Another Day in the Park

It's bad enough that we're still not adjusted to the new time zone. Along with that we've got to be up at 4am for our 5am pickup by Selby for our 1st full day at Kruger Nat'l Park.  Not that we're complaining.  We're just exhausted.

The gates of the park open at sunrise, and our drive there is dark and cold.  When we arrive, we wait outside the gate with lots of other safari trucks.  When the gate is opened, there's a traffic jam in the parking lot as everyone gets their paperwork together to enter.  So we wait a little longer, and then we're in.

Although it seemed like we saw enough wildlife for a lifetime yesterday, we are here at this unGodly hour to catch those animals who only show themselves, if at all, in the early morning.  In particular, we managed to check off the box for 3 of the big five yesterday(elephant, rhino, water buffalo), today we seek the cats--lions and leopards.  They hunt at night, and sleep in the day.  

As we head in we have plenty of company.  When one vehicle spots something, they stop, and everyone else stops too.  It's a mini traffic jam as we all try to get a look.  The guides seem to know and like each other (they speak a different language to each other we can't understand) and share info at every opportunity.  Much more cooperation than competition.

Sunrise is like sunset, with lots of animal activity.  Among those up and around are the giraffes

the wildebeests

and the zebras

and the impalas with the distinctive Ms on their butts

and more zebras,

and a kudu

and more elephants running across the street,

and more wildebeests

and another kudu.

It's a cold morning and some people are bundled up as best they can.

After an hour or so, to the relief of all the guides, lions are spotted being lazy and sleeping on a sandy riverbed.

we all watch them from quite a distance, waiting for them to do something demonstrative of their king of the jungle status.  We wait a while, then give up.  They are just enjoying the sun and are not inclined to do anything else.

It's now still well before 9am, and I'm wondering how we're going to get to 3:30pm when the tour ends, and what we can still see since we've already seen so much.

The only thing left is on the Big 5 bucket list is the leopard, and we just miss a sighting.

But there's still plenty to see.

Like this herd of elephants crossing the road.  Cheryl counted 15 of them--mommies, daddies, babies

Or this big guy, who stopped a lot of traffic in both directions, and didn't seem to want to go anywhere.

He finally decided to head down the road, causing the cars to reverse in a hurry.

And then, finally, leaving the road entirely.

We saw these warthogs.  Very Lion King.

And this crocodile, who never seemed to close his mouth.

Selby drove around seemingly everywhere.

We saw more giraffes

This teenage elephant didn't want anything to do with us

The proximity to these animals was almost absurd

If you look closely, you can see a little bird on the giraffe's neck.  A classic example of a symbiotic relationship, the bird is feeding on the insects on the giraffe.

This little guy is hanging on to mom for dear life.

A giraffe gets darker as he gets older, so this guy is pretty old:

Momma elephant with her baby:

This is the beginning of Autumn here and the mom elephants are all together with each other and the new baby elephants and they don't have time for horny male elephants.  This guy is all dressed up with nowhere to go

't

Through all of this I could barely keep my eyes open.  Finally, we were out of the park at 3:30pm, and back to the Rissington Inn.

It's a beautiful place, but I just want to go to sleep.  So after a nap, we have another awesome dinner.  The computer finally got fixed and they found our reservation and we worked out the financial details.  Really wonderful, gracious hosts.  We'd go back anytime.

Then back to the room to pack, because we're leaving tomorrow.  But it is still safari and we are still getting a pickup by Selby in the morning.

At 5am.