Where the Wild Things Are

Well, not that wild....

One of the great things about Kruger Park is that these magnificent creatures big and small are very used to cars.  People, not so much.  A quick peek out of your car window would incite quite a few turned heads.  Great for pictures, not so great for safety.  Animals or people.  However, at Kruger we were up close and personal with some of the most breathtaking scenery and animals in God's creation. 

We saw absolutely EVERYTHING there was to see.  The park rangers hand you a list of mammals, vegetation, birds, and reptiles to "tick" off as you see them in the park.  Well lets just say that the 2 days we were there we saw the "Big Five":  buffalo, rhino, lion, leopard, and elephant on both days, and just by driving out of the park we saw 4 out of the 5!

By then end of day 1 we had seen so many animals (and had enough wine) that it became a great game to "tick" off the various tree species in this South African paradise.  In fact, Larry once sang "mark it off the list" when we saw something new and this immediately became a theme of our trip where we would all sing when something new was spotted.  Whether it be a sea turtle or a man walking a goat, each experience was "on the list!"  Its possible we took great lengths to read the signs of what each species of tree or bush was while we were hauling tail to get to our campsite for the night, Skukuza, by park closing.  I'll let you use your imagination about what that looked like =).  We laughed a lot!

Bekki and Alan made sure our photo safari was first class by bringing a beautiful arrangement of meat, cheese, and wine!  None of which are easy to procure in Mozambique.

Here are some highlights of the aninmals we saw in Kruger.

The Big Five

We watched these two play fight and had to back the car up several times to keep from getting hit!

 Bekki's amazing photography.  She absolutely made me want my own SLR

Pride of female lions and their cubs at a zebra kill

This little guy had his fill of zebra....look at that belly!

Never was I so glad to be inside a vehicle.

We had a slight delay as a huge herd of these crossed the road.  Trust me, you do NOT rush them.

This was my first leopard sighting!  There was an impala kill in the tree.



Unfortunately all of our day 1 pictures were left in Africa due to a faulty memory stick.  I will post the highlights from those when we get them, but for now here are some more of my favorite kruger memories!

If it weren't for these guys we wouldn't have seen half the animal we did.  They are true hunters to the core!

 I can't believe how close this pride was.

 Wild Dog.  They don't stay still long, we were so amazingly blessed to see them. 

 

The suprisingly cute hyena

My favorite African animal!

The Kudu:  On Larry's bucket list of things to hunt

Elephants in the distance

We stayed the night in a camp in Skakuza in the middle of the park.  We were so exhuasted we couldn't keep our eyes open to watch the slide show of all the pictures we took. 

Some new breakfast items:  Rooibos tea with biscuits, long-life milk, and Larry and Alan's favorite "drinkin yogurt." 

It was hard to imagine that there could possibly be more to see and do on our African vacation, but sadly our time at Kruger came to an end.  As soon as the gates of camp opened we booked it back to Maputu to catch a flight to Bekki and Alan's home in Pemba.  We saw a cheetah on the way out, one of the only animals that had eluded us!

Little did we know we were on our way to paradise......Pemba!

To be continued................

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 4:11