August 11th-13th: we`re Going on a Safari!!

Chelsea on the keyboard:

Thursday, August 11th.
Mozaic Travel came to pick us up the next morning at 6am. We had 3 vans- each with a guide: Thorcen, Pete and Kerry. We headed out shortly after that for the South African border and Kruger National Park! :) Everything went as planned and we entered the park via Crocodile Bridge midday. We did a 5 hr game drive through the park on our way to Satara- our camp for the next two nights. It was amazing to say the least! We saw elephants, kudu, impala, zebras, giraffes, monkeys, baboons, crocodiles, vultures, hippos, buffalo, warthogs, mongoose and about a million bird species. We caught the tail end of a white rhino crossing the street in front of our van and stopped just in time to have a herd of 8 elephants walk metres in front of us! It was incredible! To see all of these animals, roaming freely in their own habitat was surreal. The elephants might stop and stare at you, the baboons came right up beside us, giraffes towered above us... you had to be there!
The animals weren`t always that easy to spot though- Thorcen trained us to scan the bush from right to left as opposed to left to right because we are so conditioned to read that way that we can easily overlook things like we do when we`re reading and skip words. Many of the animals blended right in with the background- the hippos usually looked like big rocks in the middle of the waterhole! We started to get the hang of it by the end of the trip but Thorcen, our guide, caught most of it for us. By the time we had checked in at Satara we had seen 3 of the Big 5. They call it the Big 5 because they are the most dangerous animals to hunt. They are the: rhino, elephant, leopard, buffalo and lion. Leopards are one of the hardest to find and lions were second. We threw our bags in our super cool circular huts and boarded the open backed Jeep for a sunset safari hoping to see a lion as they prefer to hunt at dusk and dawn. We headed out in to the bush and what do you know- we found two! Well actually, someone else had spotted them but whenever you see a car pulled off to the side you stop to see what`s going on. Hiding 100-200m off the road were two lions, a male and female, relaxing below a tree. Our guide Tevin (who worked for Kruger) drove up the road a little to get some space and took us back down, off roading in to the bush. We were only 5m away from them- unreal! We were set, 4 of the Big 5 in the first day.... now to find a leopard!! :) We headed back to our camp, grabbed a quick meal prepared by our guides outside under the stars and packed it in for the night as we had another 6am morning coming up.
We spent Saturday doing much of the same stuff. Driving around the park for hours, spotting animals, taking pictures, and checking them off in our Kruger books as we went. We saw a ton of animals, including the same 4 of the Big 5 and some others like the ostrich, monitor (lizard), turtles, storks etc. Our drive took longer than expected, as it normally did- it wasn`t unusual to take 3 hrs to drive 10km, stopping all the time to take pictures of animals or watch all the action at a waterhole. We eventually made it back to the camp, had a quick lunch and then most of us headed out of a short 1hr game drive before our next sunset drive and bush dinner. We found another lion and a herd of elephants mud bathing! We went back, grabbed those that had decided to spend a little time poolside and headed in to the bush once again for another open top Jeep tour on the way to our dinner in the middle of the park! We drove out of camp, spotting a bunch of different animals while enjoying yet another beautiful sunset. That`s one thing about being in Africa- the sky has never seemed so big and unending. It`s blue as far as you can see during the day with very few clouds and switches to a vibrant red-yellow-orange at sunset before turning pitch black aside from the thousands of gleaming stars filling the sky. As the sun was setting and we were driving through the bumpy, windy roads we came around a corner and nearly collided with a elephant!! It was just hanging out, chomping down on some tree branches. We grabbed some awesome photos and maneuvered around it and off to our dinner. When we got there it was as if we had just won a reward challenge on Survivor! There were tables perfectly set, paper bag lanterns lit by candles lighting the path down to the table, and a huge bbq meal cooking on a massive outside bbq. We had an amazing dinner under the stars and just enjoyed each others company, listening to stories from our guides. On our way back to Satara, we saw some hyenas and two huge lions lying right on the side of the road!!
Ok, this is Susanne taking over....we are all writing this blog on August 14th going backwards in time and hopefully getting caught up before heading off to Kili. I already packed for our departure and just came down to join the others on the deck of the hotel which is overlooking a very busy Maputo street. ...Chelsea had to run up to do laundry.
So back to the safari story. I do not have the recollection of details that Chelsea has whatsoever and will have to go more general....sorry folks. Plus: I would be at it for hours :)
A few stories worthy of sharing:

