Kichaka Game Reserve - Elephant Commotion

Our final two days had a lot of firsts and surprises in store for us.  We started the day with the morning game drive.  We started by finding a white rhinoceros - a lone bull.  The bull was at most ten feet from us, and about 40 feet from the front door of the game warden's house.  When you live on a game reserve you have to be a morning person.

Among the other things we learned is that rhinos have poor eyesight, but they have an excellent sense of hearing.  In fact if you are walking in the bush and are approached by a rhino, you merely need to hide behind a bush and they will not see you.  We also learned that you can call rhinos by imitating the swishing sound they make when they eat grass.  Chris relayed a story of hiding behind a bush and having a rhino close enough to him that he could have reached out and touched the rhino!

Rhinos are a very endangered species, because of the asian demand for the rhino horn.  There are about 13,000 white rhinos and 3,000 black rhinos left globally. With several black rhino subspecies already genetically extinct.

We saw a few other animals during the drive, including Kudu and Nyala. These are both species of antelope.

The big hit of the afternoon drive was seeing the male lion.  He looked incredibly majestic.  We happened upon the male lion and the lioness, who were together and getting ready to mate.  Unfortunately we did not get to see that!  We learned that the male lion's mane protects their jugular from being cut by another lion.  While it looks soft, in fact it is so thickly matted it is almost impossible to move it, thereby serving as good protection for a lion's most vulnerable area.  The lion below was about ten feet from us.

Later on we went off to see a heard of elephants across the valley.  As we got closer though, a problem greeted us.  The other guide, Jason, had managed to get their Land Rover stuck in the mud - and rather deeply as you can see below. In an attempt to rescue him an additional car got trapped in the same boggy marsh. Chris muttered under his breathe that Jason was a fool for going into the marsh, the junior ranger had evidently not been paying attention to some of Chris' stories! Several years ago a car got stuck in that same marsh and was stuck there for two days until the ground could harden and they could get another car to tow it.

Of course we headed over to help.  But first we had to get through the same marshy area that got Jason stuck.  We decided to take a path through the trees and the marsh, thinking it would be a little drier.  When we got halfway through the path, we realized two things.  First, it was equally wet (and therefore we had a high risk of getting stuck), and more importantly, a herd of elephants had decided to use the same path to cut through the valley!  So we waited patiently while the herd of elephants crossed in front of the Land Rover.  Before the elephants crossed our path, you could hear the trees and shrubs being crushed as they cut a path through the trees, combined with the roars of the elephants this made for a rather precipitous place to stop. 

Waiting for the elephants however, had a consequence.  We started sinking deeper and deeper in the mud.  By the time the elephants passed, we were stuck ourselves!  So we had no where to go - mud behind us and a herd of elephants in front of us!

We waited until finally the old bull elephant - who is always at the back of the herd - passed us by.  Then the boys got out and got ankle deep in the mud and began to push.  We kept rocking the Land Rover, with Chris driving, and eventually managed to get out of the mud.

When we got through, we got a beautiful view of the entire elephant herd that passed us - 18 elephants in total!  Note the  several baby elephants in the picture.

We got over to Jason's Land Rover, and found in fact both of them were stuck.  So we attached a long rope to the first Land Rover, got that one out, and then went after the one that was really stuck.  With a lot of pushing and the help of a jack, we got the third Land Rover free too.

Fortunately after all that hard work we were able to enjoy our sundowners with the last light of day.  South Africa is always full of surprises and challenges, but at the end of the day it is one of the most satisfying experiences you will ever have. 

Kichaka Game Reserve - Evening Update

We left in the late afternoon in the rain.  Be mindful that our game drives are in Land Rovers, but they are open topped Land Rovers.  We were wearing our safari gear and thick rain ponchos, but pretty quickly the weather gets the best of your gear, despite any preparations.

We were, however, rewarded with two amazing sights.  The first was we happened upon a herd of elephants.  But the better part was that Dad spotted the herd before Chris, our guide, did.  Chris was deep in the middle of explaining the differences between the black and white rhinos when Dad suddenly gave a cry of exclamation. As we began to turn our heads in that direction Caroline gave a squeal of delight. Her greatest desire had finally been realized. The herd of elephants was traveling with a baby calf, only three months old.  We first saw the older buck that leads the herd.  The buck 'leads' from the back, as is the case with most herds.

