DRJO

Photos from my October 2009 trip to Arathusa, Sabi Sands, including 5 incredible leopard.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drjos_p...7624469858932/

spassvogel

Incredible pics! THX for sharing!

Could you pls give some infos on ARATHUSA:
- how many people in vehicle?
- guiding?
- how many cars per sighting?
- accommodation?

I would really love to hear more about you experiences..

Thank you!

jczinn

Fabulous! So jealous you saw wild dogs and Carmine Bee Eaters--we saw neither in November '09. October is way early for the Carmine Bee-eater, you were really lucky! So sad about that leopards eye

christabir

I loved our time in Arathusa - thanks for the pics to remind me!

wildwings

Great photos, shows why the Sabi Sand is such an excellent safari destination! To answer spassvogel:
Maximum 9 per land rover, usually less. If you book the luxury suites at Arathusa, you will have your own vehicle shared between 4 rooms (so if they are not all fully booked, the vehicle will have fewer people on)
The guiding is great at Arathusa, but guiding positions are usually not very long term so this can change. Also, one lodge could have one excellent guide and one mediocre/inexperienced guide, and you don't know who you will get until you are there.
Maximum 3 vehicles per sighting. That said, Arathusa is in the north of the Sabi Sand which is not as crowded as the southern/western section of the Sabi Sand.
Fantastic accommodation at Arathusa. Standard rooms with views over the waterhole, 4 bigger luxury suites with bush view and outside showers.

Kits55

I stayed at Arathusa this past February with my husband and parents. There is a maximum of 8 people on one vehicle that services all of the luxury lodges. I was told (by Arathusa) there is a maximum of 10 people on a vehicle if you stay in the standard rooms. You can get 10 on a vehicle because someone will have to sit up front next to the guide. The tracker sits on a little seat that hangs out over the side in front.

The luxury rooms were fantastic. They are further away from the main buildings so the walk is a bit longer and not recommended for people with mobility difficulties or people who maybe couldn't handle the walk (it's not paved). If you stay in the luxury rooms you will have someone from Arathusa walk to you and from your room in the dark (morning and night) because predators have access to the area around the luxury rooms. We never saw anything although one of the other guides told us he saw a lion a couple of weeks before our stay.

We never saw the standard rooms but I assume they are probably very nice.

Our guiding was pretty good. Our guide/tracker did not find many things but rather heard about it over the CB so we usually went where other vehicles were already.

We saw the Big 5 within two games drives. I would say 95% of our sightings were close up and I did well with my 70-300 lens although I wish at time I had had a bit more reach. The service we received was excellent. The food was just so-so but for me, I'm not on safari to eat gourmet food; I'm just there for the animals and nature.

Remember if you stay at Arathusa you'll need to take Malaria pills. It's about a 7.5-8 drive from northern Joburg. We got a speeding ticket as did our friends so it's best to drive the speed limit and not try to shave off 15 minutes of drive time.

Hope this helps!