Everything about the past 2 years has been unprecedented, why would my first trip since lockdown be any different?
I’ll often lament about the nature of my job. Not because all the delicious food I’m professionally obligated to sample has done a number on my waistline, or even that I’m granted access to some of the most magnificent hotel and resorts on the planet - most of which I may never get the opportunity to return to.
No. I rue the fact that I often travel alone.
I enjoy a solocation just as much as the next chakra hun, but on the rare occasion that I witness absolutely fantastical happenings, I'd like to share them with a loved one.
“I know. If I hadn’t been there myself, I wouldn’t believe it either,” I often remark.
In the past, I've tried to convince friends to play hookie with me for a week, but their unavoidable 9-5s get in the way of them enjoying a food tour in Zanzibar or getting to quad bike through the Karoo.
A few extraordinary cases presented themselves while I was at Kagga Kamma Nature Reserve recently.
Zane and Jaques were taking me through the astounding exhibition of authentic Khoi-San rock art, detailing the stylistic differences in the Khoi paintings and San markings, when we heard a shrill cry coming from one of the rock formations a few kilometers away. The sound bounced between the boulders, amplifying the sound and sending a chill down my spine.
“That’s a leopard,” Jacque began, “I’m 99% sure - because I’d have to see the animal to be 100% - that the sound we’re hearing is a leopard.”
Zane shoots his face in my direction and explains that in the 13 years the leopards have lived on the reserve, no one has seen nor heard the illusive creatures.
“Inga, you must understand how that these animals are skittish and solitary creatures. We’ve only ever captured pictures of the male on our tracking camera. Every once in a while we notice their track marks, but this has never happened bef-” Zane’s summary is cut short because the cry returns.
This time it is supported by a growl.
Jaques, our resident zoologist interjects again, “If those two aren’t fighting, they’re f- well doing something else that starts with that letter.”
Zane and I can’t hold our laughter. Jaques quickly brings his index finger to his lips and we comply. “If we want to see them, we can’t take the cruiser, they’ll hear the engine and run away. We would have to track them on foot but we can’t even do that because it wouldn’t be safe for you,” he confesses.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” I try to negotiate.
“It’s not safe for guests to do things like that. Off limits,” Jaques apologizes.
That very same evening, after I’d been delivered to my open air suite, I experienced something equally as outstanding. I saw not one, not two, not even three shooting stars, but six!
Six shooting stars in 3 hours!
Eventually I ran out of wishes to dedicate the astrological anomalies to because it felt like I was quite literally living my dream.
Don’t get me wrong, the thought of sleeping in a bed directly under the stars - knowing that two leopards were making their first appearance in over a decade - agitated my desire to settle down for the evening. This is why, I suspect, I found myself studying the night sky, bargaining that the ancestors gathered around the celestial bonfire overhead watch over me. With absolutely no air pollution and light dilution, it felt like the entire Milky Way was within arm’s reach.
We live in a time where everyone is desperate to share even the most pedestrian incidents on social media. I was invited to wander to a place where the WiFi is weak, and my worries became small.
Encouraged to live in the moment, life rewarded me with events that I will carry with me all the days of my life.
Zane, Jacque and I will always know what we heard, even if the Kagga Kamma Nature Reserve staff still won’t believe us. Similarly, I had an anointed experience with nebula whether people think the account is credible or not.
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