Safari! Aug 3-6

August was kicked off with a trip of a lifetime – the standard keeps going up and I don’t know how I’m going to beat that one. Even the events leading up to our departure were eventful. Due to a school holiday in South Africa, when it finally came time to book for the weekend, all Patricia and I could find were full lodges or those that were over $500 per person per night. Lucky for us, one of our South African teammates grew up close to Kruger National Park, which is the largest game reserve in the country, roughly the size of Massachusetts. To make a dreadfully long story short, being South African, Herman finagled reservations for us at 2 amazing sister lodges at the local price, which is significantly lower than the tourist price! Unfortunately for Herman, he had to make the payment and it took 3 weeks and numerous phone calls to both a Chicago bank and a South African bank to get the money transferred. He actually didn’t receive a confirmation of the wire until after we were already enjoying the safari!

Anyway, we (Patricia, Susanne, Candice, and I) left on Friday morning and flew to Nelspruit via Johannesburg; immediately were pleased with the warmer weather as the cold and wet weather of winter had returned to Cape Town. After a quick snack at the airport, we picked up our rental car and set out for Lukimbi, the lodge within Kruger which we would call home for the first two nights. Within 10 minutes of entering the park, we spied our first treat – a giraffe noshing away at some trees alongside the road. It’s captivating seeing these wild animals so close. While we probably could have stayed and watched for hours, we needed to arrive at Lukimbi by 4pm for our afternoon game drive – and the speed limit within the park is 40 km/hr on the gravel roads. We continued on and soon realized we were pushing our 4pm deadline. Resisting the urge to stop for all the sightings (impala are everywhere!), we hurried to Lukimbi and although we were about 10 minutes late, we were shuttled in the open Land Rover to meet our guide for the week, Dale. The pictures along this story are from our first game drive – what a welcome!! More soon but it’s past my bedtime and I’m going to try to be at the top of Lions Head for sunrise!