Hakuna Matata

What a wonderful phase...It means no worries for the rest of your days...
We flew from Cape Town to Nelspruitt (small town on the eastern part of South Africa) to Londalozi (by private plane). The plane was tiny 9 seats and bounced more than popcorn popping for the 20 minute ride we were all ready to get off by the end. Our safari vehicle was waiting for us upon arrival and not 2 minutes into the ride we saw an giraffe by the road.

Without giving too much away, the lodge was amazing!!

Our first lunch, just to give you an idea, was overlooking the Sands river in what looking like a luxury tree house. We ate gazpacho, spinach gnochi and watermelon sorbet with vodka!! YUMMY!

A typical day on safari was:
5:00 Wake up call
5:30 Tea and Cookies (Nate & Kristy learned early that creeping Monkeys are not interested in the Banana in your hand but the cookies you left on your plate)
6:00 - 10:30 Out on Safari with a break (our favorite morning drink was Hot Chocolate with Amaula (liquer))
12:00 Lunch (typically three courses; all of it amazing)
3:30 High Tea and cake (they had an excellent iced coffee)
3:45 -7:30 Out of Safari (break with drinks and snacks)
8:00 - Dinner (Outside in a Boma with an open fire and everything made on a open fire)

I cannot possible decribe how much fun it was to track (look for droppings, tracks, alarm calls from other animals), spot and watch all of these amazing creatures doing what they do to survive. The vehicles are great fun too b/c you feel like you are outside and bouncing all around. At one point we were following a hyinea to see if it would lead us to another preditor or some fresh prey that we were bobbing and weaving to miss branches with huge thorns on them.

With way too many animals to list, the highlights are:

• Lions (1 male, 2 females, 3 cubs (6 months old) and 3 cubs (6 weeks old) about 6 feet away)
• Rhinos (We were able to get out of our vehicle to view our 1st, saw 3 playing in the mud and others in the prairie)
• Leopard (We watched a mother and two cubs and also saw a female hunt. It was incredible her ablility to be still, creep so low and freeze in a second)
• Buffalo (1st of the Big 5 we saw and closest we came to any animal, ~ 4 ft)
• Elephant (saw a few but I will write about them later)
• Cheetah, Impalas by the hundreds, zebras, giraffes, wart hogs, kudu, crocodiles, wildebeests, nyalas, hippos, etc and tons of amazing birds. Our favorites being the Batelus eagle, King fisher eagle and the Rollers.

After three nights, we were sorry we had to leave and travel to Victoria Falls, but looking forward to our next safari experience in Chobe National Park!!