Robyn Roste, Systems & Funnels

Robyn vs Africa (Part Two) | My Epic African Adventure

Now, where were we in this tale of my trip to southern Africa and all the personal battles I faced…I call it Robyn vs Africa.

Robyn vs. Africa

Here’s the link to Robyn vs Africa (Part One) in case you missed it.

Robyn va Africa: My epic trip to southern Africa

By the end of my epic journey (which may be an epic memoir one day) where I determined to see EVERY animal in Africa I only missed spotting wild dogs and panthers. Perhaps I would’ve felt the sting of failure except I saw leopards.

Why is this important? Because the first time I went to South Africa (wayyyy back in 2001 and 2002) it was the only animal I had ever wanted to see in the wild. Ever. And I didn’t see it. And I was in Africa for a long time.

The crazy part is I sat under a tree and watched a leopard eat an impala. It was totally gross by the way. Like, gross. Anyway, the story behind this leopard is she wasn’t eating her kill. Yeah. Leopards hunt sometimes when they’re not hungry, and they have trees where they store their food in so mangy scavengers don’t steal it. The only problem is, other leopards can be mangy scavengers too.

So, I don’t know what happened to Leopard #1, the one who made the kill and stored her food for later. Perhaps she was tuckered and went to take a nap and then have brunch. Who am I to say, I’m no tracker.

Along comes Leopard #2. She spots the tree, spots the food, and thinks, “By golly I think I will make myself comfortable.”

But then!

She sees another impala. Except this one’s alive and she goes and kills it. However, the chase was quite long and by the time she won she was far, far from the tree. So what does Leopard #2 do? Why what any mangy scavenger would do: drag impala #2 back the 20 miles to the tree so Leopard #2 can enjoy both impalas.

No kidding. The ranger and the tracker followed the whole thing so we could have front row seats at dawn. By the time we caught up with Leopard #2 she was dragging impala #2 up the tree. Then she settled in and polished half of it off. It was totally gross. Did I mention that already?

However, it was also a pretty great experience because it wasn’t on TV. It was happening in front of my eyes and we were literally sitting under the tree taking it all in. We probably watched for an hour and a half, maybe longer.

You do get over the smell and sounds. Kind of. But you don’t get out of the truck. Not ever. No matter how much you have to pee.

A couple years ago I had an amazing chance to visit southern Africa for a few weeks and I made it my goal to spot as many different animals as I could.

One more thing. I think you’ll enjoy my free resource library. This is where I keep my files, downloads, ebooks, worksheets and whatever else I manage to create. I love sharing what I learn and want to keep adding to this library so it becomes a wealth of helpful goodness.

This is a free resource but I do require a password to access the library itself. You can get access by popping your email address into the form below.

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