SA-Botswana – day 3 and 4

The next morning we could sleep a bit longer since we didn’t do another game drive. We had breakfast and then I walked around the Kruger Gate Hotel a bit to take pics. I had intended to do that before but the day before there hadn’t been time. When I went to reception with my luggage I saw monkeys running over the roofs and impalas were jumping around as well. As the group was always very punctual we actually left earlier than planned and we went up north towards the Grietjie Reserve. We arrived there in the early afternoon and I found that I had a room with the zebra-bath. 🙂 I stayed with my mentor and his girl friend in a house a bit outside the actual camp and we were not supposed to walk over but drive. Not far but I have seen elephants walk by our house so that was the reason why.
Since we were early enough we went on another game drive with Mike, the owner of the Muweti Lodge. His wife Laura joined us later for dinner. During the game drive we had a sundowner and Mike had asked us what we wanted before we left. Somehow we all agreed on a gin and tonic. Bad mistake… 😀 Looks like it was mixed in a 1:1 relation. 😉 We had a lot of fun after the sundowner. 😉 We actually had the sundowner at a river where initially we saw only a small crododile until Mike realized that there were three. But we were higher up so they were not close to us. We had heard that South Africa had been hit by flood over the past weeks and in Grietjie Reserve it was obvious in some areas how high the water had come. For dinner we had some south african food and it was the first time that I ate impala. Mike explained to us that in regular intervals the government counts the animals in the reserves. Some animals like impalas get shot when there are too many of them (the number of animals in each reserve needs to be healthy – if there is an imbalance it disturbs nature). If there are too many elephants they get sold to another reserve though. That evening we learned that you need to drink something for each of the big 5 you have seen. Since we had seen elephants we got to know the wonderful Amarula liquor. It is really tasty (bit like Baileys).
The next morning we went on game drive again and had breakfast after the drive. Afternoon game drive again where we ended up in a situation that none of us liked. It was already dark and our wonderful guide had found a chamäleon along the road – in the dark and a distance of 10 meters. Then we saw two other cars standing on a road next to elephants. The guides in the cars were pointing their strong lamps into the elephant’s faces and it was very obvious that they didn’t like that. We couldn’t pass the cars as they were basically in the middle of the road. The elephants started to get agitated so the cars started to move. A normal person would have continued along the road, waiting to be way away from the elephants and turn around then. But what did these idiots do? Turned around in the middle of an elephant herd. They did not only endanger their own guests but us and another car behind us as as well because the elephants can not distinguish between good people and idiots. It was no fun for us to drive by the elephants. Was just a minute though since there weren’t that many of them. But it still was the wrong way to handle a game drive. Guides should know that. Simple common sense should tell you that. That evening after dinner we got another Amarula (elephant), Baileys (hippo) and passionfruit liquor (buffalo). When I went to the restroom after dinner I saw a weird animal close to the door and was proud of myself that I kicked it out of the bathroom successfully. Afterwards Mike told us that it had been a scorpion spider. I didn’t even know something like that existed… 🙂 And Laura told us that the have to lock the fridge at the bar when they are not there because otherwise the monkeys steal whatever it is inside. She told us that she had seen them already with her tupperware running away… 😀