The last 5 days have been pretty awesome in terms of game viewing, I had a group of Indian guests which were very entertaining! They saw lions on their drive from the park gate to the lodge and then had elephants in camp outside their tents for the whole of their first night so the pressure was on to show them some good stuff. Luckily as ever Makuleke didn't disappoint. Their group was split between me and Dan (the other white guide, guy in his 20's also been through Eco Training and is my main buddy in the lodge). So we started having a bit of a competition between us who could find the best sightings! Dan found Leopard on his first drive and I got nothing more than impala and baboons! Day two worked out a little different with the morning drive producing a Giraffe sighting which might not sound too impressive but we haven't seen giraffe in this part of kruger for 2 years so it was an incredible sighting and fantastic news that we are getting giraffe back in the area. Dan - 1 Eve - 1. The icing on the cake came that evening when I drove along the Luvuvhu River and had an incredible sighting of a breeding herd of 50 elephant playing and swimming in the river, then proceeding to dust bath themselves in the evening sunlight, just magical. As we headed back I caught sight of white spots deep behind a bush, yes you guessed it female leopard! Bingo!! We spent about an hour with her as she patrolled the area before leading us to an impala kill she had made earlier that day! No words could describe how happy I was, she was a beautiful cat and very calm with us around watching her feed on her kill. We left her in peace and headed back for dinner at the lodge. Of course upon arrival we had the usual showdown between dans guests and mine and who had seen the best sightings, needless to say I had won gold, silver and bronze in this competition! Thanks must go to the African bush for the providing the goods!!
My latest guests were a swedish family, who it turned out were really here to go hunting (Kudu, Waterbuck and Nyala) Not the big 5 but still against everything I believe in and I found it incredibly hard to keep my mouth shut when the father was eyeing up the horns on one particular magnificent Kudu and asked me how many inches I thought his horns were!!!!!
Despite the conflict of interest we did get out first Lion sighting since my Guiding career started 2 weeks ago! The Pafuri Pride as they are known, a pride of 8 Lions in stunning condition, 2 adult females and 6 sub adults sauntering through the bush almost underneath the walk way of the lodge. Truly awesome to see such a huge pride, we followed them for about 20 minutes before they headed into the bush. Definitely a top 3 moment since starting the job and the guests were happy which is important despite their otherwise intentions.
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I have had 2 groups of OATs (an american travel agency organised group, which stands for overseas adventure travel, although we call them old american tourists which is exactly what they are!) average age is about 70 and my oldest guest was 78!! half way through their stay he informed me he had a heart attack 2 weeks ago!! just what you need when you get mock charged by elephants an old guy topping it!
Sightings have been a little thin on the ground recently and very frustrating as we are hearing and seeing signs of lion and leopard every day but not actually seeing the animals themselves. Now i have 3 groups of guests staying for 3 nights each back to back for 10 days so its pretty hectic but good to be busy and generally the people are nice. Tomorrow I am getting my first south african guests who are rumoured to be big on birding so thats a recipe for disaster seeing as they will be sharing the vehicle with first time american guests as well! watch this space for the worst combination and its going to last for 3 days!
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