December 1, 12:30PM

Home yesterday after a very long trip.  I figured I got about 2 hours sleep over 40 hours.  Then slept about 13 hours yesterday.  Still pretty rummy today.

The reality of regular life of course sinks in.  It was 23 F when we landed in Redmond.  And we were lucky to get home at all yesterday.  We were delayed leaving J’burg and barely made the connection in Atlanta.  Like literally, running through passport control, luggage pick up, customs, luggage drop off, TSA screening, train from T Terminal to A Terminal and to gate A11.  Like pleading with the gate agent, who phoned the flight attendant to see if the door to plane was closed and then ran us down the gateway to have them close the doors right after us.  But, after all the drama, we got home where it’s cold and rainy.

Took the day off to try and rest and buy groceries, go to the bank and wash clothes and somehow integrate back into this world.  I remember the first time I came back from Africa, I cried on the plane.  I didn’t change my watch back to local time for several days and I would think as each day progressed about what I’d be doing if I was still there.  It’s gotten easier.  I am now thinking about meetings I have tomorrow and the routine of picking up Aislin at school and talking to my doctor about some test results and all the other details that fill up our lives to a level of crazy busyness. 

The Kgalagadi (or Kalahari) was awesome.  Strikingly beautiful.  Well managed.  Not crowded.  And way far out in the bush.  We had no internet.  No cellphone service all of the time we were in Nossob, which is really pretty unusual for this day and time.  Hell, the power was shut off each night from about 10PM until 4:30AM.  Beautiful skies.  Lions roaring at night.

But it was also a lot of work to shoot.  Animals were not as densely distributed as you’d find at Kruger, and the strategy was accordingly different.  Instead of driving around, hoping to bump into animals, we’d spend a lot of time staking out waterholes, waiting for the animals to come in.  Most of those animals are primarily active at night, so it was always a race to get a sighting before the light was completely gone and before we had to head back to beat the gate closing. There were days when we saw almost nothing.  And if you got one or two good images in a day, it was a good day.  We discussed and I think all agreed that it’s not the place where we’d take someone for their first time safari. 

But Albie’s friend Jerry was spending 5 weeks there, tent camping, and I could completely go for that.  It would take a lot of work, but I think the possibility of really great images is there and over five weeks I’m certain Jerry will get some good stuff.

Albie Venter worked very hard to make this a great safari, and I want to be sure to take a minute to recognize that, and to thank him for his hard work.  I could really see his knowledge working for us.  There were many occasions where he’d talk through the possibilities related to an animal’s behavior (are the cheetah moving toward a water hole 2 km south of here?).  I’ve been to Africa 6 times now and read a lot about animal behavior.  I like to think that I am more bush-wise than the average guy but Albie’s at a whole different level.  I admire him for it, and am envious as hell.  Don’t think I have enough years left to get as good at this as Albie is.

It certainly is nice to do a safari like this without the stress and strain of driving, making arrangements, cooking, etc.  It makes the process really easy and painless.

I’m happy to recommend Albie as a guide.  His contact information is:

Albie Venter

albie@africa-unlocked.com

He’s updating his website, but here’s the address:

http://www.africa-unlocked.com

I also want to put in a pitch for the Kgalagadi Lion Project.  We bumped into this folks - nice folks doing really good work.  Here's their website -

http://www.kalaharilions.co.za

Take a look.  You can also follow them on their Facebook page.

And, now, back to work and the regular life for a while.  But thinking about Africa and what’s next every day.

November 29, 11:45AM, Johannesburg

Back in the room at the Garden Court in J’burg. Resting up after a full day travel yesterday.

The last few days at Nossob were full of lions.  Early one morning, Albie, Gina and I staked out a waterhole, hoping against hope that a brown hyena would show up.  Not much was happening – just a few birds and the ever present jackal or two.  Suddenly we noticed that the two jackals present were looking intently down the riverbed.  There were bushes blocking my vision but Albie was able to look around the bushes and then said, “Dan, get ready!  There’s a massive lion walking toward the waterhole.” He re-positioned the vehicle so we could shoot this male coming in.  This was certainly the same male we’d seen a couple of mornings previously and he’d obviously eaten, well, because his belly was swollen like a tick.  It was almost painful to see, he was so full.  He walked slowly up the dry riverbed, backlit by the early morning sun, and came to the waterhole where he drank an enormous amount of water.  He did a bit of territory marking, walked past the vehicles (there were two of us there) and plopped down in the road.  As more vehicles arrived, and as the day got hotter, he moved up the dune and dropped down under a bush, down for the count.  Another beautiful view of one of these dark-maned lions.  Just stunning animals.

