– “Game drive time”,<\/em> a voice echoed.<\/p>\n – “What’s a game drive?”,<\/em> I asked myself, still somewhere in a limbo between dreams and reality.<\/p>\n Suddenly it hit me. I was at Thanda Safari. That place I’d been dreaming of for four months already and I was just about to hop on a car to spend the next few hours spotting wildlife.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Game drives at Thanda Safari<\/a> start really early in the morning, and while a wake-up knock on your door at 5 am might not necessarily be something to look forward to every day, at Thanda, it means you’re about to go on an adventure of a lifetime.<\/p>\n If you’ve been reading my blog for some time, you’ll know I’m all for wildlife. Like, I loved living my best life in Knysna<\/a> and checking out the wine farms in Stellenbosch<\/a>, but there’s nothing that gets my heart beating faster as seeing animals in the wild does. Case on point:<\/strong> Seeing gorillas in the Congo, chimpanzees in Zambia<\/a>, or orangutans ethically in Borneo<\/a>. With that said, a safari at Thanda Safari was what I had been looking forward to the most when planning my trip to South Africa with my friend Bel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And so, the day was finally had here! I hopped excitedly out of bed, put some warm clothes on, and headed to the lodge\u2019s common area to meet my guide and the four other people who would become my safari partners in crime.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Taking a safari at Thanda was BADASS! I’ve been on game drives before, but this was the first time in which I felt my heart would burst from excitement a million times. And then some more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “What are you guys most excited to see?”,<\/em> Peace, our guide and driver, asked.<\/p>\n “RHINOS!” – I squealed. “Oh, AND a lion? Can we see lions? What about a cheetah? I’ve never seen a cheetah before.”<\/em><\/p>\n “I’ll do my best”<\/em>, Peace answered, “but this is the wild, I cannot guarantee anything”<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And guys, Peace, being the awesome person that he is, made sure to not disappoint. Grab a cup of coffee or hell, pour yourself a glass of wine, because, over the next two thousand words or so, I’ll be writing about the highlights from my four game drives at Thanda!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I wasn’t expecting to see anything that exciting on my first game drive at Thanda. If you’ve done a safari before, you’ll know that they’re not carefully-curated highlight reels of National Geographic documentaries. You gotta search for those animals, and you’d be surprised how hard it can be to spot wildlife because… camouflage. Seriously, if you don’t know where to look, you could easily drive past ten adult rhinos and never know.<\/p>\n To my surprise, within five-fifteen minutes of starting our first game drive, Peace made a stop to allow our tracker to get inside the vehicle before driving off-road.<\/p>\n – “You guys will love this,” he whispered.<\/em><\/p>\n Right under a bush, we spotted two male adolescent lions. Peace kept creeping closer and closer, with no sign of intending to stop until we were just a few meters away from them.<\/p>\n [easy-image-collage id=9783]<\/p>\n – “Um, aren’t we too close?”, I enquired, worryingly.<\/em><\/p>\n – “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine! They can’t see us, they just see the car.”<\/em><\/p>\n Lions are cats, after all, and they didn’t seem to mind us being there at all. We stared in awe as they did… cat-like things? They’d jawn, lick their paws (and some other body parts…), and scratch themselves, all while remaining completely oblivious of our presence.<\/p>\n [easy-image-collage id=10396]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Next up, we continued our drive before getting intercepted by a tower<\/em> of giraffes crossing the road. Yep, a group of giraffes is called a tower (and yes, I definitely did just googled that). We’d seen a few giraffes already along our drive, but never so many at once, and never before a calf!<\/p>\n [easy-image-collage id=9786]<\/p>\n I thought our wildlife extravaganza would be over for the day. I mean, how could it ever get any better? Little did I know, though, that the best was yet to come. As we began driving back to Thanda Tented Camp, we spotted two male cheetahs chee-laxing<\/em> (worst pun ever. Sorry, guys) by the side of the road. Peace told us they were brothers and while cheetahs tend to be solitary creatures, these two always stuck together.<\/p>\n [easy-image-collage id=9790]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once again, there was never a dull moment during our game drives at Thanda. We made our way to the biggest water hole in the reserve, where we spotted four lions waiting for a victim to get thirsty and pop by for a quick drink.<\/p>\n [easy-image-collage id=9794]<\/p>\n I love all lions, but there’s something about lionesses that has always fascinated me. This might be a super unpopular opinion, but I liked The Lion King 2 more than the first movie and it was all due to Kiara and her tenaciousness.