I was tired when we got to Londolozi. Jet lag! If you can get a night's rest at the airport hotel in Johannesburg, you will start off your safari in better shape. I did participate in all activities. How could I…Read More

I was tired when we got to Londolozi. Jet lag! If you can get a night's rest at the airport hotel in Johannesburg, you will start off your safari in better shape. I did participate in all activities. How could I miss anything?

I have been asked about handicap accessibility. Frankly, it is better in South Africa than in many places in the United States and Canada.

All paths in Londolozi camps are smooth and without steps even if they are steep. It would be possible for someone using a wheel chair to get around with help for pushing on the steep places. Our bathroom was plenty large as were the public toilets in the boma.

The major obstacle is getting up and on to the Land Rover. We rode on a fairly high seat which required an inelegant scramble for me to achieve. A person with limited mobility could ride on the front seat with the Ranger. However that person would require help getting into the King Air and might need to be driven to Londolozi. (about 40 minutes) Something done in any case when the weather is poor.

The game drives last 3 1/2 to 4 hours. You have 2 game drives per day. Once away from camp there are no toilet facilities. The Ranger and Tracker can locate a safe place for an emergency toilet visit. They would stand guard nearby with a loaded gun! Obviously more difficult for women. If you require a lot of toilet visits per day, you may want to see if your doctor can give you some medicine to get you through your safari experience. We managed by cutting down on liquids prior to drives.

The Land Rover Defender goes where the game goes. Your Ranger and Tracker decide and off you go. It can get darn rough! Likely to be avoided if you have back problems. Often I was holding on with 2 hands. Up hill and down, through rivers, through and over trees, sometimes quickly if there are radio reports of a good sighting. Bang, crash, crunch!

Well worth doing!

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First, you have to get yourself to Africa. Johannesburg, South Africa. You can fly in to Cape Town on a South African Airways flight from Atlanta. That's my choice for the future. A good travel service can make the arrangements. Likely you will…Read More

First, you have to get yourself to Africa. Johannesburg, South Africa. You can fly in to Cape Town on a South African Airways flight from Atlanta. That's my choice for the future. A good travel service can make the arrangements. Likely you will fly for a long time on very large jets.

A change of planes in Johannesburg and you find yourself on a new, nice Dash 8 operated by South African Airways. A 50 passenger prop plane. About an hour flight, a cold drink, a sandwich and your plane lands at Skukuza, the airport for Kruger National Park. Very hard working flight attendants!

You are far away from big city life at Skukuza. The terminal building has a thatch roof. The baggage handlers shake your hand as they hand you your tiny bag (weight limits are severe for the next leg of your journey.)

Your game preserve will meet you nest to a 'meeting post'. Each place has its own 'meeting post.' Londolozi, Mala Mala, Sabi Sands, etc. A kind woman will ofter your muchies and another cold drink, beer if you please. You will have a few minutes for shopping and then.....

Weather providing, you step down in size of airplane again. This time to a 12 passenger King Air for a 6 to 10 minute flight to Londolozi. At this point, I'm really getting excited. Let's do it!

All of our flights were comfortable, service was very good and once in Africa, the views were wonderful. Do not over pack. Save your baggage weight for your camera gear.

Attire, is all safari casual. No point in packing fancy clothes. You will need a jacket, hat etc in cooler weather. Also appropriate protection against mosquitos.

Incredible! I love airplanes! I love flying! I love Londolozi! I'm ready to return or to another CC Africa property.

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The greatness of Londolozi is that the animals are in their own home and the people are visitors. Every effort is made to reduce the impact of people, increase the well-being of animals and give work and educational opportunities to the local people of…Read More

The greatness of Londolozi is that the animals are in their own home and the people are visitors. Every effort is made to reduce the impact of people, increase the well-being of animals and give work and educational opportunities to the local people of the district.

What is called the 'Londolozi Model' works so well it has been copied all over the world. Famous for saving leopards, the people at Londolozi take care of all the animals. Described in 'hectars', the size of the free range of the animals is huge.

Londolozi requires visitors who are willing to spend a lot of money for the experience of seeing the animals. The price varies with the season, but is about $700 per person at this time. That price includes everything you need except some alcoholic drinks. You also must tip and tip well. You make up one tip envelop with the contents divided among all the staff including all the people you don't meet. We choose to tip our Ranger and Tracker separately. That is OK.

After you visit Londolozi, all you want is for it to succeed.

