Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hello again ,
Amy here. I'm a couple of days late on this but it is finally time to fill you in on our visits to the Johannesburg area and the Kruger National Park. We stayed with Dave and Marlane (THANK YOU!!!), Woody's parents, for the second time (they also hosted us the night before we flew out to Vic Falls). Again, we had a fantastic time. They spoiled us like we were their own children, packing lunches in a cooler for our drive to Kruger and sending mosquito killer (we have GOT to get this stuff in the US!!) with us. We also had our first experience at Nando's...seemingly everyone's favorite South African restaurant-and for good reason-the chicken and all the spicy sauces are mouth watering (literally-Simon and I used the "hot" sauce, and it was "Indian hot"-YUM!).
So after a lovely night with Dave and Marlane, we headed off for a six hour drive in our tiny blue rental car (Christina and Gerri-it was VERY similar to the Blue Bobber from Ireland!) to Kruger. The drive was generally uneventful, except that we ran across a bit of fog that had closed the freeway so we had to take a 10 or 15 mile detour to another freeway. On the map it didn't look very far, so we didn't think it would be much of a problem. Unfortunately, it was us and several hundred other cars going down a road that had more potholes than it did tar. Some of the holes were as long as our car so we had to drive at a very bumpety snail's pace. I suppose it made us thankful for the nice roads that were to come. :)
Eventually we made it to the park and were off to see the animals. It was hard to understand until we got into the park why everyone told us it would take, say, an hour and a half to go 50 or 60km (35 miles or so). However, as soon as we started driving and seeing our first animals we realized that 30km per hour was a very reasonable pace! The first afternoon we saw lots of impala, a few elephants, some baboons, warthogs, and monkeys. In the park, you are required to be inside your camp area between sunset and sunrise so we always had to make sure to be to our camp early. We were in the park for five nights and stayed at three different camps, but in five different actual rooms-well, a tent and four huts. That's what we get for only booking our accommodation a few months in advance! We enjoyed the camps, though. We always had a barbecue (braai) outside our room, so we grilled out three evenings. In honor of being in South Africa, we had boerevors (a special spiced sausage), but I couldn't resist my American ways, so we had marshmallows over the fire, too (coconut coated, even!!).
Ok, enough of the accommodation. It's time for the animals! We really had no idea what we would actually see, but were hoping to see the "Big 5" (elephants, rhinos, leopards, lions, and buffalo). We did all the driving ourselves, usually from about 8am until 4 or 5pm, and saw all kinds of things. We finally broke down and bought a guide to common African animals because we couldn't figure out what all the different antelope were. We also went on one sunset safari, where they drive you around in a big safari truck to hopefully see some of the nocturnal animals out and about. We were very, very lucky to see a leopard on that drive, just about 15 feet from the truck who was stalking a lone impala that didn't see the leopard and walked about 10 feet in front of it. Much to Simon's dismay, the leopard apparently wasn't hungry because he just let the impala keep on his way! I was secretly glad, though I would have been happy if the leopard had gone for the kill and missed! :) Even though Simon didn't get to see the survival of the fittest game he was hoping for, it was still exciting to be so close to the leopard for such a long time (20 minutes or more) and to see him crouch to pounce and then walk off through the bush. After that, for the next two and a half hours of the drive we just shivered and stared into the blackness or at the spotlight that our truck was shining into the bush. Luckily we saw the leopard, because we didn't see too much else on the night drive (though we did see a bush baby, rabbit, eagle spotted owl, and, of course, more impala).
Once we got back from the night drive, I immediately realized that my wallet was missing (and this was the first time I had taken it out of my backpack in weeks!). Simon had taken it to the pay phone to book our accommodation in Cape Town for the next week and somewhere between there and the end of the drive it disappeared. Sadly, no one returned it (I guess we aren't in Nebraska anymore!), so we spent a good part of the next day canceling my credit and debit cards (thank goodness there was no cash in the wallet!). Fortunately, whoever took it didn't attempt to use the cards so we don't have to fight any fraudulent claims and Simon's debit card still works! It could have been much, much worse!
We took one day off from staring into the bush looking for animals to take an excursion to visit some nearby areas that Woody recommended (thanks Woody!). We visited a neat canyon and saw the "potholes" that the river had carved out from the canyon walls (MUCH nicer than the potholes we had to avoid on the road a few days before!!). We also stopped at "God's Window", a beautiful overlook at the top of a trail where you can see a giant green valley hundreds of meters below.
Ok, finally to the animals. On the last day we had more luck than we had ever imagined and saw ALL of the big 5 plus three cheetas and dozens more animals, too. We actually even saw them all on the same road, most of them in the last hour of our drive. It made for such a fantastic finish to the trip, a kind of finale, you could say! Yikes, I don't have many minutes left, so I will just give a list of all the animals we saw over the week. Sorry if it's long, just imagine how excited we were!!!
Here goes...
waterbuck, ground hornbill, yellow beaked hornbill, mongoose, kudu, impala, zebra, giraffe, hippo, lilac breasted roller, baboon, warthog, elephant, squirrel, buffalo, sable, lion, water monitor, crocodile, vervet monkey, wildebeest, bush baby, rabbit, leopard, spotted eagle owl, white rhino, common duiker, eagle, steenbok, hawk, cheetah, and ostrich!!!!!!!!!! AND we saw lots and lots of most of those animals. I'll have to save those details for another day, though!
Oh no, I'm almost out of time and haven't even gotten to explain how wonderful it was to visit Warren's sister and her family. Thank you Leigh-anne, Kevin, and Ryan!!! It was great to swap stories and absolutely fantastic to be completely spoiled!!! Leigh-anne, we can't wait to see you in December. Sadly, our camera died just as we arrived to their house, so we won't have any pictures of them to share!
Yikes, I'm officially out of time, so I will have to end this message, but know that we had a great time and are now in Capetown, our very last stop of the trip! Very mixed feelings about that! Who's ready for work?!?
More soon...
amy & simon :)
- comments