• 2 of the vans saw the 5th of the big 5 on the 3rd day heading out of the park (Saturday, August 13th). Apparently you only see leopards about 1 our of every 6 visits or so, so they were very lucky. Someone had sighted it in a tree and flagged one car down, the other car was closeby and so two vehicles got to tick their `5`off. Our van was not lucky in the leopard territory but cannot say we are disappointed as we had so much other fascinating stuff.
• Have never taken so many pictures in such little time...you end up taking 3 or 4 pics of the same thing, as the animals are usually chewing, walking, running or doing other interesting things, so the ``scenery`` changes all the time.
• Our 3 guides in the 3 vans had stories about everything.....how long the various animals live, how and when they mate, what they eat, what eats them...the stories were endless and it felt like a National Geographic documentary.
• One cannot describe the sights, sounds, and smells but many animals were so close, you could hear and see snorting, hear them trampling over the ground and hear them splash in the water (herd of elephants)
• I am definitely a giraffe girl/fan...they are stunning....some were so close to the car, I had to lean out and look up and could not use my 250 telephoto lens....too close :) Giraffe means ``camel horse`` in another language as they walk like a camel but run like a horse.....not sure I agree with the horse comment, they are pretty gangly and awkward but magnificent
• All birds here have stunning colors. Even the starlings are a beautiful blue (sort of like our sparrow in function...picks up all food at rest areas etc)

Noteworthy mentions:

• female hyenas have male sex organs...without any function,so apparently just for looks. When asked why, the guide said it is likely an intimidation factor....one person squeaked from the back of our jeep ``who knows, but it must be why they`re always laughing``. :)
• Everything was incredibly dry as it is winter and all is dry until the rains start in October. Green might be prettier, but it is much easier to see through the bush as you can ``see through`` it, versus leaves blocking the way
• Animals are so incredibly clever, they find shade when it`s hot, find water to cool off. They pair up with other animals to use their senses (i.e. a giraffe has great eye sight, so others tend to hang around them as they see predators before they do). Other animals are used for their sense of hearing or sense of smell.
• Leopards often take their kill up trees, we found a carcass...some bones and a skull hanging from one tree and then the 2 vans who spotted the leopard saw a half eaten Impala on a branch in the tree next to it
• Kruger is about 400 km`s in length and maybe 100-200 in width, I think. There are about 2500 lions, but as a comparison about 130,000 Impala. Impala are pretty little antelope that have the color of deer but some beautiful stripes in black and white in their sides. There are a ton of them and people here also call them ``McDonald`s``. That is because so many other animals eat them and because the striping on their behind like`s like a big McDonald`s ``M``. The most popular food source. Yikes :)
• Besides being amazed at these animals and being impressed with how they are respected and treated here (you cannot get out of your car, can`t feed them, can`t litter etc.), there is also a sad part: poaching. Even though the park is a protected one and you have rangers looking our for hunters, some still come across the borders to Mozambique and others come by helicopter. We saw pictures at one rest stop of awful reminders that poaching and hunting are a reality even here. And sometimes tourists think more about getting a great photo than thinking about the impact on the animal. There was one story of a crowd closing in on a leopard at a place until it ran itself into an electric fence and died, rhinos which were killed for their horn which is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in Asia as it is used for medicinal purposes, snares are around the hooves of others animals caught perhaps for their hides an left to die. Awful. I don`t want to put a big downer on this blog, but is not all as rosy as we describe it...there all still some awful things going on and further steps have to be taken by government and conservation organizations to ensure that many of these animals are safe and can live and die in their natural ways.
• OK, onto happier thoughts: wart hogs are hilarious. ``Pumba`` could be found wandering around quite a bit. They are born with a callous on their front knees and literally eat while on their font knees. They move around like that and only hop up when covering longer distances. When they are feeding and looking for food, they are on their front knees and back feet. Too funny!

Other tidbits:

• South African Rand are about 7 to 1 in currency. things are not too expensive, you can buy a bottle of wine for about 33 rand at the lowest price. Must admit we had a few of those during our days there
Sunset takes about 5 minutes, amazingly fast., Same for the sunset in the morning Am looking at Chelsea`s blog part above and am seeing she renames her guide. He was German and his name is Thorsten, not Thorcen...nice try. She said she called him ``Toystory`

We left the park and made our way back to Mozambique. The border crossing was sketchy. One van saw a body lying covered on the side of the road, someone who had likely been run over...half covered, yikes. Just later on the drive a drink driver apparently rear ended one of the other van`s trailers it was towing behind with our luggage, everyone was fine and it only broke the trailer light but lots of excitement!

Safari: cannot recommend it enough as something to do in one`s lifetime. At one point, we had a pride of lions cross the road right in front of us and the male stopped to maybe pose for us and then walked by my car door so closely, I could have likely touched him...but limbs in car! Will never forget these 3 days and can`t believe we have another short one coming up right after Kili. We are very lucky!