kruger national park as traversed by Jane, Ethan, Jennifer and Jim

Jennifer and I were honored to have Jane and Ethan visit us in South Africa.  So honored that we made them fly round trip to Joberg, drive up to Kruger National Park (5 hours) and camp without sleeping pads for two nights, before making the return drive and two massive return flights that must have amounted to at least 36 hours of travel.  I did hear that they are alive and well after the trip and we are very excited about that because we are really looking forward to their wedding in a few weeks!

We had two great mornings exchanging drivers and co-pilots and eventually meandering the minivan back towards camp without running it into the brush of too many acacia trees (we were able to cover up the minor damage by slicking some water and soap over them at a gas station, then letting extra dirt stick to the car while driving (that happens as a consequence of normal driving) :).

We would also go out for afternoon game drives and were lucky enough to spend the evening with our friend Taryn, who we met playing ultimate frizbee.  Taryn has spent at least 3 years studying in Kruger National Park and went there most years of her childhood.  There is actually a whole village in Kruger that helps support park staff and researchers--they just fence their houses.  At night the call of bushbaby's and impala can be heard on the local and majestic golf course.  Taryn brought us to two excellent places for the sunset--one overlooking a dam resevoir (for the town) that was full of grunting hippos and a variety of birds.  The next night we stood atop a kopjie (large granitic rock outcropping or big hill) to look out over the savanna and right below us down the steep slope of rock at a white rhino perusing through the underbrush.

Jane asked Taryn, "what if the rhino tries to come up here?" Taryn laughed and said, "I'd really like to see it try".  That pretty much encapsulated how common sense it was for us to feel safe on the kopjie.  Yet, Taryn followed up that warm feeling with a story about how they had to close the hill for a period of time because rangers saw a leopard stalking them on that spot one night as the leopard was figuring out that easy prey gathered at the same time and same place every night.  Pretty sure that leopard wasn't too close when we were there :).

Check out the pictures!

OK, Mom (Betsy) this is the start of your identification challenge.

augrabies falls, 3-day hike (northern cape, south africa, april 2015)

As the final activity on our final trip in southern Africa (for now), we decided to explore the Northern Cape and a fairly remote park called Augrabies Falls. We were super impressed with how well-run and popular this park is, and were really happy we decided to do a three-day hike along the Orange River and the canyon that runs through the park. 

The hike was beautiful (also hot), through desert landscape for the first day, then down into the river canyon on the second day, and back out and over the desert again on the third day. We saw klipspringer (small deer), two giant jet-black snakes, each about 5-6 feet long (we think they were Cape Cobras), a monitor lizard, the tracks of a clawless otter, and some beautiful birds. 

The river itself and the waterfalls were also stunning. 

Sunset at camp the night before we head out.

Starting things off well! About an hour in to the hike, we got to detour to this beautiful spot on the canyon. Hundreds of swallows were flying back and forth across the water eating insects. It was an incredibly peaceful place (until you looked down!)

Hiking across a ravine with a deep hole.

We also got treated to a visit from a vervet monkey family! They galloped and played around us for 5-10 minutes. Very cute.

swazi hiking (ezulwini and shewula, swaziland)

We took a couple of nice hikes and walks while in Swaziland.

Up in Shewula, we spent New Year's Day on a long hike down the local roads to an overlook with December, our camp's guide. We enjoyed seeing everyone in the community out and about celebrating the new year. December grew up there and knew just about everyone we passed in the road, and got us comfortable saying hello properly: "Sawubona! (or Sanibonani! if you are greeting a group)" "Yebo!" "Kunjani?" "Siapile, kunjani?" It took us a while to get it.

We also saw a soccer game and dance group at the end of our walk.

And further down in the post, you'll see a few photos of a hike in Ezulwini, up Sheba's Breast. Beautiful!

We enjoyed a few minutes of birdwatching at this water hole in Shewula.

An abandoned plow at a family's old homestead. They still plant here, but the house was at the end of a long dirt road (it took us about 3 hours to walk there from our lodge, already 10km down the road from the highway), and too far for the family to live in any longer.

A view to a large dam in Mozambique.

crayfish boil (aka south african rock lobsters)

Thank you to our friend Emile for catching these for us!  What a guy!  I'd like to go along with him sometime, but it is a close-knit family venture so I don't anticipate being asked to go.  They once saw a big great white while diving for these things so there is certainly a sense of adventure when free-diving 30 feet to the bottom to look for your crayfish.  Sounds like a blast to me!

Gabby and Tom look like they're enjoying themselves!  Gabby and Tom, hoping to hear you survived and had fun in Beirut.

Jim is an awesome chef!!

addo elephant park with mike, jon, and jim

Rule number one on game drives:  don't get out of the vehicle.  Most tempting rule to break when one needs to find something in the back of the car:  Rule number one.  We had a good time breaking this rule when I was looking for the talisman Mike brought along to give us good luck.  We were having a relatively crappy game drive (nothing but zebras, kudus, and warthogs) up until this point and really wanted to see some lions--so the effort was to recover our lucky talisman, then we would begin seeing big game.  After a fruitless search I climbed back in the car and began driving around the bend...about 200 meters until we saw a pride of lions relaxing next to the road.  Yikes!  That is why you don't get out of the car, ha ha.

