Nsikazi: Day Six (Kruger)

Blog entry from Sunday! Kruger National Park!

TODAY MY LIFE WAS CHANGED FOREVER! I SAW MY FIRST WILD AFRICAN ELEPHANT. Actually, heaps (a new term I’ve picked up from my Aussie friend) of African elephants! It was ABSOLUTELY INSANE. I’ll come back to this… Now for the beginning of the day.

We woke up before the sun rose and was on the road by 4:30 AM. Tegan and I had spent a good portion of the night before mapping out our route to the Kruger gate we wanted to start at. So I was the navigator up front with her. We were doing so well until all the signs started saying the same numbers but different directions. We were completely lost for a second, and then I thought it was time to turn off the data roaming on my phone. Thank goodness I did because we were definitely going the wrong way. (I’ll pay you back Dad!) Keep in mind we were on a very sketch road in the middle of nowhere South Africa… in the dark. Once we got the map working on my phone, we were on our way! We finally got to Kruger around 6:15 AM! The gates open at 6, so we were pretty proud of ourselves. Then the adventure really began!

Our first spotting was a male waterbuck, a type of antelope. He was beautiful. Here’s a picture. 

Next we ran into impala, but they are a very common occurrence around here. Kind of like their white tailed deer. Here’s a pretty sweet picture of one that I took when we ran into them again later in the day. 

While we were crossing a river we ran in to a group of hippos! Look how amazing. I’m obsessed.

Then we were driving and ran into a lot of stopped cars, which mean there is something good! And it was! ELEPHANTES! (Say with a Spanish accent).  At first I was really sad because we couldn’t get a decent view of them because there were so many cars, but then they went back into the bush and the cars started to drive away. THEN they reappeared RIGHT NEXT TO OUR CAR. At this point, I had almost completely lost it. I had to stick my hand in my mouth to keep myself from screaming and I was definitely crying. It was a very large herd and I took an insane amount of pictures. Here are a few!

Amazing right?! Our first of the Big 5. Sadly, we had to move on. But don’t worry! There were many more amazing animals to see! We then approached a water hole with a HUGE herd of Cape buffalo but I wasn’t able to get a very good picture. So our second of the Big 5! Next we ran into a very large, dark giraffe male. Isn’t he so majestic? 

I’ve discovered that South Africa has a lot of colorful native birds. Here is my favorite. Unfortunately, I don’t remember their name! They were beautiful, though!

We made it to a rest area and took a break from the car, but we made some new friends there.

A vervet monkey.  

Yellow Horn-bill. Zazu! 

And finally a stunning Starling. 

We drove a little farther and ran into another car pile up. It took us awhile to figure out what everyone was looking at, and then we saw it! It was two lionesses! They were pretty camouflaged and far away, but luckily one was perched up for a little and I snagged this shot! 

Absolutely gorgeous. Three of the Big 5 had been seen at this point! Again, we had to move on. We found a turn off for a Baobab tree and we went for it. Check out how big it is! Reminds me of the one at the Animal Kingdom in Disney World! And of course I couldn’t resist taking a selfie. Enjoy. 

We then ran into a hilarious group of baboons. They were chasing each other, running on the road, and we even saw a momma with her baby. So cute! 

White Rhino spotting! Four out of five of the Big Five! He/she was HUGE and it’s horns were massive. It kept it’s bum to us, but here’s a decent picture. It’s crazy to think Valentino will get this big! 

The day was coming to an end and we started toward the exit. On our way though, we found some zebra. We had seen a lot of zebra throughout the day, but these guys were so close to the road! Look at the momma with her foal. He was looking straight at me!

We finally exited the park after driving through for nine hours. It definitely didn’t feel like that long. It went by way too fast! We got back the farm, made dinner, sat by the fire, played a card game, and went to bed.  Overall, an INCREDIBLE day and will forever go down in history as one of the best days of my life. I love it here and the other volunteers are the sweetest girls and luckily we get along so well! Tomorrow we are going to examine a baby buffalo that had be crushed by his mother about three weeks ago and is not doing well again. I’ll explain more tomorrow. Again, I’m so sorry for the delay. I’ve been dying without my internet for these couple days. It’s probably good though so I can focus on other things. I just wish I could have told you about these awesome days earlier!

Love you all,

Llewy