Sleeping in an elephant lodge, super cool experience – but, can’t travel to Africa & not see LIONS, right?  Week before flying out, pre-purchased a safari drive in a nearby game reserve.  Just me/solo travel, easy enough to tag along with a larger group.

Seeing Africa’s Big 5 today: Rhino, giraffe, lion, hippopotamus, cheetah.  Ok, maybe these were my Africa Big 5.  More interested in giraffes than Cape buffalo 😊

Breakfast early, elephant lodge checkout, 40 minute dirt-road drive to Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve.  Good to be off the N-2.  Traded shoulder-driving humans for an active cattle train with zero intention of leaving the roadway.  Inched my way through the half-mile caravan, entered the game reserve grounds, ‘nother dirt mile to Reception.

Very different experience from my past 2 days [Elephant Park] conservationist talks.  Like going back in time early 1900’s.  Animal heads posted to walls, zebra skins tanned & available for purchase.  Bully bully.  That said, animals actually killed on the reserve were limited to culling growing herds – and didn’t include any of the Big 5.  Herd animals (wildebeest/zebra/deer) mostly male, majority later fed to the predatory eaters.  Safari hunts today are limited to South Africa’s northern neighbors: Namibia, Botswana & Zimbabwe.  South Africa is a mining country, industrialized & heavily populated, no large swaths of tribal wilderness.

Today’s drive: FAR exceeded expectation.  Didn’t come with preconceived ideas, so didn’t realize these exotic animals would be roaming free.  Predatory breeds were fenced apart/separate & away from herbivores.  Found it interesting which animals the guide gave distance [game reserve/notta drive-thru zoo].  Hippos.  Unpredictable, most dangerous animal in Africa (most human deaths).  Lion.  Male dropped his head in the grass, guide backed our jeep & did a full loop through shrubs/hill area.  Approached the lion from a direction he did not feel threatened.  Elephants.  Spook easily, BIG, run fast.  Least threatening predator?  Cheetah.  Limited short bursts of speed.  Otherwise, they’re lazy sun worshippers [took no chances/kept a healthy distance in the Jeep].

No Kruger, no Cape Town on my South Africa itinerary.  Hard to do it all AND marathon.  Another time.  Still managed to see all of  Africa’s Big 5 plus finish out my holiday living B-I-G in a posh B&B overlooking the ocean.  Happy life ❤