Take a deep breath and realize that you get a great deal for your money. Obviously many fine animals are protected from poachers. In a nation with terrible unemployment, the CC Africa properties offer good jobs to many people. Many educational opportunities and job improvements are offered to staff.

We shared our game drives with other people in our camp, a total of 5 in our Land Rover. When I go back, I would like to book at least 2 private drives with a focus on the type of photography I want to do. If I want to wait for the light to change, I want to be able to do it. Private drives are extra charge and must be booked when you book your basic reservation.

The animals we saw included but were not limited to, the Big 5, lion, rhino, Cape buffalo, elephant and leopard. Most especially we saw giraffes, all sorts of bird, hippos, herds of all sorts of light footed creatures, and zebra. Plenty plenty!

A visit to Londolozi will change your life. I promise.

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The Big Five animals are: lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and Cape buffalo. Kapama is a Big Five game reserve that covers 32,000 acres of African wilderness. We were fortunate enough to have spotted all five by our second game drive.The animals are accustomed to the…Read More

The Big Five animals are: lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and Cape buffalo. Kapama is a Big Five game reserve that covers 32,000 acres of African wilderness. We were fortunate enough to have spotted all five by our second game drive.

The animals are accustomed to the sight and sound of the Land Rover so most of them ignored us and allowed us to come relatively close. There are a few animals that do react to the vehicle. Warthogs and wildebeest take off running. The wildebeest herds would run through the bush like a freight train. Elephants and rhinos sometimes became visibly annoyed if we got too close. Our driver had to throw the truck in reverse a few times to give them room.

Leopard
The leopard is the most elusive of the Big Five. Our driver told us it is not uncommon to go weeks without a leopard sighting. We were extremely fortunate because we saw one during our first drive. It was a female leopard that was feasting on an antelope. We were close enough to hear her crunching the bones. After the leopard had her fill, she began to cover up the carcass with dead grass. She then stood up and began calling her cub. A few minutes later, a little blue-eyed fur ball hopped out of a hole in a tree and went to its mother's side. We were all snapping photos like crazy - even our driver. This was my most memorable sighting.

Lion
We came across a male lion with a huge black mane (and a very foul odor). We were able to get within 15 feet of this massive cat as he began to roar (click to listen). After all the roaring, he fell over and went to sleep. I never thought I'd be this close to such a powerful cat.

Cape Buffalo
I'll admit. These big boys made me nervous. Cape buffalo can weigh up to 2000 pounds and can be very aggressive - especially if you are on foot (good thing we were in a Land Rover). It is said that they are responsible for more deaths in Africa than any other animal. We encountered these huge beasts during a morning drive. They were grazing and sparring. The collisions of their curved horns sounded like to bowling balls being clapped together. Some of the buffalo were quite close to the truck. As I looked around I began to notice we in the middle of a herd of these giants.

Other Animals
We saw many more animals than just the Big Five. We saw giraffes, zebras, impalas, owls, hawks, eagles, vultures, monkeys, a hippo, a variety of antelope, a variety of small birds, and even a puff adder (very venomous snake). Our friend brought a safari checklist with her. This made the game drives even more enjoyable. Our driver was more than happy to help us identify the creatures on the list. However, our debate of the day was: Can we count an antelope sighting if the antelope we saw was being eaten by a leopard?Close

We were collected from our hostel in Jo'burg on Thursday morning, expecting the adventure of a life time and boy....did it do exactly what it said on the tin. James (our excellent safari guide) drove us to and through the Mpumalanga province, stopping off…Read More

We were collected from our hostel in Jo'burg on Thursday morning, expecting the adventure of a life time and boy....did it do exactly what it said on the tin. James (our excellent safari guide) drove us to and through the Mpumalanga province, stopping off only at Nelspruit to stock up on supplies and grab some lunch. Though unplanned, we managed to have James to ourselves so we were a group of four altogether - ideal numbers really, a window each plus we only had to put up with one another and not any 'annoying tourists' (other than ourselves).

Our route from Jo'burg took us passed plenty of power stations and through a lot of smoke - two things which eventually gave way to miles of orange orchards and extreme heat. (That's extreme for Irish travellers used to rain!!) After a long but interesting drive we arrived at the Numbi gate to Kruger and our adventure truly began.

