It’s really good to be back at Londolozi. Last night was so much fun, chatting with Will and seeing what cocktails we could figure out with their bar selection.
This morning we got up early so we could get out and look for a leopard mother and two cubs that are generally at the south end of the Londolozi territory. We had a really nice mother and daughter from Sweden in our group, and a woman who is with her husband here (he’s doing an audit for Londolozi and she came along to check out the place.)We found a couple of big herds of elephants pretty much right off. We were driving by a watering hole and spotted some elephants coming towards it, so we turned around and got on the other side of the watering hole from them. They walked on by, a few came up to get a drink, and we got to watch a long line of elephants go by.
As we continued our search for the leopard, we came across another herd of elephants munching away at teak leaves and marula trees. One juvenile couldn’t quite reach something on a tree that he wanted so he was determined to push it over. He tried a number of times, but the tree bested him. We also saw a tiny little elephant nursing its mom, which was pretty special.We moved on a bit and heard an impala making an alarm call back in the direction we’d just come from, so we circled back and the elephants were blocking the road, so we stopped and waited for them. The entire herd slowly made its way toward us as they walked along the road too. We wound up being pretty much surrounded by them, but they were quite relaxed since they’d come to us and we were just sitting there.I’m going to blame the elephant traffic jam, but by the time we made it through we didn’t find any leopards. We stopped for a morning coffee and as Barry was talking about how cool it is to stumble on a herd of elephants or a rhino, Jack looked out at the horizon and saw a rhino. We watched it for a bit while we finished our coffee (with Amarula) and there was also a little calf as well. We followed it around for a while and watched the little one playing around and looking at us a little skeptically. As we made our way back to camp, there was a hippo out of the water in the pond outside of camp. It’s pretty rare to see a hippo out during the day, so that was a cool sight. It was covered in duck weed, since the pond is similarly covered in it.
After we got back and had our breakfast, we’d intended to have a nice walk around the lodge, but pretty much immediately fell asleep for a nap. This getting up early stuff can really take it out of you. For our evening game drive, we went out looking for more leopards. It took a while, and we didn’t wind up running into much else, but we finally found a male leopard. We followed him through a dry creek bed and he even walked past the truck a couple of times in pretty close proximity. Leopards have these piercing green eyes that seem to just stare right through you. It’s quite a thrill to be that close to them and have them look right at you. After we got back to camp, it was dinner in the boma, with pre-dinner drinks around the fire. After chatting with Will and Londolozi’s general manager a bit over a G&T, we headed for the bar to make cocktails for everyone again. Everyone seems pretty excited about cocktails, I’m guessing they’ll be serving them soon. We had a great dinner with Will and Barry, chatting for hours, and it was off to bed.
5/11/21