There's something therapeutic about being close to nature! We just spent five days in the Timbavati Game Reserve. The accommodation was great, the people amazing, the company amusing, but it was the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere, with Nature as our host, that really appealed to me!
We sat about five metres away from a pride of lions (ngonyama - "of the meat") with three cubs that were still suckling. We sat and watched them sleep in the shade of a large tree in the river bed, while the cubs were playing and feeding. We watched a pair of leopard (ingwe) mating - somehow it felt wrong to watch, and yet it was such a powerful expression of the forces of Nature! Our host and ranger was very knowledgeable and explained so much to us. The entire experience was stimulating and inspiring, as well as thought-provoking!
One evening, on the drive home, we found ourselves smack-bang in the middle of a herd of around 400 buffalo (nyati)! There they were, at arms-length, wild, dangerous animals, and yet it was as if there was an understanding that we are all part of one another... Another evening, we were having sundowners at a waterhole, and I was sitting one side with my ginger beer, sipping away, when a spotted hyena approached the water in the dark, and was spied by one of the friends in our group. What a feeling to be sitting on the ground (eye-to-eye, as it were), and watch this animal cruise by! Another evening, at another water hole, about eight elephants (inglovu) arrived, with their young, to drink in the early evening. Fortunately they were about twenty metres away, on the other side of the water hole. We saw a lot of the elephant, and to watch the family structure and how it works was fascinating!
We saw Burchell's zebra, giraffes (zulaminti - "above the trees"), impala (mala), blue wildebeest, warthog, kudu, Chacma baboons, vervet monkeys, banded and dwarf mongoose, spotted genet, African wild cat, crocodile, tree squirrels, hippo (umvubu), waterbuck, leopard tortoise, black mamba, black-necked spitting cobra and black-backed jackal... We stalked, on foot, a pair of white rhino. There were the most beautiful butterflies, spiders, insects, chameleons and terrapin. Now do you understand what I mean when I say "sensory overload"?!
