First day in Shiduli

After four hours of sleep, I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I was ready by the time Morris called to wake me up, so I headed down to the dining area for tea (rooibos, of course) and rusks. The morning drive was bookended by hippos with lions in the middle. We saw a baby hippo running before the sun came up, and we ended our drive at a dam where we watched five hippos playing in the water. In the middle, we watched a family of lions (mom, dad, and three cubs). Dad laid around the whole time, only one time sitting up to yawn and then fall back over for the rest of the time. It was great to watch.

The tourist group from France left right after breakfast, so I had the entire resort to myself until this afternoon when a half dozen new people arrived. Even though I was tired, I decided not to sleep and instead I sat under a huge umbrella at the pool, listening to the waterfall while I read a book that I’ve been trying read for months.

Our afternoon game drive was fantastic! Morris looks at animal droppings and tracks to help us find the animals. We saw wildebeest, warthog, and a herd of zebra right away, than saw impala and kudu before seeing jackals scare some baby giraffes. The adult giraffes weren’t concerned with the jackals, but their little ones ran scared.

We also saw a lot of different birds (including red-billed and yellow-bird hornbills, martial eagle, and a magpie shrike). I learned from Morris that hornbill dads put the mom and babies in a hole, seal it with dung, and then go out to get them food. It sounds good, except that if anything happens to dad while he’s out looking for food for the family, the whole family dies because mom can’t get out of the hole.

For me, the best part today was the elephants, because we saw the same herd as yesterday and today they flirted and played with us. Morris would back up, they would follow. He was very careful to ensure we never ended up in the middle of the herd with no way out (especially since one of the males is known to attack Land Rovers), but the elephants came within feet of us. It was really a pleasure to be there with them, even though we had to leave when one of the teenage elephants trumpeted at us because he was getting annoyed. After another beautiful sunset, we saw a family of rhinos (mom, dad, and a 4-month old baby girl). I hope to see them again tomorrow in the light, because that baby was adorable!

I was looking at the stars (they are just amazing here, and I’m still awestruck by the Milky Way) again tonight and Marcus showed me Leo and the Southern Cross, among others. The heavens truly do declare the glory of God! For now, I am off to bed early because I didn’t get to nap today. I have some daddy long legs and lizards living in the room with me, but I don’t mind because that means I probably won’t see any spiders. Life is good, I am blessed. Oh, and even though they’re manky (that’s the South African term for raggedy) now, I still adore my braids and the way I can just tie them up for the game drives.