This week has been amazing as only an African Safari can be! I highly recommend it as an item for everyone’s bucket list. To add to the magnificence was the wonderful man I met and had such a strong connection to. The last was that I had such proof of my manifestations. I asked for some things which are almost miracles and they were given to me.
Very early last Tuesday morning, Norm and I flew up to Johannesburg to meet up with his cousins who had flown in from the UK and the US. None of us had met and we were lucky to recognise each other. First we met his cousin Kim and her partner Greg. Then we all waited 2 hours for his cousin Judith and her friend Wendy to come off the plane from Scotland. I was exhausted and of course I was hot, soon we began to wonder had they missed their connection? Eventually they appeared and said that the plane did not have a gate or something to let them get off and that had caused the delay. It sounds like they drove that plane around that airport like trying to find a parking space at Costco on Christmas Eve.
Anyway, once we all united, off we rushed to Avis and rented a big 9 seater van and headed to Pilanesberg National Park. We had booked to stay at the Bakubung Bush Lodge, one of the many types of accommodation offered in the park. Norm and I had stayed there before and it was much smaller and really quaint. Now it is massive!! We did half board which includes a gorgeous extensive breakfast buffet and a dinner buffet as well as one game drive per day. They have a 5am drive and a 4pm drive option so that was our reason for the rush.
We were lucky to arrive at the accommodation in time to make the 4pm game drive. Our guide had heard that there were some lions visible and he made a concerted effort to race there to catch a glimpse. We saw so many amazing sights. It is just too much to put each sighting in this post separately so I did a few little summary videos.
The next day we got up and had breakfast and then sat outside in the sun for a bit. It was a gorgeous bright day.
Later on we did the evening game drive then headed to our rooms after dinner as the next morning we were booked for the 5am game drive. Again, I did a compilation reel of sightings from several drives.
The most rewarding thing is seeing the babies and as it is spring there were lots of babies! We saw baby rhino, elephants, lions, cheetahs, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, baboons and many others. We saw some of the more rare antelopes, the Tsessebe which is the fastest antelope on earth and the Red Hartebeest which has special meaning for me.
The game drives are at sunrise and sunset and even though it is so hot there during the day, it was freezing without the sun when driving in the open trucks.
You could feel the air on your face shift from icy cold to slightly warmer as the sun came up higher and heated up. Conversely you started warm on the evening drive and it got bitterly cold on the way home in the dark.
On our second night we did the evening drive and then the safari trucks drove us to a Bush Braai, which just means cooking meat outside in the wilds. We were in a secure fenced area but we were in the centre of the game park. They set the area all up beautifully. There was a large fire burning, lanterns set up on the picnic tables and a buffet set up with a separate bar.
There were groups of young people dancing as well as some older people who accompanied them by singing or playing drums, Marimbas and other African instruments.
The lateness of the hour, the amount of noise, the constant chatter in my ears all piled up and I had an anxiety attack. It was a lovely evening but I could not cope with it, however I had no choice but to stay until the end as we had to go back to the lodge with our driver.
It was so embarrassing but I have tried to tell myself that how it looks to other people is irrelevant, my mental health is my mental health and I will not suppress it for anyone. I used to do that to fit in, seething silently if my boundaries were crossed or sit and dissociate because I was not coping with the situation. But then I did exactly that to myself when I talked everyone into going to Sun City.
The following day we had booked a shuttle to take us to Sun City and we headed off after the morning game drive. We had been up since just after 4am to make the drive, my knee was really sore and it was hot. We walked into the Valley of the Waves area and the combined energy of the queue of about 50 shrieking children, the pain and heat sent me into another anxiety attack.
I left the group and Norm eventually came to find me. He dragged me off into the water park, sat me down in the shade and gave me a frozen drink to sip on. We were right next to the running water and that seemed to help me balance out. I felt like I was ruining his holiday with his family and that I had behaved so badly again. Norm kept telling me he wanted to be nowhere else but with me. Then my friend Tam messaged me, talked me off the ledge with breathing exercises and told me that I was ignoring my body trying to tell me it needed rest. I spoke to a girl at the info desk who was so sweet. She said she was Neurodiverse too and she completely understood. She went and got her car and drove me to the lodge. There was no coincidence that her name was Hope as she rescued me! Another manifestation sent to assist me when I needed it.
In between drives and meals I chilled on my balcony, watching the other guests, the little mongoose scurrying around and the various beautiful birds coming up to stare at me.
The last full day we had left we went for the 5am game drive again and the game ranger made such an effort to get us the most amazing trip of our visit. We were surrounded by a huge herd of elephants, we saw rhino right up close, we saw cheetah lying off in the distance but could see them in the binocs.
The big moment was arriving upon a pack of lions which had a relatively fresh kill and the resulting, round, bulging bellies. The babies were hilarious as they attacked each other, rolled around and crawled over their incredibly tolerant mom.
