to lack of properly organised games, food, accommodation and yes, safaris to Kruger Park, have all disappeared into thin air ! We can all be justifiably proud of what our country has achieved.
Well done !

Mexican Flag posted for entire duration of client’s visit at Tremisana.

Of course there will always be a few problems. From what I can gather, these problems are, in the main, related to some of our clients’ inability to understand English very well. There have been occasions when our guides have had their patience put to a very stern test :
 
On one occasion our Viva guide arrived punctually for a pick up at a private home to find a semi-inebriated group of would-be safari-goers still dressed in their pyjamas !
“ Momento por favor – I needa to drinka the café ”.
Despite his lively encouragement to get them going, it was not to be – everybody on that trip was delayed by 45 minutes !
 
We had a worrying experience when some tourists spotted a lion in Kruger. Some guests got really excited and had parts of their bodies protruding from the open vehicle as they jostled to get a good photo. This is clearly against the Kruger Park rules, which rules are always explained by our guides to our guests at the entrance gates. An annoyed local tourist emailed me photos of the transgression.
“ I comma from the Sud America to see the Leones and I wanta to take-it a fantastica fotografia for my muchachos across the Atlantico ”.
What chance, realistically, did the guides ever have ?
 
The animals played their part : we had absolutely brilliant game viewing. There was virtually no rain in June and as the veld dried up, so the animals started concentrating around the watering points.
 
June has historically always been our quietest month, so we shall always remember the new records in Viva Safaris tourist numbers set in June 2010. I cannot even begin to imagine how these records will ever be broken.
 
My thanks go to all the Viva Safaris staff – to Trevor and Alice for their professional handling of operational issues; to the Camp Managers, Ronald, Delina and Margrett ; to the hostesses Pearl, Florence and Juanita and especially to the hardworking guides who really made the difference between an OK safari and a great one ! Judging from your game viewing reports, the clients were not only in very competent hands, but also had extraordinary good luck ! Congratulations !

GAMEVIEWING REPORTS FROM OUR GUIDES

BONGANI has emailed me his report :

Kruger and Balule

The game viewing in Kruger and Balule is getting better, because the natural water holes are drying up. The animals go to the man made water holes to drink and animals at this time of the year need lots of water to drink, because the vegetation is dry.

Balule
 
Balule is a great place to do game drives at the moment. At Tremisana Lodge we presently have many animals coming to drink water, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. We have two water sources near the lodge – Tremisana Dam and the waterhole in front of the Guest Lapa. During game walks, I managed to get very close to a big herd of buffalos that are frequenting our camp. It was interesting to get so very close to them. On one occasion, while we were a few metres from the buffaloes, we heard lions vocalizing. The buffalos were very nervous.
 
We have had some interrupted sleeps at the lodge because the monkeys were making lots of noise. Some of the guests were unhappy about the monkeys. There is nothing we can do, because this is where they belong. It was unbelievable one morning when we found a leopard very close to the lodge. I realized that the monkeys were telling us about the leopard.
 
This month we have done lots of tracking for the Big Five. On our Morning Drives we have had luck with frequent sightings of the pride of 17 lions. On one occasion they were walking single file on the road towards the York property. On another day the pride killed a baby giraffe between Impala dam and Hamerkop dam. My guests really had excellent sightings.

Kruger
 
We had a brilliant sighting of eight lions eating a blue wildebeest on the main road to Satara, four km from Orpen Gate. We spent about an hour looking at the lions feeding. The lions did not think about vultures - they ate almost everything. There were a few bones left for the hyenas. On our way out we had two white rhinos grazing near the gate.

>
Two White Rhino really close up.

18-06-10

We did our drives east of Satara on the greatest roads in Kruger Park : the S100, S 41 and S 90. We even saw two big male lions eating a baby elephant near the road. The rangers said the lions killed it, after the young elephant was lost from his herd. They spent four days eating and vultures, jackals and hyenas were everywhere waiting patiently for leftovers. One vulture tried to get close, but it did not make it, because the king was nearby the carcass. The following day we went to the sighting to check if the lions were still feeding on the elephant, but the lions were gone - the only animals there were vultures, hyenas and jackals. On the S100 we had exceptional sightings of many elephants coming down to the stream to drink water and to take a mud bath to cool down the body temperature. We saw many zebra, waterbuck, impala, blue wildebeest and two white rhinos. We missed the leopard by a few seconds. We had sightings of hippos outside the water.

