Thursday, October 3, 2013

Day 11 (part 1) - Entabeni Game Reserve

Ok, we are now going on day 3 of me waking up at 5:30am. This is getting old. I'm exhausted and on this morning's ride, you could really tell how out of it I was. For example, I pointed out an animal at 4 o'clock, but really it was at 8 o'clock. Couldn't tell time. My confusion (exhaustion) continued throughout the day. 

So this morning was our last game drive at Entabeni. The reserve is split into the lower escarpment (16,000 hectares) and the upper escarpment (6,000 hectares). Our lodge was in the lower escarpment and that's where all of our game drives had been up until today. This morning we drove up the mountain on the most insanely steep road I've ever been on. I'm surprised we didn't topple over from the angle. I believe our guide said its the steepest road in South Africa, maybe even Africa? I'm so glad we had seat belts in the jeep! We searched for leopards, but all we saw were klipspringer antelope on the way up. Apparently, leopards are very elusive. Oh well. 

On our way to the crazy road up the mountain, we ran into 3 giraffes just chilling out along the road. 



On top of the escarpment, we saw ostrich, warthogs, eland (another type of antelope) and another large animal that was off in the distance that we couldn't get to due to time constraints.  I would have loved to see a hippo, but hopefully we'll have better luck in Botswana. 



After our ride, we packed up and were driven by jeep to our bus at the entrance to the reserve. On our way, we saw more giraffes, wildebeest, etc. The very last animals we spotted on our way out were the two cheetah males. For a pretty rare animal to see, we managed to see them on 3 out of 4 game drives! Not bad.  We then drove 4+ hours back to joburg. 



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