We stayed at the Pretoriaskop Camp for the first couple of nights. I thought it was a great camp...we had a nice rondavel facing away from the main body of the camp towards the fence which made us feel like we really were on safari and not cozied up in a village (as some of the rondavals in the centre might do). Pretoriaskop isn't particularly built up - but a shop and a garage have all you need. There's also a really lovely swimming pool - ideal for early afternoon cool offs and a good location for sitting eating ice creams!!!

The thought of 5.30am starts had us running scared to begin with but you get amazingly used to it! We were up at 5 on Friday...into the van and out the gate just after it opened at 6. [You definitely want to be getting into a van or some other high vehicle, the height makes it much easier to see everything, I don't know how people in cars would manage] We witnessed our first African sunrise. You hear about the colours and see the "Lion King" style pictures but I don't think I believed it til we saw it through bleary eyes that Friday morning!

It took a lot of looking before we spotted any animals - it was our first game drive, it was 6am and we definitely were not expecting the amount of ground cover that was there. I'm not sure what I was thinking but there was a lot of tall dry grass and low trees - and let me tell you, animal camouflage really works!!! Giraffes which seem so obvious in zoos can hide behind the narrowest of trees a foot from the road and be invisible! Elephants and rhinos - land whales and grey for goodness sake!! - can somehow blend in with their surroundings! But all of the searching and waiting only adds to the excitement when you finally see and elephant tearing up grass or impalas scattering with fright or rhinos huffing across the road or meet the stare of a lion (from the safety of the van!)

Nothing will recapture the excitement of waiting at our first water hole for about 45mins waiting waiting waiting...until eventually a herd of wildebeest came for a drink in almost postcard perfect formation. [Here's where you need to throw any attempt at 'coolness' aside and just get giddy and excited and start flashing that camera - the more pictures you take the better, don't try to impress you guide by being 'un-touristy' just take those pictures] That first day we saw so much and our safari innocence meant it was all so exciting impalas even brought a cheer - by the end, these creatures were spared only a glance! We managed to spot three of the Big Five - elephants, buffalo and rhino - that first day, but really the big five is not what it's about, the experience was everything, the search was the thing.

My own favourite - the rhino was proved difficult to find - we drove for hours passing hundreds of 'rhino toilets' (this part of Kruger has a huge rhino population) but no one using them. [Sorry to move away from the topic again but the dung on the roads is a very good thing to keep your eye on. Even non-experts like us were able to identify different droppings by the end of the first day and how fresh they were - good to know as you may follow that route further or turn around depending.] So, after an afternoon following rhino toilets we finally spotted our first white rhino - a couple of metres in from the road just waiting to cross, and cross he did!

At the end of our first full day in Kruger, we had seen - impala, kudu, hippo, elephant, rhino, duiker, buffalo, mongoose, baboon, giraffe and zebra. But the best thing? The best thing was knowing we had three more days left to see them again and hopefully one or two more! THAT was the best!

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Before leaving for South Africa, a small group of us from my class went and saw the Wild Safari 3D, an IMAX movie about South Africa’s Big Five, but I never thought I would actually see all five in real life accept in a zoo.…Read More

Before leaving for South Africa, a small group of us from my class went and saw the Wild Safari 3D, an IMAX movie about South Africa’s Big Five, but I never thought I would actually see all five in real life accept in a zoo. Upon entering Kruger the only animals of the Big Five that I was expecting to see were Elephants, and I was hoping to also see Giraffes. Instead I left Kruger having seen all five. You may now be wondering what animals make up the Big Five. The Big Five animals are the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino.

On our first day in the park I not only saw my first elephant, but I also saw my first buffalo. One of our first elephant sightings was one walking down the middle of the road, which we slowly followed until he finally decided to move out of the road. Another one of our sightings reminded me of The Jungle Book. In the road in front of us we had to wait for a group of females and young elephants to cross the road, which resembled the scene in The Jungle Book where Mowgli joins the elephant march.

The third of the Big Five that we spotted was the lion. We found them sitting right on the side of the road. Two females were just bathing in the sun. It was amazing how they were so much out in the open, but also hidden. We probably would not have noticed the one on the side of the road if the other had not been walking in the middle of the road at the time. I definitely thought this would be the highlight of the trip until the last hours of our time in Kruger.