28-06-10

I drove to the S90, where a dream became reality. As we stopped to look at a herd of zebra, we heard the zebra vocalizing. We looked to the right side and saw two big male lions coming down to the dam for water. Before they reached the water, a big herd of elephants came trundling down quickly towards the water. The lions moved towards the zebra to try their luck but they were not close enough to launch an attack. We spent two hours watching this fairytale scene of genuine Africa. All my guests were extremely happy and all agreed it was a wonderful and interesting day.
 
 
MARK has emailed the following :

Herewith my 3 highlights for the month of June :

Highlight 1, 7 June
On a morning bushwalk, we got charged at by a cow elephant. We stopped about 50-60 metres from her. She saw us, raised up her head and came, silently, straight at us as fast as she could. I told my 5 guests to stand their ground. She stopped behind a red bushwillow about 20 metres from us. As I saw her head move behind the tree, I also heard my clients shuffling their feet. I was worried that they might try run and I shouted to stand still. She came out behind the tree and closed the gap by half at least, about 10-12 metres from us. She then stopped, ears out, kicked up some soil, shook her head, turned around and walked off. The whole incident took no more than a minute. Pretty amazing ! Neither I nor my guests will ever forget the experience !
 
That night at Tshukudu, we had Becky, the semi-tame elephant, walk right up to my door. The Tshukudu vehicle wouldn't start, and I ended up shouting at her to back off.
I think my guests had a pretty good ellie day.

Highlight 2, 19 June
On the Tshukudu drive, we witnessed an amazing interaction between the hippos and buffalos. We were standing on the bank of Seuns dam, enjoying a great African sunset and watching the hippos in the water, with 2 ellies on the far side of the dam drinking. A herd of 60+ buffalos emerged from the bush and came down to drink. A beautiful sight was that of about 25 buffs all standing in a long line, side by side, drinking. The hippos took exception to this intrusion and slowly moved up to about 20 meters in front of the buff, still in the water. The hippos started, one by one, doing a threat yawn display. When 3 of the 4 hippos all of a sudden did a massive yawn display together, it was enough to chase the buff off the bank, and they then started moving off slowly. It was a brilliant bit of natural display behaviour that one very seldom gets to see.

Highlight 3, 25 June (The highlight of the month for me!!)
 
On the morning walk, still in the vehicle, we came across an ellie herd on Nkombe North. We watched for a while and I then said to my 10 guests that I would take us about 600 - 700 metres down the road and we would attempt to walk back to them.
 
We encountered them with a slight breeze in our favour. I got us next to a termite mound, about 40-50 metres from a cow and calf of about 2 years. She spotted us and I had a choice then to move back out. I decided to make everyone sit down and told them not to take photos, and to sit comfortably as we could be there for a while. The cow, her baby, and a young male (about 8yrs old) started walking over toward us. The cow showed a lot of interest in us whilst her little one totally ignored us. The three all came to within 10 metres of us while we sat there. The scene was very relaxed, and yet provided an incredible adrenalin rush at the same time. The cow and baby proceeded to pee and poo right there in front of us and then moved to the side where the young male was. This was a bit tense for me as this meant that 5 guests were between me and the ellies. I whispered to them to keep dead still. As I followed them with my head turning, I got a good look of my guests' faces and it was a mastercard priceless moment. They were absolutely frozen and soaking it all up. The ellies moved off and thus ended an unbelievable experience. The 10 guests (as well as Polly) absolutely loved it and it was all we talked about for most of that day, and the next.

Another good walk was had on 4 June. We encountered ellies and buff on the walk. The buff herd made us very late for breakfast ( sorry Delina ) as we walked into them on the way to the vehicle. We had to skirt around them and as we got around they started moving back in front of us. We ended up waiting for them to pass through.

A very strange thing is this weather. Phalaborwa had -1 degree C about 2 weeks ago, and yesterday it actually rained - very strange weather indeed.
 
All in all, animal wise, it has been a fabulous month. Polly has been helping me with a lot of the walks as we have had big groups. It’s nice to have someone behind me that I know I can trust implicitly.

Take care, love to family, and see you soon.

Kind regards,
Mark

Elephant bull having a close look at us.

Oscar’s report :

Highlight 1, 7 June
Wild dogs on the Orpen road. About 09h40, we saw 4 dogs running and disappeared into the bush. Just after that an impala ran out across the road and the dogs ran across the road after it. The guests were very happy.

Highlight 2, 7 June
On the way back to Orpen, we saw a young leopard in an Apple Leaf tree. The leopard was about 8 months old. It looked as if the mother had left it to go hunting. A little further down the road was fresh buffalo dung, so it looked as if the buffalos passed there and the leopard took shelter in the tree. It did not look very comfortable.

