Sabi Sabi Earth Lodge

11 August 07 (according to my journal)

When we arrived at Sabi Sabi Earth Lodge, we were surprised because we couldn't actually see it. According to the website: "Earth Lodge is a sanctuary symbolising a new era in luxury South African safari lodges. Sculpted into a slope of the earth, almost invisible in the landscape, the lodge uses texture, light and space to present a lodge like no other. Taking its cue from the surrounding environment, it has been described as the most environmentally sensitive lodge in Africa." And how. It's a very special place. My pictures don't do it justice.

Late lunch at Earth Lodge

This lodge is also run by a couple - the gorgeous Stephan and his equally stunning (and very pregnant) wife, Nadia. Our suite (again, a private structure- we started referring to them as chalets) was gorgeous and comfortable. It was set off a ways from the main lodge, so they drove us there in a golf cart. Since the suites are built into the ground, I was worried that it would be like a cave - I was wrong. Floor to ceiling glass windows make up one whole side of the suite, the side that overlooks the bushveld. A verandah with a plunge pool, Jetsons-meets-Flintstones bathroom with a deep stone tub and absurdly powerful shower, a decanter of port. Anne and I keep looking at each other saying, "Who do we think we are?"

Then we steal the soap.

The view from within our chalet

Anne outside #6

After lunch, we met our Ranger, Chris. He and our new tracker, Zeblon, would be taking care of us over the next two three days. Although our loyalties to Dean and Mampsie remained strong, we had to admit that Chris and Zeb made a great team. It was at Sabi Sabi that we saw our first lions (rounding out the Big 5).

Female lions scoping out the territory

The crazy things nature does. Two trees that have grown together.

On our first morning at Sabi Sabi, our wakeup knock was at 5:30 am. This is my least favorite part of the trip. The time between the first shrills of the Blackberry alarm clock at around 5:20 to the overly chipper "Hello!! Good morning!!" of the wakeup knock to the time when I am feeling alert enough to brush my teeth (about 5:40) are just painful. It's dark and cold. I'm cranky and crusty and I consider telling Chris and Zeb to go scratch. But then I remember: we're going on a drive! So I put on my seven layers of clothing to guard against the winter chill, check to make sure I have fresh batteries for the camera, and it's all good again.

Chris and Zeb find leopard tracks. But they are a day old.

Female kudu

Male waterbuck

White rhino. Unusual because these are both males.

Blue wildebeest and impala. Frozen in terror, I expect.

Do these stripes make my butt look big?

The circle of life

Anne is struck with the urge to paint at Earth Lodge

Chris and Zeb, our heroes!

Sundowner drinks. That's my lucky leopard scarf!

Modern Girl's Guide to Travel (Part 2)

Leaving Simbambili

We were so sad to leave our first game lodge, but excited to see what would come next. When telling fellow travellers that we were heading to Sabi Sabi Earth Lodge, many told us how they'd heard it was fabulous. One guy offered to accompany us and carry our bags (we almost took him up on that).

When we first booked the trip, we didn't understand a lot of the notes in the intinerary. It might say "private transfer." We'd come to find that sometimes that meant a car, sometimes a plane, sometimes a car to a plane to another plane to another plane to a car.

Luckily, the lodge manager would usually sort it out for us while we were out stalking rhinos or sipping on pinotage.

After raiding the lodge curio for long-sleeved t-shirts, woolly caps, and (unsuccessfully) clean socks, we hopped into the waiting SUV to begin the three-hour drive to Sabi Sabi. It's still in the same overall game reserve (known as Sabi Sands) but further south. Sabi Sands borders the Kruger National Park and contains many safari lodges like the ones we stayed in.

Map of Sabi Sands Game Reserve

The World Outside

During the drive, we passed through the small towns of South Africa and for the first time got a glimpse of life outside the carefully planned world of the modern safari traveller.

