On my very first day on safari, I saw nearly everything I had ever hoped to see. We saw elephants on the way from the airstrip to the safari camp, wild dogs tearing apart an impala, giraffes with their babies, and so many lions and their cubs. But while we noticed an impala carcass hung in a tree (definitely the work of a leopard), I didn't see a leopard at all during the three days I spent at my first safari camp.
Because it was highly recommended that I stay in a variety of camps and experience a variety of activities, the next camp on our itinerary was more of a water camp, meaning it had fewer predators to see on game drives but more water activities such as motor boat safaris and relaxing rides in mokoros—hollowed out tree barks that were similar to canoes. On the water and on the game drives, we saw tons of birds, which almost everyone in the camp was excited about since they seemed to be bird enthusiasts. Looking back on it, I wasn't much enamored by the bird sightings, but seeing my photos later from the experience gave me a new appreciation for the beauty of those animals, even though they weren't the lions, cheetahs, and leopards I was always hoping to see every day.
The next morning in the camp, we were awakened as usual by one of the camp guides. Then, about 10 minutes later, we were startled by the sound of an air horn. For those people reading this who have never been on safari, an air horn is usually left in your tent cabins for use in an emergency, since you do not have a phone to contact the camp staff from your room. After the air horn sounded, we heard people close by shout, "leopard!" Unsure what to make of this, we (maybe not using the best judgement) left our room and started walking along the elevated boardwalk from our cabin to the main lodge area. After about 30 seconds of walking, we came upon the boardwalk path that led to the cabin next to ours. There, crouched down low to the wooden boards, was a leopard! It was stalking an antelope down in the grass below. It didn't want to immediately jump down to the ground, because that would have startled the antelope away. Instead, the leopard was waiting patiently for the antelope to walk close enough to its hiding spot so it could jump down and grab it. And because of where it was on the boardwalk, leopard had trapped two of our campmates in their tent cabin, unable to join us without walking right over the leopard's back.
We all watched and photographed that leopard for about 45 minutes. The leopard had no care in the world that we were there. It barely looked in our direction. When it did (like in this photograph), it showed no signs of agitation or aggression, and literally just acted like it was giving us a good sight for photographs. And that it did!
When the antelope decided to wander in the other direction, away from the leopard and its wonderful attack location and position, the leopard gave up. It got up, walked slowly on the boardwalk towards the tent cabin it had trapped the guests in, gave them a great photo opportunity since they had missed out on the last 45 minutes, and then jumped down to the ground below.
I had finally had my first leopard sighting! I saw leopards many times on my trip after that, but none of them were this alarming (at first) and so incredibly rare and lucky! Who would have thought this would have happened in the camp I had thought of as the "bird" camp with no predators?!
Interested in having your own travel experiences like this? Visit www.planetglobaltravel.com or email us at info@planetglobaltravel.com today!