Highlight 3, 18 June
We found a baby elephant killed by the lions. 2 big males, 3 lionesses and 2 cubs. This was on the S41 road to Nwanetsi. The mother elephant was there trying to chase the lions away but the males were not interested in moving away. The vultures were there for 3 days waiting for the lions to move on. On the 5th day, the vultures and hyenas were competing for the leftovers. 3 types of vultures were there : Lappet-faced, Hooded and White-backed.
 
 
HAPPY has emailed the following :

15/06/2010
Full day Kruger
38 km from Orpen we saw a pack of 8 wild dogs lying in the grass next to the road. The next great sighting was of lions at Nwanetsi at Sonop Waterhole. The lions were sitting next to the waterhole. At Satara we had a great sighting of a huge herd of Buffaloes. After lunch at Satara we drove 8 km from the junction and saw a White Rhino right on the road.

16/06/2010
Again we saw a lion sitting under the bush - it was difficult to see him but in the end everyone got a picture. At about 500 metres from the lion there was a bachelor herd of Buffalo. Great sightings on the S100 included a herd of Elephants and then S90 a White Rhino mom and her baby then on Nwanetsi S 41 another Lion.

24/06/2010
On the Motlala drive after lunch we saw a Black Rhino male and female. The guests were thrilled to see a group of banded mongoose chasing a snake.
 
25/06/2010
We saw a crash of White Rhino at Motlala. The guests were very happy because they were right next to the road.

26/06/2010
On another Kruger trip we were very surprised as we saw 2 Cheetahs and 6 Ground Hornbills.

Great sighting of Cheetah.

MAYNETH has faxed the following :

I had so many fantastic days of game viewing, but you asked for only two, which I chose randomly :

06-06-10 : Right near Orpen Gate we started the day by seeing a lioness chase a kudu through the bushes. At Girivana Dam we had a good sighting of two elephant bulls grazing near the water. We also had a close shave with another elephant bull in musth.
 
I then drove the best road in Kruger – the S 100. At Shibotwana windmill we saw 2 hyenas that killed a zebra only 5 metres from the road. What was really interesting and an absolute first for me was this extraordinary behaviour : once the hyenas were full and I mean really full they walked to the drinking trough where they lay in the cool water for a few minutes. I could see that their stomachs had contracted somehow and they then returned to the zebra to eat even more.
 
8 km further on we had a brilliant sighting of a pride of 3 lionesses with a very big male lion. They were right on the road and were very relaxed - they didn’t even move the whole time we were with them.
 
After lunch we drove from Satara to Olifants on the tar road. We got into a big herd of 100+ buffalos and at Ngotso Dam we had a fantastic sighting of 6 White Rhino.
 
07-06-10 : About 10 km on the Rabelais Road, we had a great sighting of 3 lionesses on the road. About 2 km on, we had a big White Rhino bull grazing near the road. At the S100 crossing we came across a huge bull elephant – amazingly the only one we saw all day !
 
On the return journey from Satara to Orpen, we really had our share of buffalo. A herd of over 400 surrounded us ! They were so close and so many ! We switched off the open vehicle engine and just waited and waited until they eventually moved off. My guests were dumbstruck – nobody spoke for about 5 minutes ! It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. Near Bobbejaankrans Viewing Point we had a leopard calmly step out of the bush in front of the vehicle . It walked in front of us and then sat down on the road about 2 metres from us. It stayed there for 10 minutes ! We really had a brilliant conclusion to our Big Five sightings .

Close to a lioness on evening drive

CHRISTO has faxed the following :

“We had many sightings of lions and elephants and the rest of the big Five but what I personally enjoyed was a sighting of squirrels and a snake. On 11 June, along the Timbavati loop, my group saw a Spotted Bush Snake with only its head protruding from a hole in a Marula tree. Two tree squirrels had located the snake and were making a “ helluva racket ” so as to advertise the snake’s presence to the rest of Africa ! The snake attempted to lunge at the squirrel but the squirrel was way too fast and easily jumped out of the way. The snake then returned to hide in the hole whereupon the squirrels returned and started up the whole cacophony again.”

ISAAC had some great days. He started off the month in grand style. On 1 June he and his fortunate guests had great sightings of buffalos and elephant even before they got to the main gate. About 7km in from Orpen Camp they had a sighting of lions on a wildebeest kill. At Nsemani Dam a crocodile had taken an impala and was busy eating it when a Fish eagle decided that it also wanted a taste ! After lunch, they enjoyed a great sighting of White Rhino next to the road.
 