We'd drive for miles and miles and not see a soul or structure. Then, in clusters, came the towns and the people. We passed modest homes, schools, and local businesses. Some were large and modern, some no more than tin shacks. Some businesses had professionally commissioned signs ("Stop/Shop!") others had hand-lettered placards that got right to the point ("Fruit"). Vendors sat on the side of the road in plastic chairs selling everything from apples to haircuts with optimism (Look Good! Salon!). One sign simply read: SURGERY, hand-written, lopsided, in red paint.

We stopped once for a bathroom break. The driver of course chose a place with a well-stocked curio. This was to become something of a given during our trip - one thing about Anne and me: we always make time for retail.

In the Dark

About halfway through the evening game drives we always find a nice spot to pull over for “sundowners.” Cocktails, conversation -- it’s all quite civilized.

After a few days, I started to look forward to this point in the drive. Not because of the wine (though lovely), biltong (which I first ate only to freak Anne out, then I decided I kind of liked it), or the stunning sunsets (how have I lived without seeing sunsets every day? Do we even have sunsets in New York?).

It was because it meant that soon it would be dark. And in the dark, amazing things happen.

A few words about this particular brand of dark: it’s really, well, dark. Think – no lights around for miles except the headlights of the Rover and a small handheld spot that the tracker shines into trees to try and spot creatures of the night. The rule in the bush is that they only use the light to spot nocturnal animals, which include all of the big cats, hyenas, and some birds. What they won’t do is shine the light on animals that are diurnal (that is, they are most active by day). This includes all of the antelope species, giraffe, and elephant.

One night, we were rumbling along at a slow pace when our ranger cut the lights, turned off the engine, and motioned for all of us to stay quiet. We had come upon a trio of ellies traveling near the road. We happened to stop the car directly beside them. They froze; I held my breath.

There was a large female with two smaller ones. The littlest one was facing the Rover with his ears perked up and trunk extended toward us. If our tracker had leaned over, he could have given the little guy a pat on the head. We’d already been told that elephants, although thoroughly habituated to humans in vehicles, can get spooked in the dark by sudden noises or lights. A panicked ellie is generally considered a Very Bad Thing. If those elephants had charged us they could have trampled the Rover “as easily as we kick a can of Coke,” according to our ranger. We were all so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.

The mama started snuffling and snorting, signs that with even my limited ranger skills (read: none) I took to mean that she wasn’t too thrilled with the smelly rumbly animal with round feet and ten heads getting so close to her babies. She herded them away from the vehicle and we moved on.

Over the course of our safari adventure, we'd have more close encounters like this. These were the times that our experience somehow seemed more real. There were no photo ops, no conversations, just Us and Them. In the Dark.

Animal Encounters

I've Lost Track of the Days

I can tell I'm finally in full vacation mode. I have no idea what day it is. Luckily, Anne is in charge of the itinerary and reminds me that we're (tearfully) leaving Simbambili to get to our next safari game lodge.

But first: We had enough time to go on the morning game drive with Dean and Mamps where we saw more elephants and visited the hyena cubs we'd discovered the day before. Oddly cute.


On the topic of hyenas, we had a brief encounter with one the other night. We were just finishing up dinner in the lodge, which is a gorgeous, open-air space, when several people gasped in surprise. I turned my head just in time to see the spotted furry rump of a full-grown male hyena leaving the room. I guess he thought he'd pop in to see if there were any leftovers, but decided not to bother when he saw all of us dirty humans in the place.

The game lodges are not fenced in so the animals have free reign of the place. We're warned that we could have face-time with any number of wild beasts, so there you go. Hyena fun fact: their jaws have more crushing power than the jaws of life. So, they can eat almost anything and they especially like to chomp on bones. Hence, their dung is white.

One particularly cool thing we did on our morning game drive was to track two rhinos on foot. We had seen them grazing and after the requisite photo-ops, Dean and Mampsie suggested that we try to "walk the rhino." I was psyched (and I think a little too dumb to be scared).

There were eight of us, plus our tracker and ranger. Dean drove the Rover about 1/4 mile away and gave us our instructions: walk single file behind Mamps, no talking, no photos, do what Mamps does. Sir, yes Sir.