We really didn’t get much the rest of that very, very hot day.  I think it hit 42 C, which is about 107 or 108 F.  It’s too hot for the animals to do much and we didn’t get much accomplished.  The night was stinking hot in the room and I hardly slept at all.  A little after midnight, a lion began roaring, very close.  Like right outside the camp.  He continued at about hourly intervals until sometime after 4AM.  When we got up and got sorted, he roared again and we realized that he was lying in the cool sand, literally right outside the gate.  We could stand 20 feet away from him.  Too dark to photograph, but amazing to see and experience and, as you’d imagine, it caused quite a bit of excitement in the camp.  Soon, he got up and began lumbering past the hide to the waterhole that is adjacent to the camp. 

Once the gate opened, we headed south, ignoring the crowd chasing the big male lion.  We were still hoping against hope to see a brown hyena.  We staked out a waterhole well south of the camp but with no success.  When we headed back to the camp though, a lioness with her three little cubs was at the waterhole just outside the camp.  We quickly jumped out and walked to the hide and got to spend a few minutes with mom and cubs.  It’s just an awesome experience.  Not award-winning photography, but just a great experience and not one that many people get to have in their lives.

On our last evening drive at Nossob, we say a couple of cheetah brothers, very well fed, but too far away to make photographs.  Other than that, very quiet.  And cool somehow…. It had transitioned from 107F one day to maybe mid-70s F in one day.  Quite cool driving around with the windows down.

Next morning we took a brief game drive, back to camp for breakfast, and then for the long, leisurely drive back south to Twee Rivieren Camp.  It was Thanksgiving Day and for another year, we were able to spend Thanksgiving in the bush.  So much to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving dinner….

Friday, up early, and on the road to J’burg.  It’s almost exactly 1,000 km from Twee Rivieren Camp to our hotel in J’burg, so it was a very long day, with Albie doing all of the driving.  And then it was time to say goodbye to Albie and offer thanks to him for the terrific job he did.  I’d highly recommend Albie Venter as a guide to anyone contemplating a trip to Southern or Eastern Africa.  He’s extraordinarily knowledgeable both as a photographer and as a guide.  Just a damned nice human being too.  Good company and someone who is always concerned that his guests are getting the best possible experience.

The road back.

Dinner at the Garden Court, and this morning we slept in LATE.  We’re tired.  Breakfast here, a late check out and then we’re off to the airport this afternoon for a late evening flight.  We’ll have hours to kill at the airport, but that’s really ok for us.  It’s kind of part of that transition from bush to home. It’s a very nice airport and it’s an opportunity to do some shopping and just take it easy and think about what we’ve experienced and what’s to come.

So, homeward soon.  Heading home to see Aislin, Tunzi, Jan and Jim, and our many friends in Oregon.

November 25, 2:05PM, Nossob Camp

Another hot afternoon at the table.  Gina and I took naps – sleeping deeply while a fan blows air over us – and now I’m writing and Gina’s reading a book. 

Another good morning. 

We headed south, hoping to intersect the path of that large pride of lions.  Albie had also heard that a cheetah was sighted about 30 km south of the camp, so it made sense to head that direction and keep our plans flexible. We found where the lions had stepped out of the bush, onto the roadway during the night, but it looked like they headed north on the road for a short distance and then stepped off to the west.  So we shrugged, and continued south hoping to find cheetah.  Eventually, we found a vehicle parked in the road and it was someone Albie had worked with previously and he told us that there was a mother cheetah and two nearly independent cubs, working their way down the riverbed.  We were able to pick them up and, indeed, they were working their way along the riverbed heading south, moving very slowly and cautiously.  They were too far out to take a shot so it was, again, a matter of guessing where they were going and trying to position ourselves to get a shot.  Albie estimated that they were headed to a waterhole about 1 km south so we headed there, found a spot and decided to wait.  But after waiting for quite a while, we headed back out to find them because it didn’t seem like they were coming.  But they were, just very slowly.  Back to the waterhole to wait.  And wait.  It seemed likely that they’d dropped down the shade somewhere for a nap and so we weren’t sure if they were coming or when.  We decided that that was a good time for a coffee break so we broke out the thermos and the cups and the biscuits and just then mom cheetah slowly moved out of the bush and began to cautiously make her way to the waterhole, cubs following far behind. 

It’s not clear to us why they were moving so slow and cautiously.  Albie thinks mom was hunting and she was looking around very carefully at everything.  It’s also possible that they were very nervous about lion in the area (like the big pride?  Or someone said they’d heard a male lion calling in that area early in the morning).  At any rate she moved very cautious and drank very cautiously.  The two cubs came into the area and one drank, clearly on edge, hissing at the water from time to time as though the whole thing was terrifying.  The second cub never drank at all.  Mom eventually plopped down in the shade, quite close to us and the two cubs joined.  They rested for a few moments before getting up and continuing to move south down the riverbed, toward a larger tree.

We photographed mom and cubs, but the good light was gone and there was a lot of heat haze so the images won’t be great.  But it was a great sighting – very satisfying to see mom and cubs.  Mom’s obviously done a good job for these little ones.  Survival rate for cubs is very low and it’s not unusual for a mother to lose all of her cubs.  So to get two up to near adulthood is quite a feat.  She’s a good mom.