<\/p>\n After hanging out there for a while, no animal came to drink, so we decided to leave them be. It was a bit disappointing not to see them catch their morning prey, but a part of me was relieved as I don’t know if my heart could handle witnessing a scene like that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n With less than 2,500 left in the world, seeing a black rhino is truly a privilege, and even more so when one of them is a baby.<\/p>\n Black Rhinos, unlike White Rhinos, are hard to photograph because, as soon as they sense humans, they’ll flee. This was the case for our rhinos, but we got so lucky that they decided to run in front of our car before disappearing into the savannah. It was one of the most magical, fleeting moments of my life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [easy-image-collage id=9802]<\/p>\n Fun fact for your safari: Both White and Black Rhinos are grey, but it’s easy to differentiate them when you see them in the wild: Black Rhinos have pointy lips and you’ll usually seem them eating leaves and twigs from branches, whereas White rhinos have flat lips for grazing.<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I look back at all my game drives at Thanda, I’d say the third one was the least action-packed but my favorite one of them all.<\/p>\n Guys, you’d think spotting elephants is easy, but I had the feeling they weren’t too keen on being found because we had seen no signs of them so far. Like, zero. Nada.<\/em><\/p>\n When we hopped on the car, ready for our last game drive, Peace told us he’d try to find elephants for us.<\/p>\n The following two hours were spent driving around slowly, not seeing anything too exciting. We’d drive past zebras and common antelope, but at this point, they’d gotten unexciting as we’d seen dozens of them already.<\/p>\n I’d hear our tracker and Peace talking in Zulu, but couldn’t quite get what their whispers were about.<\/p>\n Suddenly, we spotted tracks on the ground.<\/p>\n “They’re fresh”, Peace said, “We just missed them.”<\/em><\/p>\n *sigh*<\/p>\n – “Don’t worry, we’ll catch up to them, but these guys are fast”<\/em>, Peace reassured me.<\/p>\n Suddenly, he started driving faster than ever before. I was feeling kind of disappointed by now, we’d been driving for two hours without seeing anything and I wondered if catching up with the elephants was even worth it at this point.<\/p>\n As we drove past the hills, Peace stopped abruptly. “There they are, on the hill! Can you see them?”<\/em><\/p>\n I squinted, seeing nothing but trees. Surely I’d be able to differentiate a herd of elephants from bushes?<\/p>\n – “They’ll come down, we’ll drive towards where they’re headed and intercept them”.<\/em><\/p>\n He drove for a few minutes before parking the car. From there, we waited in silence.<\/p>\n – “There!”<\/em>, Peace said. “Can you see them now?”<\/em><\/p>\n – “Oh yes, I totally see them, right there, next to that crooked tree!”,<\/em> I said proudly<\/p>\n Peace laughed, “no, that’s a rock”.<\/em><\/p>\n – Oh.<\/em><\/p>\n – “Don’t worry, they’re walking down the hill now, they’ll walk past us really soon.”.<\/em><\/p>\n A few seconds later, I heard the crushing of branches and soon enough, dozens of elephants were walking towards us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [easy-image-collage id=10375]<\/p>\n Elephants have a matriarchal society, meaning its always a female leading and taking care of the herd (BADASS!). As they got closer and closer, the matriarch of the group started to amble towards us.<\/p>\n Guys, elephants may be called gentle giants, but I’ve had two scary encounters with them before, so I have immense respect for them. When a gigantic elephant starts approaching your car, it’s not to be taken lightly.<\/p>\n She got closer and closer, and I was terrified. She then stood in front of our car and I was convinced this was the end for me.<\/p>\n And then, she gently tapped our car with her trunk before taking two steps back. We remained still, as she gently knocked our car again.<\/p>\n Peace reversed the car a few meters, and then she walked away.<\/p>\n Guys, she was asking us to move so the heard could pass safely.<\/strong><\/p>\n I was in disbelief. How could an animal her size be so gentle? I felt a knot in my throat as the herd kept moving past us, while I tried really hard not to burst out in tears. It was one of the most magical moments of my life and I hate that I can’t properly put into words how touching it was. How can elephants be so gentle towards a species that has done nothing but kill them for their ivory? How can they be so forgiving towards us?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nohurrytogethome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Thanda-safari.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nohurrytogethome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Tented-camp-aerial.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe moments that took my breath away<\/h2>\n
Getting WAY too close to adolescent lions<\/h3>\n
Meeting the coolest TOWER of giraffes<\/h3>\n
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Seeing cheetahs for the first time<\/h3>\n
Seeing a group of lions waiting for their pray<\/h3>\n
Photographing a mama black rhino and her calf<\/h3>\n
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Having the most magical encounter with elephants<\/h3>\n