The Last One

We awoke early on Tuesday for our final morning at Sable Alley and packed our bags for the upcoming long journey home. We headed out at dawn with our guide, Kam, half expecting to not see much on our final drive. We’ve seen so many animals on every drive. We’ve experienced rare, beautiful, and eventful sightings in both South Africa and Botswana, that we simply figured we were due one game drive that didn’t produce much success. And once again, we were proven wrong! This morning reinforced our opinion that, no matter how tired you are or how little you think you will see, you should never skip a game drive while on safari!

As we approached the dreaded, smelly hippo carcass area, we came across several hyena making their way to the site. As we rounded the corner to the site, we found one already feasting on what was left after the lions had their share. And the hyena had a friend with him – a jackal!

Kam got word on his radio of a cheetah sighting, so we sped (difficult to do on these densely-lined, curving paths) toward the location. We arrived to wide open fields with tall grass and a few trees, and spotted two waterbucks on high alert. We then heard a loud distress call, so we sped further into the grassy field. We passed a young waterbuck, who was limping and clearly injured, guarded closely by its mom. And then we spotted one of the cheetahs at a distance. We drove up to it and found a second cheetah nearby. We deduced that the cheetahs attempted to grab the young waterbuck and its mother likely defended it before it was too late. Both cheetahs were out of breath and were quite alert. It allowed us to capture some incredible shots of them.

As we sat and watched further, we definitely picked up a weird, tense vibe – all the animals visible to us continued to be on high alert and skittish. And then we saw why – two young male lions and one female lion were making their way into the area. We moved our vehicle to get a better look at them, and the cheetahs fast disappeared. Two of them continued forward and stopped just ahead of us on a small incline, turning back toward us and looking in the direction of where the cheetahs were – giving us the perfect, breathtaking shot in the perfect lighting. This is my favorite photo of the entire trip!

As we maneuvered our ATV closer, we were quickly surprised by three additional older lions making their way into the exact same area! They walked right past our vehicle – within five feet of us, stopping to smell the air and make eye contact with us as we sat frozen in our seats.

We sat a little while longer, taking in the beauty of these beasts, before making our way out of the area and back toward the west part of the concession. We were treated with our last picturesque view of giraffes, zebras, and wildebeests, all grazing the grasses. One zebra in particular was having a grand time rolling around in the dirt, while the young giraffe provided a classic photo opp while trying to drink from a watering hole. We didn’t see any elephants this morning, which is crazy since we’ve seen elephants every single game drive here.

We said our goodbyes to Kam as he dropped us off at the Sable Alley airstrip for our 20-minute charter flight to Maun Airport in Botswana, where we connected to our flight to Johannesburg.

Once at our hotel, the Houghton Hotel, we promptly took hot showers, enjoyed a casual dinner, and hit the very comfortable beds early! We slept in, and enjoyed the hotel’s spa facilities while we waited for our flight home Wednesday evening.

Our 15-hour flight from Johannesburg to Newark luckily went without a hitch, but did include a very loud and unhappy toddler seated directly behind us. After landing in Newark this morning, we checked into our connecting flights – Hannah to Atlanta and ours to Dallas, and then said our goodbyes.

This was one trip of a lifetime, marked with memories we won’t forget, and made that much more meaningful because we experienced it with our animal-loving, veterinarian daughter! Stay tuned for a “Safari Travel Tips” post coming soon, and our next adventure – Canada in August with friends!