No, "Malaria-Free Reserve" is not a wine from South Africa! Rather, it's a marketing claim made by Mabula Game Reserve, a private safari park that we visited in South Africa.
Along with my parents, we drove to Mabula from Pretoria in about 2 hours. The Lodge itself was fantastic, several steps above what we had experienced at Ngorongoro. Swimming pools, squash court, gym, tennis court, volleyball court and much more. We had buffet meals right next to the pool, a distinct upgrade from the budget meals we've been having previously on our trip. Based on her Spanish tour and extensive knowledge of sangria, Smruti taught the bartender how to make good sangria!
We were introduced to Alpheus, our guide (he's the one in the middle of the photo on the left). Alpheus was very jovial and very experienced, having been at the game reserve for over 15 years.
Before dusk, we went for a game drive. As opposed to the Ngorongoro crater, where we were in an enclosed LandRover with an open roof, here we were in a jeep with no enclosure around us at all! Alpheus told us that other options for seeing the park also included horse rides and walking tours. He also took along a cooler full of beer, wine and soda (or sundowners as he called them) for us to drink at sunset somewhere in the park.
Compared to the Ngorongoro crater, the Mabula reserve had a lot more jungles with trees and underbrush. It also had open savannah-like areas. We saw a fantastic array of animals on our trip, including lions, rhinos, hippos, jackals, bonteboks, giraffes, impalas and zebra. Here are some of the photos - see if you can spot the lion in these photos!
We saw a herd of elephants that were grazing in a particular area. A mother elephant with her baby was the center of everybody's attention. They kept drifting closer and closer to our jeep until, eventually, they got very close - the mother elephant got nervous and charged toward us! Thankfully, Alpheus had the presence of mind (and experience) to drive away. The photo here show the elephant charging at us in order to protect its baby.
The rhinos were stunning! Huge creatures with extremely bad eye-sight. There were several of them in this clearing. Thankfully, they did not notice us (or did not deign to see us) so we did not have to face any sort of charge from them, as we had had to do from the elephants.
On the way back, Alpheus shone a bright searchlight into the trees around us. This was done in order to try and locate the elusive leopard, which typically sits up in trees - in the searchlight, we would see eyes reflected back brightly. We did not succeed though in finding any leopards.
The lodge also had a reptile center with crocodiles and snakes. Somewhat scary, especially after Alpheus told us that these crocodiles can jump 2 meters/yards in the air! The reptile center also had several snake, including rattlesnakes and pythons. One of them turned out to be 4-5 meters long and uncoiled for what seemed like ages in front of us in its cage!
In the evening, we were treated to an excellent and very energetic tribal dance. The dancers danced to pretty complex beats.
-Dev
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