We left for SFO at 5:45 AM Pacific Friday morning, sat on the runway a bit to let the Pres. pass through, ran between two terminals in Minneapolis and hopped right onto our connecting flight, then watched 3 movies on the way to Amsterdam (in decreasing order of preference: The Other Guys, Red, and Going the Distance). In Amsterdam, we had a cup of coffee and a Danish before departing for Johannesburg. We both slept a lot on the 10 hour flight, but we were still exhausted when we checked into our hotel at 11 PM local time on Saturday. 31 hours door to door. Sitting on planes for so long (doing nothing but eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom) makes me think of the Matrix.
We got picked up from our Jo'burg hotel at 6 AM to start the drive to Kruger National Park. Our driver, Collin (sp?), and I had great discussion about South African language, African borders and colonization, and even US politics! Beautiful scenery the whole way, from the highlands outside Jo'burg to the low veld outside Kruger. I'll let Stef tell you about our lodging and our evening game drive.
--Pete
A few people may recall me saying I wasn't that excited about going on safari. Yeah, that was stupid. Safari, even while driving in a roofless land cruiser in the sometimes pouring rain, going on 4 hours of real sleep over the last two days, immediately after flying across the world on three different planes... in coach... is... AWESOME! I see what the hype is about.
Our first game drive started a couple hours after our arrival. I was so jet lagged, I was literally cursing at Pete as he dragged me out the door to meet our ride. Colin drove us up the road to the entrance of the Thornybush private game lodge, where our guides, one a driver, the other a tracker, handed us ponchos and said, it's probably too late for you to see anything. Oh, and wear these, it'll start raining soon. Great, I thought, climbing into the truck with no roof. We should've kept napping.
So... that was a family of lions, rhinos, water buffalo, wildebeest, a giant pack of deer-like things with horns I can't remember the name of now (Pete says they're called kudu), impalas, a bunch of birds, including a big family of Guinea fowl running in front of our truck for ages (apparently thy don't like to run into the grass when it's wet because it makes it harder for them to fly), a jackal, and a hyena ago. Driving around in the truck was so fun and the rain definitely added to the sense of adventure. We wove in and out of the brush, over trees, way off the main, ducking under and to the side or branches whipping past. When the tracker found the lions laying in tall grass about ten feet away from us just 20 minutes or so into our three hour drive, I remember thinking, okay, we can stop now, that already made the trip out here worth it. And then our guides found some rhino prints and literally tracked them (I've only ever seen someone like Crocodile Dundee do that in, you guessed it, Crocodile Dundee) to where they were scratching themselves with some trees, a mom, dad and two kids. It was very cute until it got a little terrifying the couple of times they got within a few feet from us and I realized they were bigger than our truck. And a couple of zebras crossed in front of us on the way back to the lodge - and adult with a much smaller one. So adorable.
I can't wait to see how Kruger is tomorrow, especially on a full nights sleep. Oh, and since we've been here, everyone's been telling us an elephant likes to hang out outside out room and we may see him peering in our window in the morning. I think I might be more excited about that prospect than Pete is.
Okay, time for bed. 5:15am start tomorrow.
--Stef
I bless the rains down in Africa!
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