Safari Time

Pre-safari:

Kevin's first experience driving on the left side of the road was incredibly stressful. Within the first 30 minutes of getting behind the wheel, we had stalled out multiple times, almost turned onto the wrong side of the road, and gotten ourselves lost while trying to find our way to the hotel. For someone who is generally very even-keeled, Kev was obviously frustrated and showing it by cursing up a storm. “This is so wrong!” He kept muttering. Every few minutes, he would accidentally turn on the windshield wiper instead of the turn signal and while I found this funny, he did not. We might as well have had RECENTLY ARRIVED TOURISTS emblazoned on the hood of our car. At some point, a car whizzed past us on the highway and motioned out the window for us to move into the left slow lane.

The next day, after a restful night's sleep and a delicious breakfast (with bacon!), we headed into Kruger Park (getting lost on the way yet again). We spent the following four days and three nights touring the park and seeing animals galore: zebra, elephant, giraffe, lion, leopard, warthog, hippo, crocodile, wildebeest, buffalo, impala, steenbok, rhino, waterbuck, monkey, other antelope, and a stunning variety of colorful birds. Everywhere we went, animals casually crossed the road in front and behind us. And, of course, they always had the right of way.

1st day safari:

Our first day in the park, we came face to face twice with two massive rhinos right next to the car, one of them so close that my long distance camera lens couldn't focus properly on it. Kev kept the car in gear in case we needed to gun it out of there, but the rhinos just stared back at us and then lumbered away. It wasn't until the final day that we saw another rhino.

On one of our drives, a car passed us coming the opposite way and flagged us to stop. The young couple in the car, obviously shaken, warned us not to keep going down that road, as they had just been chased by a herd of elephants. “There are hundreds of them!” They informed us. Not to be deterred, we continued down the same road, as it was the only one that would lead us to our rest camp in time for check-in. While we did see numerous elephants standing by the side of the road, we were very cautious about driving past them and provoking them. This drive ended up being the best of our entire trip.

One of the most fantastic sights of the day was of a male lion resting next to the fresh carcass of a large buffalo, right by the side of the road. A few vultures were hanging out nearby, waiting for a chance to eat. (The next day we passed by again and found the carcass covered with vultures, also an interesting sight to see.) However, the entire site was surrounded by other stopped cars and we were unable to get good photographs of the lion.

Zebras, giraffes, elephants, and impala became such a common sight on our outings, that by the 2nd day we had stopped caring to take photos every time we passed by. In our 1st day, we had seen four of the Big Five.

2nd day safari:
We saw seven lions (1 male, 6 females hanging out in pairs), and two leopards chilling in the same tree as we headed up to the northern part of Kruger. Leopards are the most elusive of the Big Five, and we were lucky to see two of them at once, although they were pretty far away and we had to battle with a ton of other cars for good angles. We kept scanning the trees afterwards, but never did see another leopard.

3rd day safari:
It drizzled all day as we headed back South to Satara camp. We spotted few animals but got some good shots of wading hippos, muddy crocodiles, and wet impala as they huddled under trees waiting for the rain to pass. As we continued bouncing along the rocky road, Kev's window began making a rattling noise and then refused to roll back up. We drove the rest of the day with an open window, paranoid that some animal would decide to jump in. In the evening, we bought some wildebeest steak from the store and grilled it up for dinner. Yum. The Mopani camp, in our opinion, was the nicest of the three we stayed at.

4th day safari:
The roads were still a bit muddy from the previous day rain. We took a animal-dense but less popular dirt path south, where we managed to spot our first lion! (The previous ones were spotted by other people, and surrounded by other cars) A majestic male lion standing in the tall sandy grass that we were very fortunate to have seen it before it laid back down. We watched it for about 15 minutes, undisturbed by other cars or people. In that time, we also spotted our first jackal trotting by.

Post-safari:
The night before we were to fly out of Nelspruit and back to Johannesburg, I discovered my passport missing. We turned our luggage and the hotel room inside out looking for it, but did not find it. We spent the evening and following morning calling all four of the places we had stayed at in the Kruger, unsuccessfully. We became resigned to the idea that we would have to drive to the American Embassy in Jo-burg, and would miss our Jo-burg flight if not our flights to Mozambique and the U.S. (And Peace Corps would probably never let me leave Moz again if they had to get me a new visa.)
Kev and I returned our extremely muddied car to the airport, and trudged to and from several airport kiosks in search of the Lost and Found. At the airline kiosk, I explained my situation again. The lady behind the counter smiled at me, asked if I had been on a flight from Cape Town, and to our immense and infinite relief, produced an envelope with my passport in it. It had fallen out of my purse on the plane.
What's a vacation without a little drama, anyway?