On our last morning in Kruger most of the group wanted to sleep in, but a few of us decided to take our one and only opportunity to go on a morning safari ride. The ride started before sunrise. As soon as we witnessed the amazing sunrise we all decided that getting up early was entirely worth it—besides, we had also already spotted our fourth of the big five, a rhino. Shortly before returning to camp we spotted the most amazing thing, a leopard sitting on a tree branch overhanging the road. We had spotted the last of the Big Five. Us lucky few came back to camp making sleeping-in to the rest of the group seem entirely overrated like we already knew it was.Close

In August 2000 my wife and I visited Ngwenya Lodge as part of a "get to know Mpumalanga resorts" exercise, while my eldest son and his family lived in Nelspruit. Each visit would combine a visit to the children (and especially the grand children)…Read More

In August 2000 my wife and I visited Ngwenya Lodge as part of a "get to know Mpumalanga resorts" exercise, while my eldest son and his family lived in Nelspruit. Each visit would combine a visit to the children (and especially the grand children) in Nelspruit.

On our arrival at Ngwenya Lodge, we were firstly impressed by the beautiful reception area covered by a huge thatched roof. We were even more excited to learn that our chalet was situated right next to the Crocodile River - the river bank started less than 30 metres from our verandah! I attach two photos - one giving a general view of the river with the Kruger National Park on the other side, and one of a water buck grazing on an island. Both these photos were taken from our lawn (the latter with a 260mm telephoto lens).

The resort between the reception and the river is covered by beautiful lawns and well-kept gardens, as well as duck ponds between the many chalets. On the riverbank they also have a game watching hide, from which we one day saw a pride of lion kill a wildebeest.

In the evenings a hippo would graze in the reeds right next to the riverbank in front of our chalet (the reeds visible on the photos). One evening after we returned from a game-viewing trip through the Kruger Park, there was an unusual noise among the reeds. On investigation, I found that our hippo had been replaced by an elephant. Needless to say, I returned to our chalet with the necessary respect and haste - Ngwenya Lodge do not have warning notices around the area for nothing!

During the days that we stayed at the lodge, we enjoyed visiting the swimming pool and sipping refreshments with friends that we met there. This is a resort that we can strongly recommend - it is exciting, yet relaxing, and the facilities are superb.

By the end of our week we were not keen on leaving. We had enjoyed every moment of our stay, and will most certainly visit Ngwenya Lodge again. We urge anyone who has not yet been there, to make this their next holiday destination.

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We spent a lovely mid-week break at Sambonani Lowveld Lodge in the beginning of September. We hadn't been to the Kruger National Park for a few years and we thought it was a good way to start summer. Sambonani is next to Hazyview and is…Read More

We spent a lovely mid-week break at Sambonani Lowveld Lodge in the beginning of September. We hadn't been to the Kruger National Park for a few years and we thought it was a good way to start summer.

Sambonani is next to Hazyview and is ideally located for excursions into the park. Other nearby RCI resorts includes Kruger Park Lodge and Sabi River Bungalows. We used the new Phabeni Gate for the first time. This was only 10km from our resort. We also made use of the Paul Kruger Gate (approximately 40km away) and Numbi Gate (20km) during our stay.

We were interested in joining a guided walk to experience the bush without the "security" of our own car and, yet, under the watchful eye of an trained and armed ranger. Until recently this was mainly the preserve of the well-to-do foreign visitor who stayed at a private game reserve bordering the KNP.

Guided game walks and drives are now available at most camps in Kruger. You will find all the activities and applicable fees listed on their website. Unfortunately most of these activities are designed for visitors staying in the park as they usually depart camp too early or return too late for the non-resident visitor to enter or exit the park.

Pretoriouskop may be the exception in that it is the closest camp to a gate (only 8km from Numbi). Skukuza had already turned us down so we called Pretoriouskop to see if we could join a morning game walk. We were referred to Ewoud, one of the senior rangers responsible for the guided walks, and he arranged to have us picked up at Numbi Gate at 5.15 the next morning (the gate was only due to open for visitors at 6am). It took us less than 20 minutes to travel from Sambonani to Numbi so early in the morning. From Numbi we followed the transfer vehicle to Pretoriouskop as we intended to remain in the park after the walk. We were joined by three Australians, together with Ewoud and another ranger, Roger, and we departed at 5.30am for a 40-minute drive to where we would start our walk in the bush. It was great! It lasted three hours and we saw wildebeest, zebra, bushbuck, and impala, and we came pretty close to a white rhino who was unaware of our presence for a while.

