The other day on the way to work we saw basically a herd of baboons crossing the street. That was pretty cool…but not as cool as our 10 hour safari into Kruger 2 weekends ago! It was amazing. Within the first hour, we saw 2 of the big 5, buffalo and LIONS!! Throughout the rest of the day we enjoyed the presence of giraffes, elephants, zebras, more buffalo, impala, tons of birds etc… The experience was certainly memorable as we arrived at the park gate a little after 5AM. The moon and stars were still out as we climbed into our open safari truck and dove under the blankets provided. The cold was something we had only experienced in our previous trip to Swaziland, but not here in the “town of two summers.” Not only did we start off with some serious action (aka buffalo’s within the firs kilometre) but we also got to see an amazing sunrise, lions, and elephants all before breakfast. The rest of the day was filled with more animal sightings, finding elephant remains in our off roading expedition, laughing about the elephants 5th leg and enjoying the breeze in our hair. Our hopes that we would spot rhino’s were not realized even though we chanted “RHINO RHINO” roughly 200 times, but at least we’ll have something to look forward to seeing the next time in the park. I’m already excited to go back!
This past weekend we all decided to go for more of a relaxation theme as we, with the help of Jacque, spent the weekend at Eiland which is basically a camp ground with heated pools, beach volley ball, and enough to keep us occupied while we extracted our minds from work for a weekend. It was nice to enjoy the beautiful South African sun, which we don’t get to do during the week because we work during the day and because its winter here, the sun goes down pretty early. Now our next step is to prepare for the conference that will take place next week. Busy, busy times!