Chitwa Chitwa Lodges
 Game Drives

Dawn. Clouds stretch across a vast horizon—the classic South African summer sky. In a semi-snooze, I absorb the veld’s early morning light. I’m on the top tier of a roofless Land Rover, reconstructed with each of its four tiers of seats rising above the next. None of the other six riders are talking. In the front seat, the game ranger and the tracker are intent on the hunt. The tracker motions a stop. He’s spotted something. Frisbee-sized tracks litter the road’s red dust. This can mean only one thing—elephants and lots of them.

The prints are in sets of two, one in front of the other. The first print, the biggest, is the elephant’s front foot that holds up its head, trunk and tusks. The smaller back print is indented with an upside-down V. The tip of the V points in the direction the elephant is moving. "They’re moving fast," the game ranger notes, "the distance between the prints reveals their pace."

The chase is on. Walkie-talkie calls go out to nearby rangers. The Land Rover’s pushed into high gear. I have a white-tight grip on the safety bar as each bump launches me skywards. Walkie-talkies buzz. Clearly, we’re gaining on them. Then, the call comes in. Elephants—a whole herd.

We arrive to see 25 elephants eating their way through a clearing. A venerable matriarch is in the lead. There are Moms, several with two youngsters. One little one from this year and a bigger one from last year. There are older siblings, aunts and uncles, but no breeding bulls. Dominant bull elephants travel alone. The bulls in this herd are all under breeding age which is 35 to 40 years old.

Vegetarians, elephants eat pretty much constantly to get their 500 pounds of greens a day. The whole herd protects the young, circling around the littlest ones if they perceive any danger. Moms keep their babies with them from two to three years as they teach them what’s-where-to-eat-when and how to use their trunks. Like a child learning to walk, it takes the baby elephants about two years to learn to use this sophisticated tool.

One bruiser bull hangs back, eating his way to a group of trees about 30 feet from us. He yanks up an eight-foot sapling, twirls it between his teeth, strips the bark with his rasp-like tongue.

"He’s a young bull, about 25," the ranger says, "and he’s showing off."

Still he’s the biggest animal I’ve ever seen. Spitting out what is now a fence post, he turns. Slowly, quietly, he heads straight for us.

"Shh…no pictures," the ranger whispers.

Some drop to the floor. I’m nearest the bull, in the sacrifice seat. I stop breathing. He walks straight for me. Six feet from my face, he veers a fraction and passes within kissing distance. Never mind, his trunk and tusks, he could have flipped me out with a casual swish of his ear—about the size of an emergency room door.

"Just showing us who’s boss," says the ranger. Yup, "he’s boss," we nod.

*****

Towards the end of the next evening’s game drive, the tracker spots a leopard watching us from the far side of a dry river bed. Through prehistoric-looking ferns, we head down a 20 foot bank. We swing up the other side and stop ten feet from a clean, gorgeous tawny male with irregular black spots. He lies along the river bed looking back and forth. "Mapping out his evening hunt," says the ranger. "He’s thin, ready to eat."

The leopard stands up. He stretches, back up like a cat. Walking a few yards, he squats to mark his territory. In a sleek saunter, he heads away from the river bank. We follow. A second Chitwa Chitwa land rover joins us.

The leopard cuts into the brush on our left. Both vehicles follow, about 20 feet on either side. The leopard moves on, interested now in something ahead. Impala most likely. He climbs to the top of an eight-foot termite mound and sits down. We stop to watch. He smells the breeze and scans the forest. We move ahead for a better view. The leopard restarts his stalk.

The sun is already down, but there is light enough to admire the leopard’s exceptional camouflage. Even when we know where he is, he’s hard to distinguish from the undergrowth. He’s easier to spot when he moves. Powerful legs carry his sleek body quietly through the brush. The Land Rovers, on the other hand, crash noisily.

The leopard’s up another termite mound. This time he lies down, looks and waits. We watch for a while and move forward. Just as we start to move, the leopard leaps off the mound and cuts to the right. We cut to the right and stop. The leopard stops. We start, the leopard starts. This leopard has learned to use the Land Rovers’ roar to cover his own tracking.

The tracker spots the impalas off in the distance. So does the leopard. He stalks farther into the forest and we lose him. Wishing him luck with his dinner, we head back for ours.

*****

In our three game drives at the Chitwa Chitwa game lodges, we see all the big five—lion, leopard, water buffalo, elephant and rhino—so called because they are considered the five most dangerous animals to hunt on foot. We also see giraffes, hippos, baboons, monkeys, zebras, antelope and gazelles of many stripes—and that’s just the big guys.

Worth it? You bet!