Juvenile cheetah calling for mom

The juvenile cheetahs keeping up with mom

Mom drinks very nervously at the waterhole

By then, light was gone and it was getting hotter on this yet another beautiful cloudless day and so we headed back for breakfast.  After breakfast, Gina and I spent a bit of time at the hide here and saw 5 secretarybirds interacting and one of them made this belching/roaring call as it drove another away from the water that I’d never heard before.  Nothing like the recordings I have. So, something new there to add to the memory banks.

Gina at the hide

And now two hours before we head back out for the end of the day drive.

November 24, 3:30PM, Nossob Camp

Up from an afternoon nap to write a few words before we head back out.  It’s strikingly clear today, and it’s hot.  Gina’s still sleeping and it’d be tempting to sleep more but I’m afraid if I don’t get up and moving, I won’t be sleeping tonight.  Sleep has been very messed up and it’s only now beginning to approach a point where I’m not conscious of the impact of jet lag and sleep disruption.

Yesterday morning I goofed up the plan and got Gina and I up an hour too early (3:30AM rather than 4:30) and we got to spend an hour on the deck in the cool pre-dawn.  We heard a lion very close and he called repeatedly as he moved basically east to west in front of the camp.  There’s really nothing like it and it bode well for the morning drive that lions, or at least this male, were close by.  We bolted out the gate right at 5:30, along apparently with everyone else, and headed south.  I’m assuming there was word in camp that the large pride we’d seen a couple of days ago was south of here so they all just took off in a stampede.  We took our time on the road, which follows a dry riverbed that only flows about once a century when Albie spots, off to the left, a beautiful Kalahari male, laying right out in the open about 500 yards off.  Kalahari males are famous for their full manes that are almost black with a golden fringe around their heads and this was a beautiful guy.  Cars kept passing us, either because they didn’t see the male, or because they were so fixated on finding the large pride that they couldn’t be bothered with one lion.  We stopped to watch because we knew that once the sun came up, he’d be moving along, eventually finding a place with shade.    And he did eventually stand, and begin walking parallel to the road and we slowly began rolling to keep pace.  And he looked like he was going to turn to his left and head up over the ridge away from us but then he turned back to the right and began angling toward the road. 

It was just gorgeous.  The light was beautiful and the lion was walking through a field of three thorn flowers as he slowly moved on a trajectory which looked like it would intersect the road.  Then it was on for us – trying to anticipate where he’d come out so that we could position ourselves to get a head on shot of him walking through the flowers in this beautiful light.  By this time there were other vehicles following the progress of the lion but Albie did a fantastic job of backing the car quickly into position and that beautiful black maned lion moved through the field of flowers and… I couldn’t get a shot as the autofocus grabbed every twig and flower and everything but any feature on the lion’s face, and I couldn’t get to manual focus on this unfamiliar setup before that brief moment was gone and he stepped into the roadbed.

Understand that the base of the KTP is fine sand that extends a couple hundred feet deep.  As they’ve graded the road over the years, it sits about 1 – 2 feet below the surface of the surrounding land.  The lion stepped into the roadway and began walking toward us, followed by a phalanx of other cars.  We continued to back up, giving him plenty of room, hoping that he’d eventually step off the roadway, allowing us a shot at him.  He was walking directly into the early morning light so if we could just get a clear shot it was going to be beautiful. Someone in a vehicle behind us got impatient and jumped in front of the lion at an angle and he stepped off the roadway and walked for maybe 30 yards up at ground level, giving us a perspective at just below eye level with a clean background and so Albie and I finally got beautiful shots of this very handsome lion as he walked and marked a bush before coming back down to the roadway.

It’s probably the best sighting of a male lion that I’ve had yet, and such a beauty he was.  That shot made the whole day and we decided to not get greedy and to let him alone so we sat still in the roadway and he walked by the vehicle, not 5 feet from us and on his way.  We let the vehicles past, and then we were on our way.

A fine Kalahari black-maned lion.  Just a stunning animal.

Kalahari traffic jam

After that, we headed north.  We didn’t see a lot but, after the morning, we weren’t disappointed with that.  We eventually camped out at a waterhole where there have been sightings of jackals catching Namaqua sandgrouse.  And sandgrouse came and went and jackals came and went without much action. 

This morning we again headed north and saw almost nothing, eventually stopping at that first waterhole north of the camp to wait it out.  Again, Namaqua sandgrouse, various doves, jackals. Then a bateleur dropped in to drink water.  He hung around for a while and we got nice take-off shots of that beautiful bird.  This evening we headed south and found the pride of many lions, about 14 or so that we could see, all asleep in a pile under a tree far, far away.  We had to make a decision whether to wait for them in hopes that both they would get up and begin moving before we had to head back to camp AND that if they did move, they would move in our direction, or try and find something else for the evening and see if we could catch up with them in the morning.  We chose the latter.  And saw nothing to shoot.  That’s how it is here.  You really have to just play the odds and be prepared to work for any shot you get.

Bateleur in flight.