Camp Entebeni - Place of the Mountain



This post is going to show Friday's date but it was really written Tuesday, 8/26.  
Good news-Bad news
We were surprised to learn that we would have internet access.  But the elephants came thru and tore up the wires.  TWICE!  I'm gonna ask Comcast is elephants are the problem should we lose service again.

So named for the Entebeni Mountain.



Lakeside Camp-Entebeni

View from the lodge and main dining hall

After a lovely 4 hour ride north along the MAIN Highway in Africa going all the way from Cape Town north, we arrived at Entebeni Reserve.  This is a privately owned 50,000 acre preserve where you can find most of every kind of animal you want to see in Africa, including crocs and hippos in the lake visible from our front porch..  We were cheerfully greeted by the roving bands of monkeys that are very playful and MUST be keep out of your room.  We are told that they like to get in and wreck havoc. 



This ain't no tent.

High tea

Greeted by the staff with a delicious fruity drink we were give our ROOM assignments.  Yes..luck was with us and we were all given cottages instead of the tents we had anticipated.  Not sure why but were to learn later in the evening that this was a very welcome surprise. 

After a light lunch consisting of plenty of fresh fruit, beef wraps and chicken pizza, we were given a little free time before high tea and out first game drive to commence at 4pm. 

Promptly at 4 we departed the main lodge in 2-9 passenger open land-cruisers as our guide, Phineas, gave us a few of the safari dos and don’ts  The airy, warm and dusty ride was much like a roller coaster thrill ride with bumps and turns at every corner.  No upside down turns however.  

Our first sighting was a lone giraffe in the distance but it was quickly followed by a variety of antelope, zebra, wildebeests, rhino, elephant, warthogs and many kinds of birds.  Suffice it to say that I took 160 pictures on our drive and Bob took another 100.  We were thrilled and our guides said that it had been a very lucky drive as you never know what animals are going to be where.



A face only a mother could love.

Wildebeests became such a common sighting that
they can become a nuisance by not moving from the
 road quickly enough.

The highlight of our drive had to be the encounter of a band of 6 elephants (1 male and 5 females) with 3 rhinos (mom and baby and another young one.)  We easily sat and watched them interact for 30 minutes before they parted.  Initially we had seen the rhinos among a band of zebra.  But we didn’t stay to watch them as Phineas has spotted elephants in the distance and we were driving to intercept them as they were more likely to move on and the rhino and zebra would stay put.  (And now I can predict that behavior too, as you will see elephant dung literally everywhere in the reserve and rhino dung in only one area.)



The elephant raised and dropped
this branch several times.  But the rhino
held steady.

As we approached the elephants a lone young male came forward with 5 females of varying ages behind him.  Soon after we stopped to watch the elephants, the rhino group came up on our left, spotting the elephants.  In this faceoff it was hard to tell who the victor would be.  A large female, the matriarch of this group, picked up a dead tree branch and began waving it up and over her head in a show of force at the rhinos, whose leading female held her ground.  The elephant did this several times, always dropping the branch but never throwing it.  The rhino continued to hold steady with her extremely large and pointy horn facing the elephants.  Eventually the elephant leaders turned tail and went around the rhinos.  With the rhinos now taking off on their path, the elephants playfully entertained us some more.  There was a lot of interaction between the young elephants with friendly jousting and cavorting.

As the sun was dropping in the sky we headed up to high ground to park and watch the most magnificent sunset and then headed back to camp.



Mom and baby

Boys will be boys.

This gives you an idea just close these guys got.

 Greeted with hot chocolate by the staff we then headed out back to dinner, a braai …BBQ…by a roaring fire.  Traveling back to camp was a very cold experience.  We had been warned and expecting the temp to drop after sunset but you have to experience it to fully understand.  We returned to our room, chasing a group of impala away from our front door to find our WARM beds waiting for us.  The turndown service here includes turning on your heated mattress pad and electric blanket. 

Time 8:30 pm.  Off to bed.  Game drive tomorrow morning at 6:30am.