Our evening safari drive proved to be even better than the morning drive, and was the best drive of our stay at the lodge. It started out slow but our tracker Debeers spotted something in the brush back in the distance so we went to check it out. 
Turned out to be 3 male elephants. It is crazy how good the rangers are at knowing everything that is going on in the wild. Our ranger Ryan and Debeers were talking about how they looked to be on their way somewhere and that others must be close. Sure enough after driving towards the path they were headed we ran into a huge playful mud bath of around 30 elephants of all sizes. 
It was one of the coolest things to experience... Kyle's favorite part of our safari stay. The female elephants are very protective of their young and Ryan had warned us of this after he has been charged at by a few females in the past. Sure enough one in particular Did NOT like us watching them from so close an
d she flared her ears and came towards us. Before she could get up too close Ryan just started backing up our vehicle- the rest of the time we tried following them that same one would turn around towards us to let us know she did not like us there so eventually we let them proceed. I have so many amazing pictures from these experiences and I am so sad that my iPad does not cooperate posting them- damn Macs! Guess they can wait until later.
Mafufunyane:
When we were on our way back to the lodge we spotted Karula, a female leopard with her daughter cub, Xivindzi. We followed right next to them for a long time. Again, it is crazy the behavior patterns the rangers know- Karula at one point stopped and let out a strange noise. Ryan explained that it was
a call noise and that her son cub was probably supposed to meet up with them. After about 10 min of following them Karula stopped again and Ryan said to wait for the son... And sure enough out walks Xivambalana, her son from the brush. Cool stuff- seeing their meeting was so cool... The mother made sure it was him first them they started rubbing up on one another and Karula was licking her son as if to clean him up. It was one of the cutest things ever!!!! It was too bad it was so dark out because it made it very difficult to take pictures... Especially because they were moving and so were we. Kyle got good video of it though. After we followed them a while we headed back for dinner time!
Turned out to be 3 male elephants. It is crazy how good the rangers are at knowing everything that is going on in the wild. Our ranger Ryan and Debeers were talking about how they looked to be on their way somewhere and that others must be close. Sure enough after driving towards the path they were headed we ran into a huge playful mud bath of around 30 elephants of all sizes. 
It was one of the coolest things to experience... Kyle's favorite part of our safari stay. The female elephants are very protective of their young and Ryan had warned us of this after he has been charged at by a few females in the past. Sure enough one in particular Did NOT like us watching them from so close an
d she flared her ears and came towards us. Before she could get up too close Ryan just started backing up our vehicle- the rest of the time we tried following them that same one would turn around towards us to let us know she did not like us there so eventually we let them proceed. I have so many amazing pictures from these experiences and I am so sad that my iPad does not cooperate posting them- damn Macs! Guess they can wait until later.Anyways, so after the elephants we saw a beautiful giraffe, water buffalos, and Mafufunyane, an older male leopard who has been around Arathusa for a while- he gave me the best photos of our safari. Beautiful animals! So all of those we saw before sundown.
Giraffe:
Water Buffalo:
Mafufunyane:
When we were on our way back to the lodge we spotted Karula, a female leopard with her daughter cub, Xivindzi. We followed right next to them for a long time. Again, it is crazy the behavior patterns the rangers know- Karula at one point stopped and let out a strange noise. Ryan explained that it was
a call noise and that her son cub was probably supposed to meet up with them. After about 10 min of following them Karula stopped again and Ryan said to wait for the son... And sure enough out walks Xivambalana, her son from the brush. Cool stuff- seeing their meeting was so cool... The mother made sure it was him first them they started rubbing up on one another and Karula was licking her son as if to clean him up. It was one of the cutest things ever!!!! It was too bad it was so dark out because it made it very difficult to take pictures... Especially because they were moving and so were we. Kyle got good video of it though. After we followed them a while we headed back for dinner time!
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