Each day was dominated by two game drives,
one at 6:00am and the other at 4:00pm. Each drive took two hours.
Although I have read some other visitors to Zulu Nyala comment
that the game drives got boring, it was never the case for us.
Our driver seemed to be quite aggressive. When other drivers would
stay on the road, ours would drive through the bush trying to
get close to the animals.
 This
was the vehicle we took on every game drive. Although it was
scruffier than most, our driver told us management didn't hassle
him when he dented and scratched it. |
Our days settled into a
comfortable routine: Going on a two-hour game drive at 6:00am,
then breakfast, relaxing, lunch, another two-hour game drive,
and then dinner. It felt like a summer camp for big kids. We were
paired up with three other couples for meals and game drives.
We almost always had the same driver, Johnny, which made for a
lot of variety on the drives. You see, Zulu Nyala spans about
5,000 acres, but our driver tried to use new roads all the time
so we rarely saw the same sight twice.
Our driver also seemed to be more aggressive at tracking the animals
than the other drivers. If the animals were not near the road,
Johnny would blaze a trail knocking down whatever poor green thing
that might get in the way.
Most of the safari vehicles were newish Toyota pickup trucks with
three rows of seats mounted in their beds. Each row could accommodate
three passengers and an additional passenger could sit by the
driver. Most of the time our vehicle was carrying only six passengers
so this made for a comfortable drive with plenty of room to swing
a ca-um-camera.
Johnny drove the scruffiest of the safari vehicles. It was an
old Land Rover with many a scar. Johnny said he preferred it because
management never seemed to notice the new scratches and dents.
Those scratches translated to an exciting ride for us.
Since game drives occur so regularly at Zulu Nyala, some animals
which might be skittish or aggressive have learned to ignore the
game vehicles. This was especially helpful for sneaking up to
get a close look at the cape buffalo. The cape buffalo kill quite
a few people every year by trampling or goring them. Typically
people get killed when they forget that behind their benign cow-like
appearances, cape buffalo are 1,500 pounds of trampling tenderloin.
Johnny drove right up to the outskirts of the buffalo herd. The
big males kept a close eye on us while the females would ignored
us. We even saw a little calf nursing.
We also put a few scratches on the Land Rover following two adult
elephants and a baby into a stand of trees. The mom was not amused.
She started breaking tree branches for no other apparent reason
than a show of strength. Two of them walked within a trunk's length
of our vehicle. Oddly, because they were so close, we could not
see them. The view was blocked with a vast wall of gray.
Probably the scariest animal we saw was the black rhino. These
rhino have poor eyesight, but good hearing and sense of smell.
And they have incredibly bad attitudes. Johnny spotted the one
black rhino at the top of the hill far from any roads. Not satisfied
to give us a look through binoculars, he blazed a trail towards
the rhino until we were just 100 yards away. Now 100 yards might
seem like a distance but even then the black rhino was getting
agitated and grunting in disapproval. As we edged a little closer,
the rhino got a sense that somebody was nearby and on-foot. The
rhino charged! Going less than ten feet, the rhino plowed into
a bush. Johnny, sensing that we perhaps had worn out what little
welcome we had, decided to take off because the rhino was on the
verge of charging us. The terrain was very difficult and Johnny
had difficulty getting the land Rover moving so he stomped the
throttle and slipped the clutch and within moments we were on
our way to safety, trailing a cloud of sacrificial clutch smoke.
One animal that I found impossible to spot was the giraffe. Johnny
could usually spot them but I never saw them without him pointing
them out to me. One would think the giraffe would be the easiest
animal to find but they certainly were not.
This trip has one glaring omission for a FCF raffle prize: no
cats! Oh, the Zulu Nyala people say that there could be leopards
there, but the leopards would be required to jump an electric
fence to get inside. (This omission would later remedied when
I visited the cheetah at the Savannah Cheetah Foundation.)
 What
makes it a millipede? Four legs -not two- per body segment. Always
carry a ruler without graticules with you! Now even though this
millipede is giant and it is in Africa, it is not the
giant
African millipede. Those are much darker than this pretty
specimen. |
 This
black rhino
was not at all a pleasant fellow. Black rhinos are extremely
aggressive. This picture was taken with a 300mm telephoto. Even
at that distance, the rhino was charging some of the foliage
because he felt we were sneaking up on him. |
 There
is nothing beautiful about a warthog.
Even his eyes are ugly. And check out those attractive ticks
on his ear. |
 These
white rhino
are much tamer than the black rhinos. If you go to the San Diego
Zoo, they'll eat out of your hand. |
 Not logs. Hippopotamuses. |
 The cape buffalo are responsible for
a lot of human deaths. If you were a walking rack of beef, you
would be aggressive too. |
 Check out this old man's weathered
rack. |
 The elephants seemed angry at this
point. We got very, verly close to two adults and a baby. The
adults started breaking tree branches and waving their trunks
at us. |
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The
giant
East African snail is well named. It is the largest land
mollusk.