Home again, for the nonce
This was one of our best trips ever. Hopefully I’ll get some photos posted sometime this weekend; by actual count (iPhoto’s, not mine) we took something like 2700 photos. But really, what else can you do when there’s a giant male lion swatting down the cubs trying to climb his tail, about 20′ away from you? Or an elephant refusing to get out of the road you’re trying to drive on? Though actually the rarest animals we saw were some of the smaller ones, the African wild cat, caracal and jackal.
This was one of our more expensive trips, but it was pretty obvious why. Someone met us at the airport and took us to a nearby hotel for the first night. In the morning a guide picked us up and then spent a day and a half driving us along the Panorama Route – beautiful country. We spent four nights at Simbambili Game Lodge in Sabi Sands Game Reserve, where we had our own plunge pool, our own butler, and for some of those days our own ranger and tracker – we were the only ones there for a couple of days. One night they served us dinner (amazing food) on our private back deck. Then a pilot came out to fly us off to our next stop, but there were some storms in the area so we had a transfer by road instead to Kruger Mpumalonga Airport, thence a flight to Johannesberg, then a smaller flight (Cessna Caravan) to Madikwe Game Reserve.
At Madikwe we stayed at Impodimo Game Lodge. It was interesting comparing the two. Simbambili focused on privacy; we were mostly seated by ourselves and we even had the game drives to ourselves several times, though that was mostly just because they happened not to be full then. We had our own pool and an outdoor day bed for napping in the afternoons between game drives. Impodimo was nearly as luxurious and we certainly had our privacy – we had an outdoor shower as well as the indoor one – but at meals we sat with the other guests, there were a number of families with children (spring break week in England and some of Europe) and the most comfortable seating was in the main lodge instead of in our private area.
Both places at similar schedules, with game drives very early in the morning and late in the afternoon early evening, so you spent the day making up on sleep. One more difference: at Simbambili we had vervet monkeys peering in our windows, while at Impodimo elephants came and drank out of the pool – and startled the daylights out of a Swedish family who were sunbathing there at the time! We had expert rangers driving us at both places, and got to see all of the ‘big 5′ (lions, leopards, elephants, rhino, buffalo) as well as giraffes, zebra, kudu, impala, nyala, bushbok, waterbok, jackal, caracal, wild cats, wild dogs, hyenas, hippos, hornbills, eagles, hawks, buzzards, bustards, vultures, owls, lizards, tortoise, mongoose, ibis, giant spiders, a puff adder, and a dung beetle (rolling a ball of dung, as advertised). I’m probably forgetting something. It’s amazing what you can do and see in a Land Rover!