Tuesday August 11, 2015- Ivory Lodge at Lion Sands-Sabi Sands

It was a really busy day yesterday with a morning game walk and our transfer to Ivory Sands. Felice and I walked with John and Craig at 7AM for an hour around the reserve (the kids slept in---great call for them). 

While we did not see a lot of animal life we learned a lot about the plants, animal track tracks and poop. We learned that old termite nests are now homes for warthogs. We saw a giant land snail. When we returned to the lodge we saw a hippo in the pond and Kudu's (the world's second largest antelope) drinking.

We took a 2 hour drive to our next stop the Ivory Sands Lodge in the Sabi Sands Game reserve. This place is extra-special.

On the drive in we saw some rural villages. They have power but no running water. As we entered the park, I did not see much, if any, game, I got a bit worried about the quality of the wildlife. We ate a great lunch over looking the Sabi river. Sabi means fear and the Sabi river is fearsome with Crocs, Hippos etc.

At lunch we saw a pod of hippos and a baby. Ok, thinks are looking up.

We met our guide, Dumay De Longchamps Boulle and his tracker Terrance. Dumay is from South Africa. On our afternoon game drive we were blown away by the following:

Nyala


Then we saw a wild Cheetah

Diyanu--that would have been enough but we got word about this mother lion and her two cubs munching on an Impala--YUMMY!  There are 136 of these in 10,000 acres--the second highest density in the world--but still hard to find.

The 5 month old cubs really chowed down. One got so full, he had a hard time standing up.

We stopped for refreshments then back to the villa to freshen up and then an amazing dinner outside.

Good night!

FYI--we also saw Crested Barbet-Yellow Franklin--Elephant--Bateleur Eagle