We then when to the opposite side of the small valley, where the herd was.  As we began to approach the herd they naturally began to encircle the calf, ensuring that at least one of them was between us and the calf the entire time. Despite being three months old the baby elephant already weighed 130 kilos.

From there we went looking for white rhinos.  As we strained our eyes against the horizon Chris began to tell us how the white rhino got it's name. The white rhino was first named by Dutch settlers who called it the wid (Dutch for wide, phonetically vi-d) rhino, after it's large flat brimmed mouth. The incoming English settlers then interpreted the wid as white rhino, and thus the white rhino was born. While we did not see the rhinos, we did get to see the cheetah again.  This time he was not on the bluff, but laying under some trees.  The cheetah was camping under a set of wattle trees to hid e from the lions and nest for the night. We were, at most, ten feet away from the cheetah.

We saw a few other things, and also got even wetter, but by the end of the evening the rain stopped, and we made it back to the game lodge.  We were greeted with a hot towel, a glass of sherry, and a warm shower before heading off to dinner!

Kichaka Game Reserve

Yesterday we arrived at the Kichaka game lodge.  What an amazing place!  Everything is done first rate.   The game reserve is privately owned, and encompasses a total of 7000 hectares (about 15000 acres).  The Kichaka lodge is about two hours north of Port Elizabeth, and only about 40 km from the beach, but miles away from civilization.  The lodge mirrors British civility - fantastic dinners (prepared while you are on the game drive), plenty of drinks, and sumptuous surroundings. Not to mention regular breaks of varying degrees of tea, high tea, afternoon tea, evening tea and a variety of others. We now understand where the inspiration for the appetites of hobbits came from. 

Here is our guest house that we are staying at in Kichaka.  Not shown is a small private pool that we are also able to enjoy.

We have been doing two game drives a day - one in the morning and one in the evening.  During the first two drives we have seen a total of 17 types of animals.  These are the ones we 'crossed off' from the list provided, yet there have been plenty of others that we've seen. 

You will often hear reference to 'the big five' - lions, leopards, elephants, rhino, water buffalo.  Of these, we have see lions and elephants so far.  The term 'big five' refers back to the colonial days, when these were the five most likely animals to kill you!

The morning drives start early, we rise at 5:30, get a cup (or three) of coffee, and then are off in the Land Rover.  Each game drive lasts two to three hours.  During that period, we will go to three or four areas in the game preserve.  Halfway through, we stop - for coffee in the morning, and for 'sundowners' in the afternoon - shown below are Cam and Caroline enjoying the sundowners.  The chips were a huge hit with Caroline!

On the first game drive we happened on a mother lion and seven cubs.  The cubs ended up without both their mother and father.  The mother went out hunting, and never came back, and the father left for an unknown reason.  Consequently one of the mother's sister lions adopted the seven cubs and has been raising them.  They get food every 2-3 days, depending on what the lion can catch.  If you look below at the zebra, you will see a wound from the lion on her left rear quarter.  The lion tried to  catch the zebra, but the zebra apparently kicked her and got away.  Some zebras kick the lions so hard that the lion's jaw will be broken and they starve to death.  The zebra will survive, and amazingly the wounds tend not to get infected.

One of the rarer animals we happened upon was the brown spotted hyena.  They are typically only seen at night, and even then are quite rare.  We were able to follow this one for quite some time.

We saw things large and small.  One of the smaller ones were the spiders.  Below you can see a Golden Spider - the female, and three (much smaller) male spiders - which was right outside of our room!

During the morning's game drive we happened upon a tower (aka herd) of giraffes.  The size, and their ability to move with such alacrity was hard to believe.  We happened upon two young males, about 18 months of age.  They were kicking and hitting each other to assert their dominance.  Chris, our guide, relayed a story were two males were hitting each other so hard, that one of them developed internal bleeding, not unlike what happens during a high speed car accident if the chest hits the steering wheel, causing internal bleeding.  The giraffe eventually died from the bleeding.

We happened upon a cheetah, a rare animal to see.  They are at the 'bottom of the top' of the food pyramid, below lions, hyenas, and leopards.  As a result, they don't sleep well.  Unlike the lion with its strength, and the leopard who can sleep in trees, the cheetah can only rely on its speed.  The game reserve, at almost 15000 acres, can only support three cheetahs, two females and one male, which gives you a sense of the territory each requires.

