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Published: November 23rd 2014
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Elephants
Elephants in the Kruger N.P. in South Africa Today, my child dream will coming true: a visit to (Safari) Africa! But, there was one little problem: before I booked, I really had no idea where to go. South/East Africa is big, and each country has his unique landscape and traditions. I searched a country where I can see a lot of wild animals, beautiful scenery, and culture (traditional African live and history). But, where to start? To get an answer to this question, I visited a travel grant. A lot of travel specialist recombined me South Africa; a living culture, a lot of history, great nature, interesting history and of course the famous park, the Kruger. I found my trip by the Dutch organization Djoser; a 21 camping trip. The local agency was Africa Travel Co, which organized much Africa overland trips. They have special overland Safari trucks, where all equipment for the camping and our luggage could be easily stored; and of course, there were enough places for us. The group consisted out of 18 people: single travelers (just like me) and 3 couples, and two pairs of friends. In total we had 4 man, and 14 woman; different of ages from 25 to 60 (which means that
I was the youngest).
Today, it started. It was an early day, because at 7 am we had to be at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. That's why we left a little bit over 5 am to be on time. Arrived at Schiphol, we parked our car and it was time to do self in-checking. By the self in-checking I met Ingeborg; a single traveler which joined our group. She helped me with self in-checking. The system selected automatically a seat; but you can change if you wanted to. I got a perfect seat: by the window! Yes, so I really can see a lot of the African beauty from the sky! Our flight was fully booked. The crew came to the airplane a little bit too late: and boarding took quite slow. This resulted that our scheduled departure at 10.05 am would not be reachable. We left a half our later and the take off went without any problems. I flew with KLM, KL 597, and seat 39J. Our Aircraft was a Boeing 777-200 ER.
During the fight, I had a good overview over Africa. I saw the France Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, Tunisia and the Sahara Desert. Hereafter, we
went in some clouds and had some turbulence. In Namibia and the North of South-Africa, we came in some harder turbulence. Around 12 am, we got our first meal: you could choice between vegetarian pasta and meatballs. I choose for meatballs and it was served with mashed potatoes, red cabbage, salad, bread and a dessert. Our second meal was around 8. We had a pizza, Salad Caprese and a dessert. At 22.30, with some heavy side wind we landed at Cape Town.
I waited at the luggage, before going to the costume, where I got my first two stamps: Entry of South Africa at the Cape Town Airport and a stamp for prohibiting employment. From here, we could walk to the exit of the costume, where our tour leader was waiting; Manda. Manda is a tour leader from Africa Travel Co, which was waiting for us with a plate of the travel organization. When I reached him, I met some others of the group. Our driver Bheki, asked to fill in some forms. From here, we met some other people of the group. Three of them already booked a prolongation: they were already in Cape Town.
We reached
our hotel, the Ashanti Lodge Gardens around midnight. I shared a room with Yvonne. We had room 02 of the Guesthouse 1. From here, our adventure could start!
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