MalaMala 9/20-9/21

We landed at the Mala Mala airstrip, and were met by a very personable young man who said his name was Lucky. He drove us to Mala Mala Main Camp, a trip of about five minutes. We checked in and then checked out our new surroundings. Mala Mala is quite beautiful and elegant.

http://www.malamala.com/malacamp.htm

And very structured. We put our belongings in our rooms and then returned to the designated spot, where we had been told we would meet our Ranger. But instead of a vehicle ready for the five of us, we saw Gary and Michael being driven away in a Land Rover with two other passengers. We were assigned to a different Land Rover, already containing two passengers. We were, of course, disappointed, and tried as politely as possible to ask why we were being separated from the the friends with whom we had arrived. We were told that they would see what could be done, but for this evening, would we ride in this vehicle, so we did. In a few moments, we caught up to the other vehicle. Gary looked back, stood up, and yelled, “They've split us up!” I called back, “We're working on it!” And then we went for a rather odd drive. First, we all sat in our Land Rovers, surrounding a group of seven rhino calmly grazing in a field. There must have been five or six vehicles there. The rhinos looked like a wagon train surrounded by a tribe of very determined American Indians, all seated in vehicles. After that, all the vehicles followed each other to the Styx Pride, a group of 7 or 8 lions, which they then herded to another area using their Land Rovers to move the lions along. We got the impression that the lions were getting too close to the border and might leave the reserve. It would have been nice to see the lions (we did, the next day, under far better circumstances) but it was rather unpleasant to see them being interfered with this way. I didn't take any pictures, because it would have been difficult to get a shot of any of the animals without three or four game drive vehicles also in the shot.   Not much else happened, except that our vehicle got a broken tie rod, apparently while driving through rough territory while herding the lions. Lucky eventually showed up with a new vehicle for us. When we got back from the “drive,” we went to dinner at the boma. Gary and Michael had saved us seats, so we were all able to have dinner together. Doug had a brief talk with Nils to see if there was something he could do to make it possible for us to share the drives with the friends with whom we had arrived. Nils said they would try to work things out,. When we got back to our room, there was a hippo with a small baby grazing just outside our rooms, maybe 50 or 60 yards away. Doug got some great pictures of them.

9/21/09

On Monday morning we were told that the five of us would be together after all, and that Lucky would be our Ranger. We were all delighted by this, as Lucky turned out to be an excellent Ranger with a great sense of humor and the ability to find interesting sightings everywhere. We explained to him, as we had explained at Mashatu, that we were not trying to check animals off on a list, and that while we would be very happy to see a lion or leopard or elephant, we would be equally happy to see an eagle or a giraffe or a herd of impala. What we mostly wanted to see was wildlife in its own environment, behaving as much as possible as it would if we weren't there, and we would like to take pictures of that. 

Morning Drive:

The first morning, we saw a young female leopard in a tree with an impala kill. Nearby, her mother was sleeping. Eventually the daughter climbed down and went to sleep near her mother.

Later, we found three more leopards under a tree, with a lot of hyenas wandering about. Near them, a mother leopard and her male cub were being tracked by a hyena.

There were also lots of eagles, hornbills, lilac-breasted rollers, an occasional steenbok or duiker, and an amazing number of giraffes. There seemed to be giraffes everywhere!

We also saw wildebeest and zebras.

Later, we saw the Styx pride females and cubs again, but this time Lucky found them dining on a zebra they had apparently caught the previous night. We spent some time watching them without other vehicles around at all.

We saw some zebra with a small baby,

We saw some rare ground hornbills that are about three times the size of the hornbills we had been seeing everywhere at both Mashatu and MalaMala.

......and we also saw nyala.

There were never any other vehicles surrounding the animals we were sighting, and we enjoyed the drive much more than than our first drive the previous evening.

When we returned, Susan and Doug decided to take a walking tour with Lucky and several other people. I decided to take my netbook up to the terrace where we had had breakfast, as Doug had discovered that wireless was available in that area. I played on the internet (and at the Pond, of course!) and watched the nyala and bushbucks and impalas grazing on the lawn below.

Nyala:

Bushbuck:

View from the terrace:

Several small herds of elephants went by, down by the river area, and it was a pleasant place to spend a few hours.

Looking from the terrace toward our room, I saw Susan sitting on our terrace, taking pictures of the same elephants:

And just to the left, saw a bushbuck....and Doug also taking pictures of the elephants:

This was the area where the offices, gift shop, reception area and gathering place for outgoing drives all were.  I really liked these warthog statues, but couldn't fit them into my duffle bag:

Evening Drive:

After lunch, we gathered again for afternoon/evening drive. We saw lots of giraffes, impala, a duiker, many different types of eagles.

At one point, we were crossing a high bridge and saw, when we looked to our right, a Land Rover driving toward a herd of elephants, and getting very close....something Elvis, our Ranger at Mashatu, had said was a very wrong thing to do. Lucky had mentioned that the elephants in this area were less friendly, possibly because they have had bad experiences with poachers or game ranches that lure wildlife onto the property so they can be killed by hunters....not at Mala Mala, of course, where they are safe, but in other places within the range of the herds. He looked very worried, and as we watched, one of the larger females charged the Land Rover. Fortunately, the driver was able to retreat and get the vehicle and his guests out of danger, but it was quite frightening. We were very glad we were with Lucky.

Lucky wanted us to see a male lion , and one had been spotted in the area, so we went looking, but the lion had apparently moved off. We weren't troubled in the least by that. On the way back, Lucky found quite a few waterbucks in some trees way back from the road, and we watched them for a while. He then spotted a field with several white-tailed mongoose, although it had gotten quite dark by then. We sat and watched them scurry around looking for food. As we drove back toward Main Camp, Lucky spotted a beautiful African chameleon in a tree about forty or fifty feet from the road. He drove up to the tree, and gently picked the chameleon up so we could get a good look at it. Susan, Doug and Gary all held it. I respectfully admired it from a distance. Michael took pictures. Another vehicle, which we suspected had been following us, called Lucky to see what we were all looking at, and asked if we had found a lion. The Ranger didn't believe Lucky when he said we were looking at a chameleon. This confirmed the opinion we all had that Lucky's main job at Mala Mala was probably to find all the wildlife and tell the other Rangers where to go to see it. Fortunately, we got to see everything first!

I didn't take many pictures, as my little camera doesn't like it when I try to take pictures in the dark.  But you will find lots of pictures in Doug's galleries.  I did get an African sunset, though:

We all had dinner on the terrace, where we had had lunch, and there was much talk and laughter at our table. Everyone else was probably relieved that Mala Mala had found a way to keep the five of us away from them. lolol!

We promised to call Michael and Gary if the mom hippo and her baby showed up in the yard behind our rooms, as they had the night before, but they didn't.  So we all got a good night's sleep.

21 Sept 09

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