Sultan’s Grand Appearance

This morning was chaos for me as for some reason they moved the safari time to 6:30 and failed to inform me.

I was dressed and getting ready to leave my room for a much anticipated cup of tea when the phone rang – Mrs Linda, your canter is here for safari. My answer – F… you’re early! My first thought, damn, no tea? As there is no safe in this room I hurriedly threw the items in my case and locked it.

At the canter it was filled to the brim with the noisy crowd that arrived last night. The safari guide told the gentleman in the front that he was sitting on my seat, he refused to move and guide motioned me to take a seat at the back in the middle of the group – He mouthed – we’ll sort out later.

As we left the group started clapping – I thought.. Oh my God, this is gonna be INTERESTING. He stopped the vehicle, looking exasperated and told them to be quiet, no yelling, no shouting, NO CLAPPING! Only when he mentioned the fact that disturbances are liable for a hefty fine did the crowd pipe down. Turns out they are from Iran, understand very little english, but is accompanied by a translator. I sat next to a young lady, probably around 16 – her parents in the group, but in anther canter.

The only tiger sighting that morning was of our friend Sultan enjoying a meal in the dense brush around 700m from his favourite water pool. The group was not too disappointed as they saw them yesterday on their way back from the Fort visit (Fort being a few km further on the same road as Park entrance). Words I got very familiar with since yesterday was “Two (fingers held up) tiger, TWO!” It was the mantra of all fortunate enough to see the boys yesterday.

We did see a ‘peacock dancing’, which to me was quite special. As a child we often visited the (now closed) zoo at the foot of table mountain close to the Rhodes memorial. The monkeys in the cages and the peacocks running around is one of my first memories. Then you do not realize that this experience is actually special and I was hoping to see that colour display at least once during this trip. Wish granted.

We once again took a different route and passed several of the lakes inside the park giving us a chance to see the water birds. The kids howled with delight as the ‘biscuit bird’ (I’m sure that is not its real name 😛 ) came and took pieces of biscuit from their hands. I never got round to asking the guide what it’s real name is – It is a beautiful black, cream and yellow bird.

We saw the old hunting palace on the shores of one of the lakes. The guide said that many times they have seen tigers laying in the arched windows watching the world go by. That would have been a total ‘kodak moment’.

Upon return I had my breakfast, enjoyed my second cup of tea in the garden at the smoker’s corner. There is an shaded alcove with built in benches and pillows that looks over the pool and the gift shop right next to the restaurant. It seems to be the smokers corner as every table has beautiful hand-painted ceramic ashtrays on them. My husband probably would have liked it there, but it’s not the South African required distance from a public entrance (restaurant) – funny that you get so conditioned that you notice stuff like that.

I realized I had lost my wallet. Checked my room to see if I left it on the counter – nope. The hotel staff called the canter guide to check in the vehicle and the hotel manager (Gordhan) helped me to break open the lock on my case (small padlock keeping zips together). Thank heavens in this morning’s chaos it ended up in my suitcase and all was ok. The lock is the least of my problems – I have spare lock for the journey home. Drama, drama drama.

The afternoon I was ready 30 minutes before the time, with my luck the canter was 30 minutes late and when it arrived we still waited another 20 minutes for the Iranian group to leave the pool and get with the proramme. I was not in the best frame of mind when they eventually pitched up and had little sympathy with the gentleman from this morning who wanted me to move from my seat so that he can swing his big-ass zoom lens around without hitting one of his fellow travellers. When his translator explained that he needed that seat because “He’s a photographer” I merely held up my little sony camera and shrugged. I saw the guide laugh and wink at me. If you want to take special photos either pay up and rent one of the four seater jeeps or get your backside at reception early and ensure your seat, buster! Needless to say I felt guilty as hell the rest of the trip…

There was no sign of the boys at their usual spot. However as we reached the entrance of the park there was a general buzz of activity and all the park officials were together chatting excitedly. The guide looked excited and we headed off with a mission – something was clearly up. The occupants of the two vehicles we encountered coming back from that direction looked smug and was admiring the pictures on their cameras – a GOOD sign.

I don’t really think the route we took was designed for the big canter and it took a bit of maneuvering to navigate some tight turns. We lost a mirror in the process, but man the reward… Sultan was on the move. He crossed the road right in front of our vehicle and then we followed him for around 45 minutes. At some point he laid on a cement platform – the remnant of some human occupancy in years gone by. Maybe he was hoping we’ll go away. I felt quite sorry for him as he walked this way and then that way to escape the clicking of the cameras. Eventually he moved into a area with dense trees where he collected a previous kill for early dinner, dragging it deeper into the forest, as if he knew that the vehicles could not follow him there.

The “photographer” urged the driver to move deeper (and off the road), the guide told him it was not allowed. He looked frustrated and the guide said – No, you are not allowed to get off the vehicle and walk closer… reading his mind. The guide explained that the “visual tiger fest” we had just experienced was a rarity and he should be elated at the encounter. Why do we as humans always want more?

We saw another dancing peacock on the way out and some monkeys with babies of various ages clinging to their mothers.

I could hardly wait to share the footage I got with my cellphone with my friends back home. My soup got cold while Gordhan and I discussed the afternoon’s sighting and I posted the video and images via my IPad Hotspot to Facebook and some what’s app users. He again re-posted them to his social media sites.

The next morning was breakfast at 06:00 to leave for the train at 06:20. I was way too exhausted to do the blog. The Indian heat is draining, It takes a special person to live here I guess.