On 20 June he had sightings of all the Big Five and was particularly lucky on the S 100 where his clients encountered a herd of over 100 elephants. Lions had killed a giraffe on the S 41 and when the group arrived there, there were 2 (alive) giraffe watching the lions eating their buddy - ‘sad stuff ’ as one guest commented. More lions were sighted on the S 41 – a group of 4 – mother and 3 teenage cubs walking ever so casually along the road.
Isaac finished the day with a leopard up a tree with a partially eaten impala carcass – just 500 metres before the exit gate. What a way to end a great day !

RAYMOND had some hair-raising escapades with elephants this month.

He reports as follows : “ On the 6th June we were chased by a musth bull on the S 100. He got to within 4 metres of our vehicle and I just broke the speed limit ”. On the 13th June he probably encountered the same bull ( musth condition can go on for months ) that again took an instant dislike to his open vehicle.

I suggested to Raymond that he stop cleaning it so well – the shine probably annoyed the old elephant ! Later the same day Raymond and ( by now probably terrified ) clients found themselves inconveniently positioned between mother elephant and squealing calf near Bobbejaanskrans. Raymond revved the engine and successfully changed the direction of the mother elephant’s charge. Florence tells me that the guests rang up a record total at the bar on the 13th June – can you blame them attempting to calm stretched nerves?
 
Raymond also reports seeing 3 large male lions on 17 June eating on a young elephant carcass about 10 kms from Nwanetsi on the S 41. This is most unusual as I have never heard of lions killing elephants in Kruger. Raymond saw the same pride of 3 males on a buffalo kill on 28 June so it may well be the case that they did kill the elephant.

NEWS FROM OUR LODGES

Three words : busy, busy, busy.
All our lodge staff, including the additional hired hands, have been very busy.
Thankfully there have been no major hassles and I am told that the electricity supply from the national grid has so far only had a brief 1 hour breakdown.
 
Of course we have had to do some last minute switches when Mr and Mrs turned out to be mother and son who did not want to share a double bed. All in all, we are very pleased with the feedback received from guests, travel agents and tour operators.

Relaxing atmosphere at Cheetah Inn courtyard

New colourful interior at Treehouse Camp

NEWS FOR OUR TRAVEL PARTNERS

Three words : thanks, thanks, thanks.
Thank you all for entrusting your clients to Viva Safaris. We have learnt from this World Cup period that the vast majority of overseas clients are still feeling the financial pinch. When we compare our occupancies to those of more expensive lodges and operators it is abundantly clear that international guests, by and large, are seeking affordable, value-for-money experiences.
 
I reckon that the fact that we did not increase our rates over June/July added an element of trust to the perception that guests have of Viva Safaris.

We will have some surplus beds at the end of the World Cup period and we shall arrange to donate these to Father Xico at the Catholic mission in Acornhoek.

I have had a number of requests re our 2011 tariffs. Unfortunately I cannot present these until we get figures from Kruger Park re Open Vehicle Permit fees, gate entry fees etc. I was told that these “ may be available by August at the earliest ”. All I have to work with for now is a figure of 7.5% increase in lodge staff salaries effective 1 July. Anyway I am familiar with calculator usage ( having taught Maths since 1973 ) so I hope that I shall be able to send you our 2011 tariffs sometime in September.
 
 
Letters received from our guests:

Dear Piero,

My family returned a few weeks ago from our African safari and stay at Marc's Treehouse.
I have wanted to go to Africa and see the animals since I was a little girl, sometimes we build things up so much minds they can never live up to the expectations.

However, South Africa was everything I dreamt it would be. We saw a lot of animals and had some very closeup experiences with them. It was a dream trip and I love it.

We really enjoyed our stay at Marc's Treehouse, it was so much fun. It was a great experience. All our guides were great. I hope to be able to return in the near future, we would love to try the adventure camp.

Thank you so much for an amazing trip,
Cynthia, Andy & Cameron Anchondo

===============================================================
 
Dear Anthony and Piero,
 
I had a great time with Viva Safari. Well done to all your staff. Special compliments to Mayneth who took us on a Big 5 day where we spotted all big 5 in a single drive at Kruger. He gets along well with the guests too.
Attached are some photos which you can use on your website if you want to.
Will recommend people for the viva safari experience.
 
Blessings.
Jeremiah

Photo of black Rhino sent in by Jeremiah.

Until next month...

With kind regards,
Piero
General Manager
Viva Safaris