Animals at Safari West

*UPDATE!!** Eesha the southern white rhinoceros, listed as “near threatened,” is actually pregnant, and that explains her sleepiness in the photos here.*

I woke up feeling awful. I think I had consumed two gallons of champagne the night before, then accidentally turned on my electric blanket in the night and was DYING of heat for a couple hours till I figured out how to turn off the blanket in the dark, and then had to wait for the heat to dispel. But worst of all were the flamingoes. Flamingoes, apparently, never sleep. They sound much like ducks, and Safari West has about 100 flamingoes. So imagine 100 ducks outside your bedroom that never shut up. They’d squawk and cackle at each other in bursts of sound and slowly mellow out and just when it seemed like they would quiet down, one of them would say, “And another thing!” and it would set them all to squawking at full volume once more. I had earplugs in (thank goodness!) but the noise came right through anyway. All. Night. Long.

After promising one of the ladies the night before that I always get up early, I woke to see that most of the tent was empty and my companions had already dressed and left (and made their beds). I walked around in a haze and a headache and got myself dressed, splashed water on my face, and tried to bring the world into focus. In the mirror I looked pale and twenty years older.

When I stepped out the door onto the deck, I knew it would be alright. The view across the valley was gorgeous (photo above). Blue skies, and sun barely rising across the wildlife park. I was so, so excited to go see the animals. I grabbed my camera and walked down the hill in search of coffee. I decided to take my time and take some photos before I met the other ladies, in order to give my head a chance to clear up more.

I even swung by the flamingoes’ pen, to curse at them. They were even noisier as the sun rose than they had been in the night. I asked if they ever sleep; they were too busy talking and didn’t hear my question. (I posted the image above on facebook and a friend asked if they are called Lesser Flamingoes because they only have one leg. Ha!)

Before we arrived, one of Margaret’s friends looked at the weather forecast and decided we would all be cold (she was right), so she planned a secret surprise for Margaret and asked us all to buy silly animal hats. She bought hats for Allen and Margaret so they wouldn’t be left out. That way, if it rained or if there wasn’t enough time for us all to fix our hair in the morning, it wouldn’t matter. So every one of us wore an animal hat. Mine was a penguin.

After we ate, we went outside and the weather had gone the exact opposite of what it was when I walked down the hill. Completely grey and overcast and POURING rain. We met with our tour guide and I cannot remember her name but she was wonderful! She was newly graduated with an advanced degree and a huge fan of frogs and fungi, and knew some fascinating information about the flora and fauna of the place. She said there would be a Jeep tour in re-purposed old WWII military vehicles, and a walking tour. Which one did we want to do first? We decided that the longer we spent in the rain, the more miserable we would be, and decided to do the walking part first, assuming that sitting in a Jeep would be the best option for when we were all wet and cold.

We tromped over to the giraffe barn, where all the giraffes were inside because they do not like the cold. I could see they also do not like being trapped inside the barn, and a couple of them paced back and forth incessantly, which was hard to watch.

Because of the rain – it was really coming down onto us – most of the animals were hiding inside their warm, dry homes, and we didn’t see many of them. I don’t blame them. Because of the rain, I tried and failed to take many more animal photos. All except the giraffes were behind screens too, which made an even tougher photography challenge. I was getting soaked, the rain continued to pour, my glasses were wet and fogged, and I pretty much could hardly see anything. Then it was time for the Jeeps!

Like I said earlier, our tour guide was wonderful and her enthusiasm constantly kept our minds off the wretched weather, and tuned back into the animals. Safari West is specifically an African wildlife park, so the animals are mostly native to the African continent. In this park, animals that get along with each other are penned in gigantic sections that are only accessed by park Jeeps driven by park employees. There is no other way to get up close. We were not allowed to leave the Jeeps.

Next we were stopped on our route for an obstinate Zebra who refused to budge. “It’s their home,” our guide told us. “I don’t like to be pushy because we are the ones invading their space.” We waited a while to see if the old boy would move, but he never did, and we backed up and took a different road instead.

We saw some Wildebeest up close and personal.

We spent a lot of time with the Cape Buffalo. We stopped to look at them, and they chose that moment to come down off the hill and cross the road in front of us. The whole herd had nearly finished crossing, when they decided we might be a threat, and changed their minds and as a group, turned around and headed back up the hill. We waited a long time while all this was going on, and I was able to get lots of great shots.

We cheered the rays of sunshine, but it didn’t last long. It just gave the earth time to heat up and send some evaporated water into the sky, which formed new rain clouds. Soon enough, we were under a deluge once more. The canvas roof was totally saturated and dripping onto Margaret who sat directly in the middle, under the lowest bulge of the canvas. My fingers were so cold I couldn’t operate the buttons on my camera any longer. I took off my gloves and put my hands into my armpits till they thawed enough to work.

We passed through our last gate and as we sat in the Jeep, our wonderful guide told us a few last things and answered questions. The sun finally decided to come out for real. To our left was a Greater Kudu, licking a fence near us. There were a couple of animals we had not seen and our guide offered us a choice: head back in and try to find them in a different location, or go back to the main building and get warm. We chose warmth.

As the sun came out, we packed up all our gear and the company Jeeps showed up for us to load them and head back down the hill to our cars. This was a one-of-a-kind birthday party and I can say from experience that it does not matter the weather; Safari West is going to be one amazing place to visit if you can ever make it happen.