We saw several zebras.  There are many theories on the rationale for the black and white stripes, ranging from avoidance of disease carrying flies (claiming they get dizzy around the stripes) to confusing predators.  We also happened upon one buck elephant.  It was about 100 meters away, foraging.

Before we saw this elephant, we saw the impact of the elephants traversing the landscape.  The bush below was spread apart from the elephants.  We also saw 'elephant highways.'  The original roads in Africa in the 1800s followed elephant highways, since they were the straightest and clearer roads through the bush.

Getting to Knysna (with a short stop to surf)

The next leg of our journey had us traveling east up the coast to Knysna, another surfing town.  We had about 300 kilometers to kill, and used the journey to get educated on life in South Africa through the lens of our two Peace Corps volunteers.  Cat started out with a story about the differences in the concept of a pet between the USA and South Africa.  Cameron and Cat both have stray village dogs from South Africa that they adopted.  Among other things they found its a great way to stay warm in the winter, and it also helps to promote interaction in the village.  By American standards, they have honestly not done a lot taking care of their dogs beyond ensuring they are fed well, cared for, and have a place to sleep.  However by village standards, they are completely spoiled rotten.  Dogs in a village are used for security or herding livestock.  The concept of a 'pet' is completely foreign to the rural South African population.  It is not uncommon to see dogs scavenging for food in the village, having rock thrown at them, or having mild to severe injuries.  Children and adults will also run away from dogs - they have an innate fear of dogs, even small puppies.  One of the most rewarding experiences was teaching their host families about how to care for a dog, and how a dog can be something more than just an animal.  Now, when they each go away for a day, their families have learned to play with their dogs, and they have even grown to like the dogs.  As an example they have let the dogs stay in the house during the rain, something unheard of in rural South Africa.

From learning about dogs, we then changed the discussion to the tough realities of being an American volunteer in rural South Africa.  Many times, volunteers cannot get their village colleagues to focus on the merits of a project, but instead the villagers ask why as Americans they can't simply pay for it.  For example one attempted project by Cameron and Cat was starting a health related radio show with the Giyani community radio station.  They spent months of their time trying to demonstrate how they were dedicated to working with the local radio station. Among hours of volunteering with the station, they also designed and outlined a 52 segmented show that would improve awareness of health and emotional well being issues in the surrounding villages of Giyani.  However, after two trial radio shows, the station decided something different.  In the end, it came down to money; the station manager demanded 5000 rand a month (about 500 USD) to put the program on. To put that in context, a good paycheck for an average rural South African is 1500 rand a month.

By then, we were approaching the town of Mossel Bay.  Cameron had the great idea to stop and go surfing!  We surfed for about an hour, and everyone (including Caroline) had a blast.  We'd put in a picture normally, but Cat (who grew up in Hawaii) was the only one who really looked elegant on her board.  We took off again for Knysna, and were greeted with seeing two elephants in the countryside during our drive!

Some of their fellow Peace Corps Volunteers also got to see up close and personal how South Africans are still struggling with the issues of race, 21 years after the official end of Apartheid.  One American volunteer, with the village name Naledi, was watching a village soccer scrimmage with some of her village friends.  About halfway through the match, a group of white rugby players demanded the field, and stormed the game, saying that it was their turn to use the field, and the village group should leave.  The Afrikaaner rugby players then started rocking the car, where their friend went for safety, and threatened her.  The police came, and ended up forcing the village players off the field, even though it clearly was the Afrikanner rugby players who were at fault.

This is troubling, but it was an isolated incident, and they do report that more often than not they see people working together.  So there is hope for the future!

By then we arrived at Knysna, and were ready for a hot meal and a cold beer!

Hermanus and the Great Whites

We headed out from the Stellenbosch wine region relatively early, intent to make it to Hermanus in time for a host of activities we planned.  Hermanus is a cool little beach town, a few hours outside of Cape Town. We crossed Sir Lowry's pass, over the mountains, which were much like the highlands of Scotland - beautifully barren and craggy in their appearance

The heights also afforded us a beautiful view looking back to False Bay, where we came from before the Stellenbosch region.

