What is Safari Live? Summary of Blog.

Hello everyone, I’m starting this new blog so hopefully people will learn why they should and would love to watch, “Safari Live Drives;” and of course I am hoping for daily readers as well. I will be summarizing the, “Safari Live Daily Drives,” which will come in very handy for those regular viewers who miss a drive and want to read what they missed. For the most part I hope to stay objective, although I have a tendency to ramble so no promises. Due to the fact that the drives are twice daily for three hours each, then with editing and fact checking time, I am not sure yet how long it will take me to post each daily summary so please bear with me. 

For those of you, who don't know what I’m talking about, when I say Safari Live Drives, let me explain. These "Drives" take place in South Africa, as, Safari Guides that we call presenters, drive open safari vehicles, thru a completely wild game reserve with a camera and cameraman on the back of the vehicle, and through many technical miracles are able to stream LIVE to viewers all over the world through the internet. So basically it is exactly as it sounds, just hard to believe. The headquarters for this fabulous adventure they bring to us is on Djuma game reserve in South Africa. 

A quote from the Djuma game reserve website http://www.djuma.com/ describes their location as follows. "Djuma Private Game Reserve is an oasis of luxurious calm in the wilds of the world-renowned, Sabi Sand Game Reserve, Situated in the heart of the true South African bush."

The location is a game reserve not a zoo so, the animals are completely wild, but over the past 65 years have been habituated to the safari vehicles as just part of their daily life. I can't even count the number of times I have held my breath because a lion, leopard, or elephant has walked so close to the Land Rover, “open safari vehicles” that I was terrified for the presenter and cameraman, even though they have told us they were safe. 

These awesome daily drives come with the added bonus of us, the viewers, having three different ways to interact with the presenters to ask questions, and make comments which are then answered by the presenters “LIVE,” and most of the time within minutes of sending them. Each drive is presented by two different presenters in two different vehicles although sometimes we are blessed with one of them on a bushwalk, which means they are walking through the game reserve, YES, I said WALKING! 

***The above Video is of Safari Live's opening sequence. I had no part in creating it.***
**Here is a link to SafariLive's other Video that shows more of why we all love Safari Live!!**

     The Idea and concept for Safari Live Drives is created by as well as brought to us by WildEarth. They can be found on one of several different sites listed below.

•      http://www.wildearth.tv/cam/wildearth-safaris 
•   http://www.wildsafarilive.com/ 
•   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF47Za1lfjM
•   http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wildearth-safaris
•   http://sportsmansparadiseonline.com/African_Safaris.html

Currently the drive start times are as follows Sunrise Drive 5:30 South Africa Standard Time (SAST)/11:30pm Eastern Time(EST), lasting three hours.

The Second Drive or Sunset Drive is at 4:00pm SAST/10:00am Eastern Time(EST) until 7:00pm SAST/1:00pm EST.

The time difference can be really confusing for some people, such as me, since the time difference is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time where I have lived my entire life. As you see above, Sunrise Drive is late evening here in the eastern US, and their Sunset Drive is in our morning. I have only posted their time and mine but there is a TimeZone Converter – Time Difference Calculator site which helped me get a handle on understanding the difference, and sadly I still sometimes have to refer to the site to convert the time.

A lot of people don't have the money to go to South Africa for a safari, or are frightened because of the things that can be seen on television or the internet. These drives help with that, they show you how great a safari could be if you were there in person, and how the guides learn to keep you safe. However for those of us who can't go in person it gives us the opportunity to see what it’s truly like.

 More importantly there is so much education in these drives. On any given day we can see many amazing African animals just going on about their daily lives as if the vehicles were not even there. We see lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, wild dogs, elephants, giraffe, 6 different antelope species, which when I started watching I had no clue there we so many species and didn’t realize the differences between them and deer here in north America. We also see numerous different bird species, insects, arachnids, and numerous reptiles such as the Boomslang and Black Mamba snakes which are two of South Africa's deadliest snakes. 

What I have mentioned so far doesn't come close to revealing all we see. Of course there are days when the animals don't feel like being viewed or the presenters just can't seem to get lucky enough to find them. That’s perfectly fine for us, the viewers, because the presenters answer questions, tell stories of things they've learned or experienced, make hilarious dances to please the small children that watch. A good example of that is a ridiculously funny rain dance. They also tell us folk tales from African heritage, and explain the people and culture of the area. In my time watching which is minimal compared to many of the other viewers, some of my favorite moments have been when we saw a male leopard dig into a warthog burrow and pull out a baby warthog for a snack. Wild Dogs chasing elephants and the elephants furiously chasing them back that was exciting to watch. Hyenas stealing kills from both lions and leopards on different occasions. A male Lion lying on his back roaring so loud my TV and computer shook from the bass. An elephant trying to show the vehicle who is boss which was terrifying, but no one was actually hurt. Elephants can be quite moody and if you watch you will learn what I mean by that. Also the young and baby elephants love to try to show the vehicles how big and tough they are by holding out their ears and shaking their heads, when actually they are tiny in comparison to their mothers whom they quickly run back to seek her protection. 

I have also had the joy of watching hyena cubs grow up from approximately 2 weeks old in early November 2015 until now. The cub I am thinking of we call, “November,” since he was born, yes you guessed it, in November. Once every couple of days, we get to visit the den, and sometimes more often. In the past several months many of the viewers including myself, have managed to identify the entire hyena clan whose territory is on Djuma Game Reserve. 

© 2016 Chell Taft

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