Wild animals and more

I'm back from a safari in Kruger National Park and exploring Cape Town. It's like another world down there! Very developed...an interesting mix of European, Western, and Asian influence. It was nice to have all the comforts of home again for a while. Most of all it was wonderful to visit with my sister Ginger and brother-in-law Carl; we had a great time seeing South Africa together. Here are some of my favorite photos...

We stayed at Leopard Hills Lodge. It was beautiful...nestled in the hillside.

It was very luxurious. Each suite had it's own plunge pool and outdoor shower!Including a picturesque deck, with lazy hammock.

We went on a morning and evening game drive. The guides were competitive and intent on finding the best animals each drive. Each vehicle included a driver, and a "spotter" who sits on the end of the vehicle scanning the horizon for animals and radioing to other vehicles for location of animals.
Here are Ginger and I on the safari land cruiser during the evening game drive.
On the evening drive we stopped for cocktails and wine, and on the morning drive we stopped for tea. It was a little scary to leave the vehicle and walk around the bush, but we knew we were safe with the guides.
Carl, Ginger, and I, at sunset.

Carl and Ginger by the safari vehicle.
We enjoyed a deliciou dinners served outside by a bonfire. Here are Ginger and I at the table outside enjoying a traditional African dinner (including grilled Impala!)
After dinner there was a bubble bath waiting!

The Big Five Game in Africa are: elephant, lions, leopards, rhinos, and buffalo. We saw them all and more!

ELEPHANTS
We saw many herds of elephants, often eating grass and crossing the the road with their young. They occasionally flared their ears at us, or tooted their horns, but mostly ignored us.
LIONS
Here is a mother lion with her playful cubs. they looked cute enough to pet- but we knew better!
We did not see any animals kill anything (I am not sure I could have stomached it!) although we saw many animals chasing their prey. We often followed animal tracks in order to find them. Here are the tracks of a lion chasing a wildebeest.
(Warning to vegetarians for next photo!) Here is the lion licking his chops while enjoying his dinner.
Here is how close the vehicles were to the lions. (I was glad I wasn't in the spotters seat on the front!) We learned the lions are used to the sound and size of the vehicles and see them as one non-aggressive object all together. However if one of us were to stand up or leave the vehicle they would see us as human prey!
In the Sabi Sands game preserve (where we were) there has been this one pack of lions recently which includes a female lioness, and about five or six teenage lions (just starting to grow manes) as well as the two small baby lion cubs. The large males have not been seen on the preserve in a while (there are no fences with Kruger National park, so they must have left to another part of the park). This pack of teenage lions has been easy for the safari guides to spot because they have stayed in a part of the park where they often find their prey and are too young yet to venture into new territory.
LEOPARDS
The leopards were the most fun to chase. They are solitary animals and mostly travel alone unless a mother is with her young. On a few occasions they were spotted either by someone on the back deck at our lodge or from another safari vehicle and off we went in search of the tracks to follow. If we lost them in the bush, sometimes our guide or spotter would hop out of the vehicle and search for them on foot with their rifle. This was also scary! Here is a photo of Gary running back to the vehicle with rifle in hand after spotting the leopard nearby.

Here is a leopard strolling down the road in front of our vehicle. This is one of my favorite photos.

Here he is just sitting watching us while we watched him.

RHINO
We tracked this rhino's footprints for a while, constantly scanning the horizon, then found him casually laying in the middle of the road!


BUFFALO
We learned that buffalo are the animals to most fear in the wild. If you are out in the jungle alone; beware, a buffalo will charge at you and not stop charging! We found this herd of buffaloes twice. They didn't seem to notice us on our vehicle thankfully.


Me with a buffalo in the background.




OTHER ANIMALS
A cheetah! On Ginger and Carl's first safari drive they chased a cheetah by following tracks and hearing reports of it's location. But on the second day he was sitting lazily here under a tree for all to easily find him. Cheetahs are also solitary animals and generally travel alone.



The zebra traveled in large herds which reminded me of a pack of wild horses.
Here is a mother giraffe and her young baby. Giraffes also travel in herds. They were one of the most peaceful animals we saw. Always munching on trees, moving slowly, and never seemed to notice us.
We saw many hippos in the watering holes, but they rarely come out of the water so they were difficult to photograph.
Baboons were often in the yard at the lodge. These creatures are funny and actually not very cute. We often spotted them scurrying accross the landscape in large packs as we drove around.

We saw many beautiful birds as well.