April 2011

I recently attended the Indaba Travel Show held in Durban, South Africa and was elated when Pondoro was elected as a finalist in the category Best Safari Spa at the Safari Awards Gala Dinner held at Indaba. I want to make use of this opportunity to thank everyone who nominated and voted for Pondoro.

In our efforts to excel and provide the best possible experience for our guests we decided to build a Jacuzzi onto the deck overlooking the river at each of our 5 luxury suites.

The Jacuzzis are a perfect fit as guests will be able to use them in winter and summer and will enhance Pondoro’s reputation as a romantic safari destination.

The Jacuzzis will be finished by the end of May. In keeping with the romantic theme we decide to limit the age of children visiting the lodge to 12 years and older. We feel that this will improve our product and service as well as the overall guest experience.

We received some late rain just as the approaching winter was slowly putting on its red and yellow coloured autumn coat. The grass and trees were painted green yet again and birds are singing joyously to celebrate this gift of nature.

Some highlights of our sightings during the month of April 2011:

2 April – Saw Mazinyo and one young Olifants west pride male as wall as the Singwe pride females at a giraffe kill close to Billy’s lodge

3 April – Saw Masinyo and one young Olifants west pride male at the giraffe kill The rest of the Olifants west pride were seen resting at Nyari dam

4 April – Mazinyo and young male were seen feeding on the giraffe close to Billy’s Lodge

10 April – The new young male leopard were seen again, this time at Xigamba dam. We estimate his age between 3-4 years old.

14 April – Olifants river pride were found on koppie road feeding on a freshly killed zebra.

15 April – We found Big Boy and Mazinyo, the 2 territorial males, as well as 3 younger males feeding on a freshly killed baby giraffe when the 3 Singwe males arrived. Big Boy immediately got up and chased them away. It is clear that the Singwe males are now pushing into the older males’ territories and that they have to a large degree lost their fear. A huge fight is looming not too far into the future!

18 April – We saw the mother cheetah and her 2 subadult cubs close to the Olifants road during the morning drive.

22 April – 3 Cheetah ( mother and cubs ) close to Olifants road.

29 April – 3 African wild dogs hunting on the Barnard cutline.

Overall lion sightings were very good and we enjoyed several good leopard sightings as well. There are a lot of elephants around and breeding herds were seen nearly every day. A group of +/- 200 buffaloes were seen often in our concession area. White rhino were seen about every 3rd day.