Bonamanzi, Richard's Bay, South Africa

 March 29, 2025

"Manzi" means "Good water" in the Zulu language 

Today, giddy with excitement, we went on our first game drive of this cruise. It started with a two hour bus ride to Bonamanzi Park, a private 8000 hectare reserve. They boast populations of 4 of the Big Five--elephants, rhinos, water buffalo, and elusive leopards. Only lions are missing here. 

For the drive itself, we boarded these open air 11 person trucks. The DH & I snagged the back row which was the most elevated of the seating. It was also the highest to climb into and out of using the built-in ladders on the sides of the vehicle. More about that later...

Three separate trucks drove out into the bush. Ours was last, so our driver tried to avoid taking the same dirt tracks as the other vehicles. Can't really call them roads. They follow the contours of the land, tipping us to crazy angles, dashing through running streams, and sending us temporarily airborn over unexpected bumps. (The excursion was not recommended for people with mobility issues, back or neck problems. Needless to say, we held on tight.) It worked out well for us to strike off in another direction because otherwise, the game might have fled by the time we came up in third place.

This handsome fellow is an impala buck. He's young so he only has a little family of 3 to watch over. The bigger older boys can have their own herds of females, provided they can fight hard enough to keep them. 

Our guide told us they call impalas "McDonalds" because of the distinctive black arches on their hind quarters. And yes, we saw a McDonalds restaurant in the town of Richard's Bay. They really are the unofficial American embassy all over the world. 

One thing is a must for a game drive. Keeping quiet. The animals seemed not to pay attention to the sound of the truck motor, but a loud human voice will disperse an entire herd. Unfortunately, we had one person with a particularly piercing voice who couldn't understand that. She called out in excitement whenever she saw something, exclaiming how cute the creature was and how she wanted to take them back to the ship. She sent a trio of warthogs high-tailing into the bush too fast for us to snap a photo. A word from the driver didn't deter her. It took several other passengers telling her she was too loud to finally pound in the message.

That said, we were encouraged to quietly say when we thought we saw something. The trouble is...anything could almost look like something and still be a dreamed up wish fulfillment. As we were passing through a plain of tall grasses, a dark shape caught my eye. It sat still as stone as the wheat colored shafts undulated around it. The shape revealed itself in increments while the grasses moved. As my mind knitted together the bits and pieces, it seemed "catlike" in its outline and watchful posture. 

Denise, the woman seated directly in front of me, turned and looked back at me wide-eyed. "Did you see that?" 

I nodded. Maybe it wasn't just a trick of light and wish fulfillment. We were too far past it to give a general alert to the driver, but we are both convinced we glimpsed a leopard and learned first hand why they are called "shadow cats."

Pretty girl, isn't she?

Our driver told us the giraffe babies recognize their mommas by the specific reticulated pattern on their bodies. Females have more of a sloped back than males. Also, males tend to loose the tufts of hair on their spiky head fighting with other males over ... what else?... females. Those aren't horns. They are protuberances that grow from their skulls and are covered with hide and hair.  

There were four water buffalo lounging in this watering hole. Our guide told us these were the "league of losers," a quartet of bachelors who are either too old or too weak to command a harem of females. So they hang out together here to soak and rub off ticks on the trees instead of hiding in their momma's basement playing "Dungeons and Dragons."

Then our driver left the tracks and took us over the short cropped grass into a glen of yellow-barked "fever trees." There were five white rhinos calming having a late afternoon munch. 

The park cuts the horns off the males to protect them from poaching and also from killing or injuring each other in the craziness of season. Against all reason, there is still a market in China for the horns. 

Rhinos are formidable creatures, massive and impressive in their primitive brutishness. My heart lurched a bit when one of the big males turned and took a step toward our truck. Then he was distracted by the approach of another male. When it began to look as if we might witness a head butt, a branch fell from a nearby fever tree and startled them both into retreating back into the forest. 

It occurred to me that they were a little like horses, big and powerful, but at heart rather fearful and always on the lookout for possible predators. They'll stand and fight if needs be, but flight is always preferable.

We chalked up a long list of sightings--nyalas, impalas, warthogs, monkeys, zebra, wildebeasts, giraffe, rhinos, and lots of birds. The DH's photo montage will share more of our experience. It was a wonderful day.

Twilight doesn't last long here, so our driver hurried us back to the lodge when the light began to slant over the landscape.

But our day was not yet over. I was mulling over the idea that we Viking guests are a little like the herds of prey animals we'd been observing, being shepherded around by our guides and drivers (our sheep dogs!). Unfortunately, even with all the care in the world, occasionally, one of the herd gets picked off. 

 

Back at the reserve's lodge, as I was climbing down from our perch, a blur of movement from the truck behind ours caught the tail of my eye. A woman had fallen from the last row of her truck, struck the ground hard and then didn't move. 

Her husband wasn't on this excursion with her, but people who knew her gathered around her prone form. We boarded our waiting bus to be out of the way as the tour operators and our Viking escort took control of the situation. 

Night falls swiftly in these latitudes. It was full dark by the time our guide joined us on the bus. The Viking escort stayed behind with our wounded shipmate to wait for an ambulance to transport her to the nearest (?) hospital.  We began the sober two hour trip back to our ship, quietly thinking and praying for our fellow traveler. 

It could've happened to any of us. A moment's inattention, bad luck, a missed step...we're all just one accident away from a trip-ending outcome. Or worse.

But that doesn't make me want to stop traveling. Accidents happen, and most often do, in our own homes. So we'll just keep living according to Goofy's motto:

"I'm brave, but I'm careful."