Big Five and Counting

This was the weekend I really was looking forward to. Everything I have experienced in South Africa up to this point has been amazing and it felt like every day topped the previous one, but Kruger is something I will NEVER forget.

We only had two solid days to tour the park so we stuck to the southern and central part of the park. The first day was a four hour drive from one of the southern most gates to our restcamp in Satara, and it was a blur. Your eyes become so exhausted from scanning the horizon looking for animals that blend in really well! To boost our motivation we developed a point system: 1 point if you spot a species for the first time, and 1 point each time you were the first to see one of the Big 5 (Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Leopard, Buffalo). I failed miserably and probably should get my eyes checked because by the end of the trip we saw about a gagillion Elephants, and I am pretty confident in saying I did not spot any.

The night drive was proabably the highlight of the trip. We were rushing to get to our restcamp before the gates closed at sundown when someone stopped us and said there was a fresh lion kill right down the road. We obviously didn't have time to get over there without suffering a R500 late entry penalty but figured our organized night drive would take us by there - which they did! The drive started off slow and the guide stopped the truck to show us a chameleon in the tree......now the fact that he spotted that in a tree is impressive, but we want to see blood and guts! The truck rolled on and we saw a Cevit and Cerval along the way, the latter which is very rare to see since it is so small and nocturnal, but it was cold and the sun wasn't coming back for a long while.

That's when the spot light made it's way to the kill. The males had already had their fill of the recently deceased buffalo, and were sprawled in the grass bloated and overstuffed like me after a trip to McDonalds, but the females were chowing away at the rest of the buffalo (which consisted of it's ribs and completely intact head, expressionless). I could have sat all night and watched but the truck had to move on. Take a look below.

***WARNING**** If you do not want to see animal carcass and hear bones crunching, I'd move on and take my word for it that it was awesome.

By the end of day one we had seen two of the Big Five, three if you count the dead buffalo. Not too shabby.

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The next day we were still jazzed about the kill we had just seen and even went by the site to watch the males polish the rest off. It is insane to be fifteen feet away from a lion with no fence between the two of you. To be as close as we were to any of the animals was a treat, which brings me to AMAZING KRUGER MOMENT #2.

Our restcamp (Satara) was situated in lower central part of the park, a couple hours from a restcamp named Olifants which overlooks the river and is a great place to spot hippos and even see a kill if you camp out all day. It was recommended to stay to the south to see more animals but after deliberation we decided to head north. It was a risk but lordy did it pay off.....

Sooooo we're crossing this riverbed, right? We see an elephant in the trees, right? Oh man out comes a baby that's so cute it's drinking water! Wow we are so close to elephants that's so awesome!

James: Oh s***! Look at that!

Hannah: James roll up the windows!

'Oh my God that's so crazy!' 'It's so close you could touch it!' 'What do we do?! Roll up the windows!' 'Where's my camera?!

Hysteria ensues and everyone alternates between rolling down the windows, up the windows, pulling out their cameras, cursing like a sailor and processing the fact that a Leopard just walked out of the bushes and was so close to the car had you leaned your hand out it either would have been eaten or you would have just touched the fur of a freaking leopard. He walked into the clearing and along the riverbed, completely ignoring our presence and proceeded on his merry way without a glance, but we sure noticed him. Had it been a velociraptor in Jurassic Park, we would have been dead for sure, but luckily feeding time was over. This rare sighting definitely kept us on a high for the rest of the day.

The next couple days were driving and photographs, and it really was a surreal experience. We saw all the Big Five, in addition to a large male Kudu (which is rare), impala, water buck, hippos, crocs, giraffes, wildebeest, monkeys, baboons, all sorts of birds and a million impala. I'm glad we made the small adjustments to make time for Kruger and that James and Hannah had as much enthusiasm about the trip as I did, because I won't forget this for a long time.