I was very excited to go on my first real African Safari in South Africa. The location was Buffelsfontein, a private game reserve. Basically a huge area of land where the owners get a tax break for preserving the flora and fauna of the area and make some money on entry fees. This location had two options, one for a tour that they give on an all-terrain bus type vehicle and the other one is a self-drive, if you have a four wheel drive vehicle. No problem, right. We are in a Jeep. Now the guy at the start, supposedly the expert, briefed us on where to go. Now this is after he checked our Jeep and our tires. He told us that the sandy areas were packed down hard because of the rain and we should have no trouble. Famous last words! Everything was great for the first mile or so. We saw a family of Giraffes. Some Zebra, and other Antelope type things in the distance. Made several images that you can see here. Then we went down a hill and tried to go up the sandy part and dug in right down to the axles. To make a long story short we tried to put branches and sticks under the tires to get traction until we heard the ROAR! Several times. I don't know if you've ever heard a real lion in the wild roar, but it is chilling, especially when you are outside of a vehicle in the open and the lion is somewhere out there also. It sounds like a roar that you would imagine but with a very deep bass sound. You know that it is not immediately near, but from the vibration, you can imagine that it is not far away. With that cue we immediately got back into the Jeep and waited for a tractor to pull us out. We then managed to take a series of mis-directions, because of very confusing signage, and unknowingly ended up heading toward the Rhino and Water Buffalo area when we were quickly accosted by one of the preserve people, for the second time. As it turns out, had been successful in entering the Rhino and Buffalo area, it is likely that one of them would have attacked the Jeep and flipped it over. Well, we took that as a sign to leave and headed for a small fishing village called Langebaan for a great lunch. All in all a good time with good friends and remarkable memories.