Once we got to Hermanus, we split up into two groups.  Caroline and Cat went off to do some horseback riding, while Cameron and Ray went shark cage diving.  We are of course biased, but the shark cage experience was amazing.  It probably won't be as good as the smelt run we are both doing in July, but we got to see great whites that were 13-16 feet in length about 2-3 feet from us in the cage.  Because the visibility was poor, the better photos tended to be from the top of the boat.

Twice the great white sharks were so aggressive that they bit the fish bait completely off the rope line that the dive master used to attract the sharks to the cage!

All in all it was a good warm up for the smelt run in July!  We also got to admire the natural beauty of the mountains in the fog from the shore.

We got back in time to do a little zip lining up in the mountains above Hermanus.  After a brief lesson we took ATVs up to the top of the mountains, and proceeded to cover 11 zip lines over a span of about 90 minutes, working our way down the mountain.  We got time to pause for a group photo, with everyone hamming it up a little!

Segways through the vineyard

This afternoon we had a blast.  We rented segways and toured the vineyard.  The Spier vineyard dates from 1692 and is 400 hectares in total, so a lot of room to tour through.  Using a Segway is actually pretty user intuitive.  To go faster you lean forward, to go slower you lean backwards.  They are very responsive in turning, with about a 1 meter turning radius.  We started out with lessons, and it became clear rather quickly that Caroline, despite being 8, was a bit of a pro on the Segway.  She quickly mastered the flats (an old parking lot) and then the obstacle course.  Then we were all off for the tour, following Prince, our guide.

The route was very scenic. The farm is rolling hills, with rugged mountains in the background.  The geography is very reminiscent of Napa and Sonoma in the U.S. Along the route we crossed paths with a Secretary bird. Unfortunately a Segway is not photo friendly and trying to frame a shot while keeping your balance and lurching forward is easier said then done. Thanks to the power of the Internet however, we can give you an example of what it looked like. With a mighty beat of its wings it quickly became airborne and vanished towards the sun.

We finished the afternoon with a bottle of a Spier Creative Block 5 Cabernet blend, and a mean game of checkers while figuring out where to go for dinner. While Cameron was editing the blog, making it far too verbose, we caught some candid father daughter bonding. 

Perhaps this is the best representation of our vacation so far. 

Stellenbosch

As we awoke and began to shake off the tannins still circulating in our system we headed out on to the estate and leisurely strolled through the vineyards. The day started out partly cloudy, and a comfortable 80 degrees. Yet our stomachs beckoned for food and we were drawn to the buffet, another smorgasbord of food that only reminded the Peace Corps Volunteers the kind of delicacies that exist beyond rice and beans. Satisfied, we began our drive in to Stellenbosch proper. Stellenbosch is one of two primary wine making regions in South Africa. The winemaking dates from the Huguenot refugees who settled here in 1690. The monks came here in seek of religious freedom and soon started planting grapes in the fertile valleys around Stellenbosch. Legend has it they found this to be a much more interesting (and pleasurable) pursuit, and thus the region became the center of the South African wine industry.

The town itself is quite nice, and slightly reminiscent of Sonoma or Napa in California save for the thatched roofs!

Every vineyard is eclipsed by the surrounding mountains, as they cast their long dark shadows as the sun rises and sets.

From there we went to another winery that also included a wildlife preserve. Their varieties of wine were surpassed only by the species of felines that they held in captivity. From lions to lynxes we watched as they played and tousled each other's fur. They even had a few rare white lions, while not albino these lions lack a majority of the pigmentation in their fur, thus creating a glorious white coat, marred only by the dirt they are so fond of. One of these white lions was a 15 month old cub that shared her enclosure with two brown lion cubs, but due to her color, she was constantly harassed by the two other lions. Fortunately she was able to give more than she got and wasn't afraid to nip, growl and put on quite the display.

After the animal sanctuary we had time for a walk through the vineyard, and a little virtual family portrait!

We also got time to look at some of the artwork on the vineyard, including the 'Portrait of a Dying Slave' after Michangelo's sculpture of the same name.  It was quite interesting, made of nine rectangles, and put together from a mosaic. 

The photo below was quite interesting.  It depicts several golden statues of the Muses, the personification of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music, from the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (or memory personified).

After a late poolside lunch we ended our day with a Segway tour of the vineyard!