Four outta five ain't bad

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Africa is famous for it’s diversity in animals, plants and landscapes. One of the main reasons we extended our layover here to 20 days was so that we could go and see these things. Only 3 days after we arrived, we packed up and went on a four-day camping safari in Kruger National Park.

The goal was to see the “Big 5” (elephant, rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo). We slept in tents within the park boundaries. We spent all day, every day (and some nights) in safari trucks crawling around the park, straining our eyes out into the bush. Finding animals in general wasn’t too difficult, they were everywhere. Things like impalas, zebras, waterbucks, steenboks, giraffes, and hippos were so commonplace that by the third day we passed them by with hardly a look. We were in search of rhinos and cats. By the time we had left we had seen everything except the leopard, and made a commitment that the continent of Africa will be a destination in itself for another trip in the future. I want to see the great herds of the Serengeti, and Egypt, and Mozambique, and a leopard, and … lots of other things. Anyway.

Now we are back in Joburg preparing to take a “hop-on, hop-off” bus from here to Cape Town. We have only 10 days left in South Africa, and are unsure how we are going to spend them. Drakensberg will be our first stop, then who knows.

We’ll be sure to tell you all about it,

The Smiths

Note: In case you haven't noticed, I have discovered how to make and publish panorama photographs. The one featured here is of the "Three Rondavels" of the Blyde River Canyon. Arriving at this viewpoint was one of the few "take-my-breath-away" experiences of my life.

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Photos

Stiff necks
Wooden giraffes outside a shop.

God's Window
En route to Kruger we stopped at some S. African attractions. God's Window is a physical divide between the Highveld and the Lowveld. The escarpment has a 700m sheer vertical drop and is 250km long. We couldn't really see it due to the weather.

Stampede
Wooden hippos at a small market next to God's Window.

Bourke's Luck Potholes
The next natural wonder we stopped to see.

Waterfalls
that make Bourke's Luck Potholes.

Good advice...
though maybe unnecessary.

Funny-looking bird
The following are all pictures from inside Kruger National Park. They are roughly in the order in which we encountered the animals. Names are included when we know them.

Baboons
Found everywhere. Always fighting, eating each other's ticks, stealing people food, and..., um, attempting to reproduce.

Swarm
Small birds, that live in groups numbering in the hundreds, that explode from the ground as the truck passes. Beautiful.

Giraffe
Truly the strangest land animal I have ever seen.

Crazy Carl
The driver of our night safari, where we saw three female lions walking through the bush. He says he carries the gun for our protection, we figure it's for show. He calls himself Crazy Carl.

Shiny Mugs
One rainy day, Krysta needed a jacket and sweater. She never saw the sun, but still managed to get a sunburn.

Comments

[Alison]

Once again, I'm blown away by the fantastic photos! Keep having fun!

[Lisa]

WOW!!
Now I am officially crazy jealous of you guys! An African Safari is # 1 on my list of places I must see before I die! I am assumming you now have a similar list. I am so glad you have been and I can now pick someone's brain about it. Stupid jealous, Lisa