Night drives are, however, available from both the Kruger Gate and Numbi subject to a minimum of four adults. We booked a "last minute reservation" (can only be done within 48 hours) directly with Numbi Gate and took a wonderful three hour drive commencing at 5pm. It was just myself, my wife, and the guide/driver. The other persons who had booked did not turn up! We saw rhino, giraffe, honey badger, buffalo, night jars on the road, and plenty of impala.

In addition to our guided experiences we spent a full day on our own in the park. Altogether we saw a great variety of game including all of the big five. We had plenty of elephant sightings. We saw rhino, including a young brother and sister who were fending for themselves as their mother had died a few months previously -- remarkably the sister was less than six months old. We came across a herd of a hundred or so buffalo beside the road. And we were very fortunate to see three lions together and a leopard relaxing under the shade of a tree close to the road.

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Kruger National Park is a very exciting place. We travelled in May, planning to arrive just after the rainy season. We timed it perfectly. The weather was fabulous. Temperatures were moderate. The skies were blue and endless. Crowds were nonexistent. Originally, we had planned to purchase several…Read More

Kruger National Park is a very exciting place.

We travelled in May, planning to arrive just after the rainy season. We timed it perfectly. The weather was fabulous. Temperatures were moderate. The skies were blue and endless. Crowds were nonexistent.

Originally, we had planned to purchase several safaris because we thought that that would be the only way we would see the animals. Wrong!! The roads in the Park are paved and well-marked. And... the animals, well, they were "on" the road. After all, isn’t the grass always greener on the other side? So many zebra, baboons, monkeys, giraffe, elephant, rhino, etc. We had to overtake a warthog as it trotted down the middle of the road and stop for giraffe to cross. Monkeys sat along the roadside as if awaiting a passing parade. The only time we needed binoculars was to get a closer look at what was going on in the water holes – since you can’t drive down into them for obvious reasons.

My husband was dying to see rhino – it’s a male thing. Having had too-close encounters with rhino during a walking safari in northern India many years earlier, I had no interest in seeing those beasts again. No sooner had my lecture ended when we drove past the hugest rhino I had ever seen standing on the side of the road. But, 25 metres was not close enough for my husband. He put the car in reverse to get back closer! I should mention that every time my husband put the car into gear he stalled it– a manual driver he was not. At this point, our 9-year-old son and I were screaming at Dad to get the car started, this rhino now taking an interest in us, about equal to his size. After what seemed forever, my husband got his closer look and we moved on.

We were now way inside the park and some miles to the gate. We had to be out before sunset – park rules.

All day,I had been saying, "I want to see an elephant." There had been plenty of elephant poop along the roadway – so we must have been just missing them. Given the lateness of the day, this was not the time to be stopped by a cranky teenager looking for a fight. We had been warned about a rogue male that had been causing havoc within the Park – scaring tourists and chasing cars. Now, with no time to spare, there was such an elephant between us and the gate. My son and I were very frightened. This animal was huge and looking for a battle. There were only three vehicles between us and him. The elephant flapped his ears, swung his trunk madly, and stomped his feet as he walked backwards and forwards ruling the roadway. We had the smallest of the vehicles, and I was afraid that he would choose us for his opponent. But eventually, he moved on and we "sped" by towards the exit.

We returned to the park on other occasions and had several less fearful and beautiful encounters with elephants. One day, we watched a large herd crossing a rocky stream while a baby hung onto the mother’s tail. That same day, we witnessed a brand new hippo struggle to its feet while its mother still lay exhausted from the birth.

But Mother’s Day, May 2005, will be one the most memorable of days ever. That evening, we purchased a night safari to be conducted in an open jeep, from Phabeni Gate, an entrance just 10 minutes from the Lodge. Driving in the Park at night is prohibited, so the only way to see the Park at night via a registered tour. The Park night drive was some hundreds of dollars cheaper for us as a family than had we purchased a similar tour from the Lodge travel agent. Further, our safari guide was a local Sth Africa employee of the Park who was very experienced and knowledgeable. And we took comfort in knowing that any profits were going back to support the locals and the park and would not be exported by some foreign corporation taking advantage of the tourism boom.

There were only three of us (husband, 9-year-old son, and me) on this tour, so the guide asked what we wanted to see. I replied "lions" with some hesitation, because every animal we had mentioned during the previous days, as we had driven through the Park by ourselves, had appeared before us at times "way too close" for comfort. The guide contacted another tour in progress, which just happened to have come across lions, and then he drove us to what looked exactly like "Lion King" territory.

