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.
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