South Africa Day 6: Marakele Lion Cubs, Elephants, and a Treehouse!

Today was our first full day of safari'ing! Our guide called both our tents (I keep writing "tents," but it was a concrete and canvas structure that was basically a small glamping palace, so "tent" doesn't seem right. Maybe canvas castle is the right term?) at 6 a.m. to make sure we were awake.

We put on our warmest clothes (I wore fleece lined leggings I originally bought for Iceland, sports bra (roads are bumpy!), tank, my favorite cashmere wool sweater from Vince, a scarf, and my puffer jacket and I could have used a hat and gloves) and walked over to the main building where the staff had put out some light breakfast snacks and drinks to get our day started. All the groups and guides were there, it was maybe 20 people? They always had gluten-free muffins for me and they were SO good. As James said every day, South Africa has the best breads and baked goods!

We got in our jeep with Njabulo, snuggled under the hot water bottles and blankets he had waiting, and headed out with the sun rising over the bush before us! Some of us paid more attention than others in the cold early hours. (There's a Landon under there. Yes, Mr. "no one ever needs to wear pants" both wore pants AND admitted he was cold. It really was chilly!)

One of the things we ran into first was a lioness and THREE cubs!! It was such a lucky find - our guide, who somewhow drove the stick-shift jeep, looked out for the paths, pointed out very hidden animals, AND tracked paw prints in the dirt beside the car as we drove past, said he hadn't seen cubs in weeks.

They were adorable - like big giant kittens and they played and romped while mama lounged and watched. Our guide said they were close to a year old and at that age, with a living, healthy mother, they should survive to adulthood.

We saw more zebras, which I love- their coloring is just so gorgeous to me.

Including this guy, who was a pretty fast little runner!

And this one whose smile reminded me of Donkey from Shrek.

Giraffes were plentiful- we came across a large herd with babies, including two with the umbilical cord still attached!

We watched some toddler giraffes playing tag and it was crazy to see their long spindly legs gallopping around while their moms watched.

Seeing giraffe heads pop up between trees became one of my favorite things to spot as we drove around- they're such cool, awkward yet graceful gentle giants.

I love them.

The animal I was most excited to see in Africa was an elephant and I was so delighted that we came across MANY on this day.

Including a mother and baby who was ADORABLE.

Mama got irritated at our jeep being too close, but we'd been parked for some time to observe and she basically walked in front of us. Our guide wasn't concerned, just said she's being protective, waved his hands and yelled and then reversed, and she quite literally flipped her ears over her shoulders like she was doing a hair toss and huffed off, nudging her clumsy squishy baby along.

At the end of our morning drive we got to board Miss Mara, the lodge's boat that sails along part of the river in the reserve. They had food waiting for us (of course!) with two plates of gluten-free options for me.

We got to see a whole bloat of hippos, just chilling in the water and then we even saw two fully out of the water, which was pretty rare to see during the day!

The boat was a cool way to see the land and animals from a different perspective and I'm glad we got to experience it!

After that we headed back to the lodge where we could order a full breakfast (it was now nearly 11 a.m.) and then James and I got massages on the back deck of our room, which was lovely.

Lunch was served from 12:30-2:30, which I skipped, but everyone else ate. Now that we're home we all miss the constant availability of incredibly delicious food!

High tea was with lots of treats was served at 3 (I cannot emphasize enough how much you are fed; Landon was in heaven) and then we met our guide back at our jeep at 3:30, now with an overnight bag for James and me. As an anniversary treat, we planned to spend a night in the Marataba treehouse!

Our guide drove there first so we could drop our bag and the kids could see it.

It was so cool.

Downstairs bathroom:

The staff would be delivering our dinner to the treehouse so James and I could have a romantic dinner date after the game drive, and then the guide would drive the kids the rest of the way back to the lodge to have their dinner and go to bed.

The kids weren't at all concerned about being alone in their separate canvas castle, but Claire was VERY worried that we would be eaten by a lion in the dark in our treehouse. Our guide assured her that would not happen, but Claire was unconvinced.

We drove off for the rest of our sunset drive.

Kudu! Love their crazy horns.

I never took many pictures on the evening drive because my iPhone struggled with the lighting and we all spent long intervals just enjoying watching the animals and chatting with our guide. I know we saw many things, including more elephants and giraffes and hippos out of the water!

We stopped for our "Sundowners" snacks and drinks. Such a fun tradition.

I'm going to be at work today wondering where my gin and tonic and gluten-free snacks are right about 5 pm.

After we saw more sunset animals, our guide dropped us at our treehouse. I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but the guides all have a loaded rifle with them as we drive and they carry it any time they step out of the car. So that's how we were escorted up to our temporary home. Our guide said in 7 years he'd never had to shoot his rifle, though they train on it every month and are tested with moving targets every 3 months. In his words, "if you know what you're doing and don't push the animals, you should never need it." But of course, they're ready just in case.

James and I had a great dinner sitting out on our treehouse. We checked off a previously unknown bucket list item of mine to play parcheesi in a treehouse under a sky full of stars. We snuggled. We decided we missed our canvas castle and radio'd our guide to come get us at 8 pm.

Honestly it was a pretty perfect night. Especially because we were given an incredible gift on our short drive back to the lodge area -- a leopard!!!

She was so gorgeous.

We sat for a while to watch her, just feeling so lucky.

And then we were back in our canvas castle, after popping by the kids' to tell them we were back, and got ready for another day in safari paradise tomorrow!