As the sun sank behind the hills, through the long grass we saw a huge orange lion playing gently with two cubs. It was a beautiful sight, and that alone would have made my entire vacation complete. The other jeep then departed while we stayed on a while. But, as the sun sunk lower we lost sight of the lion. My son and I were keen to get on out of there. Remember – our jeep had no sides, and it was feeding time.

We had driven less than 50 metres when our guide slammed on the brakes, thrusting us forward as we skid to a stop on the gravel road. A few metres ahead, a lioness strutted out from the grass to stand in the middle of the road before us. As we watched in awe, pondering her plan, three very young cubs bounded out towards her tumbling over each other. The lioness then slowly moved towards our jeep, walked around it for inspection, then layed down within inches from the right front fender like a cat before an open fire. The three cubs pounced over each other approaching the jeep to play in the headlights.

A while later, a second lioness came out from the grass and her two cubs jumped playfully on the other three. Never had there been a more beautiful sight. Those cubs were sooooo cute and the mothers were sharing them with us!!

But where were those lions? Just then, I heard a rustle in the grass right alongside the jeep. At eye level was the huge orange head of a lion, staring at us, separated only by a thin layer of grass. He wanted us to know that he was right there watching. While that lion starred us down, a second (a brother of the first)came out from the grass near the left fender and slowly paraded around the jeep, taking his sweet time, inspecting every crevice.

Now I was very nervous. Here we were, in the middle of no-where, unable to go anywhere, surrounded by lions and their offspring! The guide told us, as he held the two-way radio in his hand, not to worry. Lions, he said, unlike leopard, won’t come inside the jeep. But at this point, what else could he say? We were trapped and any words of comfort were better than none.

Eventually, the lions got bored with us and wandered off, taking their women and kids with them, leaving us breathless with exhilaration. That giant roar as they walked off into the distance still rings in my ears and brings goose bumps to this day.

A few days later, my husband went on a very early morning "walking safari", organized by the park. The local guides took him off the beaten path through the long grass and all that wild stuff. Two riflemen walked alongside, just in case!! He saw lots of animals that charge at people, including rhino and wilderbeast – such a further experience I was glad to do without.

But you don’t need to leave the Lodge to experience the dangers of wild Sth Africa. Hippos at the Lodge, in recent years, have killed guests. An electric barrier around part of the pond does little more than keep tourists from getting too close. There are places where the hippos can get around the fence, and they can easily walk straight through it if they feel like it. Many returning owners had tales of personal hippo encounters! So follow the rules and make sure you are not wandering outdoors after sunset.

A somewhat disgruntled owner, who was staying in the condo below us, related how that day a monkey had gotten into her condo and while keeping her attention another had snuck in and stole a banana. Wished it had happened to us - we would have cherished that moment.

Kruger National Park is fantastic. Some say that the best time of year to see the park is late in the dry season when there is less grass to conceal the animals. I just couldn’t imagine seeing any more – it’s already so busy out there.

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We set out from Skukuza, which is where the plane landed in our rental car, heading north. The speed limit was 25 MPH so we drove along leisurely, looking left and right. Very soon, we spotted Impala - a ubiquitous form of "buck"…Read More

We set out from Skukuza, which is where the plane landed in our rental car, heading north. The speed limit was 25 MPH so we drove along leisurely, looking left and right. Very soon, we spotted Impala - a ubiquitous form of "buck" similar to American deer. One sees so much of them, after a while you don't even stop. Pretty soon, we began spotting other animals usually lying by the ide of the road, grazing on the grass or running. among the many species were wildebees, giraffe, warthogs, zebra, baboons and hyenas.

After several hours we spotted two male lions off on the side strutting and female. They were very close to the car, so close in fact that we rolled up our windows.

During the course of the next 2 days we spotted some rather bad tempered elephants, one of which mock-charged our car. That certainly got our attention.

Subsequently, we left the Kruger Reserve to go into a private reserve next door. Shortly, thereafter, the heavens opened and we had 3 days of torrential unending rain which turned the reserves into a major disaster area. We felt as if the only way out would be a rescue by Noah's Ark. The river outside our accomodations rose over 50 feet and eventually we were evacuated in an emergency airlift, but that is another story. The rains continued unabated for a month and created staggering problems with images seen around the world as the neighbouring country of Mocambique suffered a major catastrophe. Close