December 10, 2024 - December 14, 2024: Singita Boulders, South Africa

We had a quick flight from Sweni to Boulders Lodge but arrived fairly late in the afternoon. Similar to Sweni, our guide, Lucy, met us as we were stepping off the plane. It was about a 5 min drive to Boulders. Our rooms at Boulders were more spacious than Sweni and had private plunge pools, which was welcome as the weather continued to be extremely hot. We started our drive later because of the heat.

Drive 1: 5pm Dec 10 

When we got into the jeep, Lucy said we were going to look for the wild dogs but warned it was highly likely we wouldn't see them. Filip said that Meredith hadn't seen buffalo yet either, so maybe we could look for them as well. Lucy warned us that was a possibility but it also didn't seem very likely.

After heading towards where the dogs had last been seen, Lucy heard they had been found, so we hurried along- as it wasn't clear if they would stick around. Fortunately we got there in time. We tried following them, but they ran into the thick bush. After almost giving up, one poked his head up and we felt victorious. We watched them for a few minutes and started to head slowly back to the lodge. We were super surprised when about 20 minutes later we looked up and the dogs were in front of us. 

African wild dog AKA painted wolf

Our next surprise was the heard of buffalo as we made our back to the lodge, so it was an incredibly successful first ride.

African Buffalo

Drive 2: 5:30am Dec 11 

After grabbing our coffees we started off for the morning game drive. We didn't have to go far before running into a crash of rhinos playing in the water.

We spent a bit of time hunting for a cheetah, but never found him. We did see a few warthogs with babies as well as large wildebeest and a large kudu who seemed to be friends hanging together in the shade. 

Finally we hopped out of the truck and Lucy taught us about dung beetles and showed us how they make round balls of elephant poop and how the female rides on the ball while the male rolls it home.

Mid-day Dec 11

Elephants, including one very new one, entertained us from our pool in between the game drives followed by a couple of thirsty nyalas.

Nyala drinking from our plunge pool

Drive 3: 5pm Dec 11 

We didn't have to drive far before our first spot - hippos in the water right beside camp and then just upstream from the hippo was a buffalo. After watching these two along with their feathered friends we moved upstream and came across an old white rhino. He was unafraid of the jeep and got very close to us.

Buffalo with a goliath heron (largest heron in the world)

Old male white rhino

We had heard that there was a pride of lions sleeping where we had seen the rhino playing in the water in the morning so we drove over to see them. There were 9 lions- 3 adult females with 6 cubs ranging from around 11 to 14 months old. We watched them for a while before heading back to camp.

Drive 4: 5:30am Dec 12 

After our shots of espresso, Filip and Micki hopped in the jeep for our morning drive, while Meredith took the morning off. We saw an African hawk-eagle and learned the difference between hawks and eagles. Eagles have feathers on their legs and hawks don't. We continued our drive and saw our first journey of giraffe in Sabi Sand, and as we rounded the bend there was a lioness sitting beside the road. Lucy shared her history- she was no longer in a pride and lost two cubs earlier this year (in part because she was alone), although she was potentially pregnant now. She was known as an excellent hunter and as she was very alert and seemed hungry, we decided to watch her. In very cat-like fashion she crawled over to position herself behind a bush as she watched an impala heard, waiting for them to venture closer to the water. We watched her for about an hour while on the banks across the water we saw impala playing, several giraffes, a couple of adult zebras with a baby zebra. The impala unknowingly teased her a bit, but eventually went the other way - it was their lucky day.

Lioness watching impala

We then moved on to have our morning coffee break by the shore in the shade by the river before heading back to camp.

Perfect spot for our morning break

Drive 5: 5pm Dec 12 

It was super hot today and we spent most of the drive hunting for leopards, we finally gave up and went back to see if the lioness from the morning was still in the same spot but we didn't find her either.  Our one find in the afternoon was the klipspringer, two little monogamous antelope that prefer to stay on the rocks.

Drive 6: 5:30am Dec 13

This morning's drive was more successful than the one yesterday afternoon as almost immediately we spotted 3 hyena walking along the road. 

We went by many watering holes - most of which were occupied by various birds, but no mammals. Finally we found a large herd of elephants playing in the mud. There were many young ones, one in particular struggling to get out of the mud and one who was very curious about us. It was interesting to watch them interact with each other as well as their eating habits - they would loosen the grass by kicking the roots. 

After the elephants moved on we went to another watering hole where we found a pair of bull elephants- one of which had a deformed trunk (missing the end), some buffalo, some hippo, some zebra and a huge crocodile -all in one spot. 

Buffalo with hippo in the water

On our way back to the lodge we went by a spot where two male lions and been sleeping on the rocks.

It continued to get hot - it was supposed to be 108F so we opted to take the afternoon off and watch the sunset from the lodge (which we were actually unable to see) and then had dinner. Lucy joined us for dinner and it was nice to get to know her more.

Drive 7: 5:30am Dec 14

We started our last drive headed towards a jaguar spotting. He had strung a kill (baby wildebeest) in a nearby tree.  He was well hidden but we spotted him. We were about to leave when two hyenas started walking towards the leopard- and it was clear they could smell him.  It was very exciting, but they turned and walked the other way before they found him.

We finally headed out when we found 3 more hyenas close by- one of which had his face covered with blood. We followed him to a watering hole and then to the tree with the wildebeest carcass, which he could smell but couldn't reach.

He still needed to wash his face.

After the hyenas we found some giraffes drinking in a different watering hole.

We then went back to the lodge to pack and have brunch and play defense against monkeys who try and steal bread. Singita has monkey minders with slingshots to chase them away, but the monkeys are often successful (They stole our bread every morning but 1) This morning, the monkey - with baby attached -  took 3 pieces and then came back to taunt us by eating it in front of us.