We had a blast seeing the animals, cruising around the park, and saving two German fraulines from a gigantic spider.  Good thing our ladies have us disciplined--we recovered the spider and left immediately to recline to a chapter from World War Z--the zombie epic that we were reading to each other in the car.

One of Mike's best sitings was a hare, sitting next to the road just behind a hill so that oncoming traffic could not see us.  We had time to pause for a picture, then get out of the way!

Other fantastic sitings included rhinos, elephants, leopard tortoises, kudus, and of course--the lions.

This makes me wan to eat a salad.

Or be a tortoise

Not a dung beetle though.

Imagine the scene in Money Python... "Run away!  Run away! Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop" 

shark diving and the tsitsikamma national park with jon, mike, and jim (jennifer was with the sharks too!)

These pictures of sharks top the charts on excitement during our vacation.  All  four of us--Jon, Mike, Jennifer, and Jim had a blast in the shark tank.  At one time Jennifer pinned herself against the back of the cage as a big great white shark came within 6 inches of the front of the cage--moving straight towards us!  Jon and Mike were allowed to go back in the cage for a second dive, but said most of the excitement was when we were all in the cage together.  There is one picture in particular, of a sham about to attack the bait from straight below that stuns me every time I look at it. These creatures were amazing to watch and we were so thankful to have a bit of good steel between us and them!

The second set of pictures covers our hike along the coastline in the Tsitsikamma National Park.  We hiked over many boulder fields, through dens jungle with vines all around, and past huge caves that once housed some of the first homo sapiens over 70,000 years ago.  We ended the hike at a 150 foot cascading waterfall that dumped it's brown, tannin-stained water into the ocean.  The mist, jumping schools of dolphins, rock pools to swim in, and the inescapable feeling of being a pirate about to bury treasure made the hike a great adventure.  

The next step of the journey took us to the mighty South African bush that is conserved as Addo Elephant National Park.

This was one of the smaller sharks if you can imagine that. 

That white belly gives them their name--the Great White Shark! 

This was not one of the smaller ones...

You an see that the wood is scarred from battle--there were a few sharks that dragged this fake seal under.  The bait guy would have to let the shark take the line until they realized they were eating wood.  I wanted to check the wood for teeth, but apparently they don't get stuck too often.

This is the picture that I couldn't believe.  The shark is perfectly positioned to attack from below.

the great migration (serengeti national park, tanzania, with views to kenya)

We drove to the far north of the park one day with our guide Mosses and driver Emily. They had promised us wildebeests, and they were true to their word.

Somewhere between 1 and 2 million wildebeest and zebra participate in the annual migration from the southern part of the Serengeti, which is a wide, grassy plain, to the northern part and across the border into Kenya and the Masai Mara National Park. The southern part of the park gets lush green grass during the rainy season (usually beginning around November), but during the dry season (starting in May/June) there is very little for wildebeest to eat, so they migrate north to find water and better grass. This year, the migration started nearly a month earlier than usual, so the animals were much further north than we had expected/hoped.

Zebra and wildebeest are partners in the migration; according to guides, zebras have a better memory, and remember the route north. Wildebeest, however, have a better sense of smell, so they are useful for finding water along the route. The two end up traveling together.

It was interesting to see how truly organic and spontaneous the groups of animals are: there is no organized leader of any kind, just animals choosing to follow each other. They bunch up in groups, but we saw many spread out by themselves as well. Make sure to click through to see the most dense groups of wildebeest toward the end of the post (this was likely the second major group of wildebeest to pass through this area), as well as the mini-stampede we witnessed near the end of the day.

A wildebeest we spotted on our first day in the park; we thought it was a nice portrait. This animal likely won't make the crossing and go all the way north;  he is in the Western Corridor and will probably just stay here, scrounging for grass with less competition, until going south again around November.

Doing battle.

The victor.

Moving into bigger groups. At some point in this drive, we realized that all the dark spots on the ground in the distance were wildebeest, too.

Now we are nearing the border with Kenya; we've already crossed the Mara river from the south. The hills in the distance of this picture are in Kenya.

Some of the zebra traveling with this group.

Now we are nearing the thick of things.

lions!! (serengeti national park, tanzania)

The final stage of our big trip took place in Tanzania. We went on safari in the Serengeti with a fantastic duo: Moses and Emily, our tour guide and driver, from Moses' company, Sange Safari. We were trying really hard to keep our budget small, and Mosses was amazing at finding us cheap, clean and safe places to stay. Safe being a relative term - we camped in our tent inside the Serengeti for two nights, and there are no fences at the campsites!! We had hyenas watching us brush our teeth, and heard lions calling nearby in the morning. 

Speaking of lions, here is a highlight reel of some of our best photos of the kings and queens of the savanna. We were astounded at the number of lions in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater - we saw lions every day. 

Our first lion sighting, on our very first game drive! This pride was beautiful and sleepy, with tons of cute cubs, which made for great photo ops. Our driver Emily had tracked this group for about 45 minutes through the grass and brush, aided by the other car you see in the photo. We were the only two cars for miles. It was beautiful and quiet as we sat with the sleeping pride.

The male lion with this pride is sleeping under the tree on the right-hand side of the photo, a hundred yards away. We got to go see him too.

You could almost hug them. (Almost.)