Chitwa Chitwa Private Game Lodge, Sabi Sand, South Africa
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. Suddenly my daughter shoots a dirty look my way and says through gritted teeth ?he can sense your fear?. Little does she know it is excitement instead of fear. My favorite predator is making eye contact with me ? a majestic leopard is grooming the remnants of his warthog kill off himself while we look on.

We had traversed the Sabi Sand reserve earlier in the afternoon and tracker Betuel Sithole thought he spotted leopard paw prints. A smell so foul permeates the air that ranger Andries Mathebula exclaims we have just driven over leopard ?poopy?. Unbeknownst to everyone on the vehicle Mr Leopard, affectionately known as Tingana, has stashed his warthog kill in the entrance to a burrow. We smell the carcass before we see the leopard. He is having trouble extracting his meal that is stuck and is taking little bites out of the dead animal and re-emerges to chew. After a particularly intense feed where he has blood streaming down his chin, he elegantly starts his fastidious grooming process. We leave the sighting and the now unbearable stench of the decaying warthog.
Let me start at the beginning. Due to a rental car problem, we arrive at Chitwa Chitwa Private Game Lodge much later than anticipated. Assistant general manager Dinho Pelembe arranges that our luggage be offloaded and our ranger will meet us at reception to join the evening game drive. I am so exultant ...