The Animals…at night!

So far into this trip, we had only seen dogs, cats, a stray cow & other farm animals, we were excited to see some wild ones! From our condo we could see the back side of the preserve & the kids would stare at it & think that they could see animals anywhere. But we were very excited to go on a night safari. It was in an open air truck, and beforehand, we were a little nervous about the animals but not realizing that we would be high up in the truck & that we should be worried about the cold! Usually this part of Africa is warm, even in winter, but there was a wave of cold air hanging over us. So we wore layers of clothes, including ski jackets. Illana & Leonard, having done this before, brought some hot chocolate & beer, so we were all set.

Solly, our driver gave us blankets, so we huddled under those as we entered the park. It’s hundreds of square miles big, and while it’s full of animals, the animals could be anywhere. It looks like you think Africa should look like, with lots of grasses & craggy hills & scrubby trees all around these roads, mostly dirt tracks. Solly starts out explaining that he is going to go fast because there were lions spotted up the road a bit, but he keeps stopping to talk to us. And we started spotting animals; we spotted several rhinoceroses, wildebeest & impalas, which Solly kept calling McDonalds for lions because of the ‘M’ marking on their buts! By this time it was pitch black out & very dusty, but our driver had several spotlights that he kept flashing around. It was actually pretty easy to find animals in the dark that way because their eyes would reflect the light. We did catch a glimpse of a Lion & Solly decided to watch a nearby herd of wildebeest because it looked like the lion was stalking them. Rich thought that was cool but all I could picture was traumatized kids that would not sleep the rest of the trip! A little too much ‘Wild Kingdom’ for me! I really didn’t want to hear the sounds of a lion mauling a wildebeest or any other animal! Because it was really very quiet there, the only vehicles allowed after 6pm where these special game drive trucks, so there were only a few trucks around. Thankfully the lion & our truck moved on & we found a giraffe & also, a baby hippo that was out of the water. It was so cute! We also saw bunnies & steenbock (rock deer). We learned that there are about 50+ Lions in the park that originally came from Namibia, not Kruger, because of the diseases that the Lions in Kruger were carrying. And only 1 cheetah!  Check out the eyes!!