Mamps walked us back to the site. Apparently rhinos are pretty easy to track because they have very poor eyesight. Of course, they weigh about 3000 pounds, so you don't want to startle them. When we got within about 30 yards Mamps bent over forward. We bent over forward and stayed close. Then he crouched. We crouched and moved on. Then, almost crawling, Mamps scaled a termite mound. We crawled and scaled behind him until we were about 10 yards from the rhinos. I was holding my breath, my heart was racing, I think from a combination of the crouching, crawling, and scaling along with the fact that we were STALKING RHINOS. The rhinos, however, were onto us; they skittered away with all the grace that two two-ton tessies can muster. I guess we won't make such great trackers after all.

Leopards!

We were really lucky at Simbambili to see leopards more than once during our stay. Our first siting was a female who had treed an impala. When we first saw her, the poor deceased impala was in the tree and the leopard was lounging in the grass. Just chillin'.

We visited her again after dark and she was in the tree, chowing down. In the moment it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Later when I looked at the pictures it just seemed gross.

This is another leopard. A male we followed for quite a ways.

More Photos

We Got Game

8 August

We landed at this tiny airstrip seemingly in the middle of nowhere and were met by 2 guys in a Land Rover who drove us to our first private game reserve, Simbambili. The driver, Lucky, was adorable and kept up a nervous and incomprehensible monologue - we think he was pointing out the sites, but can't be sure.

On the way we saw our first glimpses of "big game" in the wild - a herd of impala. Lucky told us that we'd definitely see the "big 5" (lion, leopard, water buffalo, rhino, and elephant) as well as others like giraffe and zebra.

We weren't exactly sure what to expect when we finally arrived at the lodge, but I can tell you we were not disappointed. Our ranger, Dean, and his gal Jill met us with cold vanilla-infused towels and homemade iced tea. They gave us the quick rundown of the place, including our schedule for the rest of the day, which thankfully started with free time (aka nap time).

The cabins at Simbambili

Lucky and his million-dollar smile

Our cabin is amazing, beautifully decorated with a private verandah overlooking a busy watering hole. There was a huge outdoor lounge bed and a plunge pool (too bad it was too cold to swim!).

The verandah

The schedule for the day includes a sunrise game drive (wake up time 5:00 am!) and an evening game drive that begins at 4:00pm. We found ourselves with a group of 8, including us, which is exactly half of the guests at the lodge. Dean and our tracker, Mamps, took us out in a tricked out Land Rover (open-air with ultra-reinforced undercarriage, a gun rack and a cocktail table) for a 3.5 hour trip around the bush.

Ranger Dean

Mamps the Tracker

Mamps sits on a special chair that is mounted to the hood of the Rover and keenly looks for animals, their tracks or dung, points out passable trails and obstacles and generally tells Dean where to go. Dean drives the Rover and keeps up a running commentary on the animals, including birds and bugs, as well as the surrounding plants and trees. We soon learn that Mamps doesn't say much, but he's like a Zen monk often giving just a small hand gesture to let Dean know that he's spotted something interesting.

Dean and Mamps mostly communicate with each other, and the other ranger/tracker teams over the radio, in Shangaan, also known as Tsonga, one of South Africa's 11 official languages. It makes the drive more mysterious, becuase you never really know what they are following we finally see it, or they decide that they want to tell us.

On this first drive, our first major siting was a herd of older male water buffalo (a bachelor herd) that have not managed to gain control over a breeding herd, and are now essentially on their own. They were hanging around the watering hole directly outside our lodge.

Water buffalo. They remind me of old time judges.

See?

We were driving crazily up and down rocky hills, running over small trees and lord knows how many small animals - when we were suddenly almost in the middle of about 12 elephants. It was incredible- there were 2 really huge females and 2-3 really adorable little ones.

I just can't get over these animals. I've been to zoos before, but this is unreal. How do they exist? My mind is officially blown.

Trio of Ellies

One of my favorite pictures so far.

At the watering hole with the Buffalo

Anne on the Rover

We were wlecomed back each night with hot towels and a glass of port.
Rough life.