We had seen the 2 females, 3 cubs and a large male the previous day so we wondered where Daddy was and if he had also filled his belly and was sleeping it off out of eye-sight.
Then another truck passed us and said ‘COME‘ and off we went in hot pursuit. This was when we saw the leopard. I told Hambu I manifested it and he told me he dreamed about it so I told him it was a combination of his male energy and my female energy and we could share it.
It was a rare and amazing sighting getting to see a leopard up close. The leopard was lying down when we arrived, then she got up and she wandered around so close to us! I have never seen one so close up in the wild and I have been on many safaris. She is so beautiful, I absolutely adore leopards.
There were several occasions when I would close my eyes and ask for a particular animal and we would round the corner and there it was. I had asked for a sighting of a Crimson-breasted shrike and I saw one, and I also asked for and received a giraffe, a leopard, rhino, cheetahs and lions. We saw mostly everything we wanted to. It was such a blessed trip.
While watching the leopard I heard a bird call and asked Hambu what it was and he said it was a Shrike / African Boubou, I told him that I have one that lives in my garden and that he sings all 13 of his songs and as I said 13 songs Hambu said the same fact! When I looked up the meaning and read that the Boubou Bird carries a deep spiritual meaning that is much celebrated in various African cultures. It symbolizes a connection between one’s ancestral spirit and their present self, unity, and healing. In some areas, it is commonly referred to as the teacher bird for its ability to help us identify our true path in life. This proved to be a sign of the touch points of our conversation later.
We went in for a late breakfast because Hambu had made such an effort to show us the most amazing sights that we were arriving back to the lodge after breakfast usually ended but he had rang ahead and asked them to keep the food out for us.
We were sitting outside because it was so lovely and continued chatting after we finished eating. There was a man who had been on every drive we were on and he had a very expensive camera so I asked him if he was a professional photographer and he said no he just did it for fun but he would email me copies of his best images once he edited them all. He was sitting with Hambu the driver and I asked if I could join them. The man went to this room to get some cash to tip Hambu and so he and I started chatting about being indigenous and colonisation. He and I talked about having been forced to be given a ‘white’ name rather than a tribal name and how he had tried to have it changed and the department of home affairs would not let him.
I talked about how I was given my Medicine Name and my Path of the White Wolf training. (That link will bring up every post where I mention this phrase.)
He told me how proud he is of his children but how sad he is that the African people often think that prosperity and success means leaving behind their cultures. The loss of the games he played as a child, or the loss of many cultural ceremonies he remembered from childhood made him sad.
I talked about the Medicine Wheel and the concept of ‘7 Generations’ and generational trauma and the need for those who have been colonised to have ancestral healing to clear those soul debts and traumas. Even though I have been told I am of Cherokee descent, I practice a philosophy based on a mix of various tribes. The Seventh Generation Principle is based on an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)* philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.
I told him that I am a drummer and that I made my own drum from a red hartebeest skin. I told him that I have sang in several African languages as well as Native American languages as we are all bonded by our indigenousness.
We talked so long and I really felt like we connected. He said to me ‘I see your soul and I love the way you think about life’ and I said ‘I see your soul too and I offer deep respect to you’.
I gained so much from that connection that it helped me get through the rest of the trip.
Later that afternoon some of us decided to lie by the pool. I had learned my lesson about alcohol triggering my anxiety so while they all drank cocktails I had virgin frozen mocktails. They were probably full of sugar, but luckily not enough to send me into another panic!
There was an African Grey Hornbill that flew into the sliding door of our balcony 4 times while I was down by the pool. It gave Norm a bit of a fright. Then when Norm and Judith went out for an afternoon game drive on their own, I sat on my balcony and two smaller hornbills and a third massive one all came to sit and stare at me while I spoke softly to them. There were various birds that came to stare at me. I saw a beautiful hoopoe.
We left at 8am yesterday to drive to the airport to fly back to Cape Town. Everyone is staying with us for a week.
Today Norm has taken our guests off on an excursion. They went to the Hout Bay Market for breakfast and then to some wine farms. Gregg is cooking for us tonight which I am looking forward to after eating out for weeks it seems!
I have sat in my garden in between writing. I write better in drabs as I cannot think for that long in one sitting. Or I cannot sit for so long in one thinking? Not sure. Finn was sad he could not go with Daddy since he had been gone for so long and only just got back, but he kept his eye on me once he finished sulking.
I am back at work tomorrow and I am now very behind in my deliverable so I will be putting on my rabbit hole eyes and going deep.
I hope you all had a lovely week previous and that you shall ahead as well. Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxxo
Kitten in the City 
Pingback: Anxiety Blocks the Light – Kitten in the City
Pingback: Tin Lizzie and the Backyard Safari – Kitten in the City