Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Sabi Sabi was a private game preserve that we had the good fortune of staying at for 3 days.  It is a wonderful resort with lovely accomodations and a very attentive staff.  We went on jeep safaris each day.  In the early morning and late evening we went with a guide and driver and had the great good time seeing a pride of lions with two cubs.  We were about 10 feet away from them.  Watching the cubs play on tree limbs was so much fun.  Then they attacked their mother and that was fun to watch too.  We saw leopards and watch one of them climb a tree, sprawl out over a branch, and just let his feet dangle over each side of the limb.  We were so close that if he had fallen out of the tree, he would have landed in our laps.  Amazing!  On another of our game drives, we drove through a herd of buffalo and saw rhinos and their calves.  It seems every species had babies with them.
We took a nature walk out in the bush and learned about some plants and trees that were native to the area.  We learned that native peoples aften burned cow dung to keep the mosquitos and bugs away and that they inhaled the smoke to cure colds.  We had several people in our group that had colds, but we didn't try the remedy.  :)  We saw a flannel leaf plant which is very soft and was used to apply lotions to the skin.  We also learned that the weeping wattle was called "the toilet paper of the bush" because it was so soft and was easily layered to get just the right ply thickness for the purpose.  A very interesting tree is the  Buffalo Thorn.  It has thorns pointing one way on one side of the stem and thorns pointing the other way on the other side of the stem.  A double whammy if it catches your skin.  The leaves are very appealing to all the herbivores.  Giraffes take the whole branch in their mouths and strip the leaves off.  The thorns don't bother them.  The Shagaan people believe the branches symbolize life and the turns it takes because the branches actually do twist and turn.  They also take a branch from the tree to a funeral of a friend or family member to pass the branch over the person to "capture their spirit".  They will buy 2 tickets back home (one for the spirit of the deceased) and bring the branch back home so that the loved one's spirit will live with them.  Another great day in the bush.















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