Thankful for South Africa

I will share Scott’s outline of our trip to give a unique perspective on our adventure. I loved the trip and was amazed how incredible it was to see animals in the wild. I napped more on this trip than any other but I liked the pace of everything, nice and slow. Scott made this awesome video which highlights our adventures perfectly. 

https://youtu.be/IgyYhY6DgA0

Nov 22-23

Flight went as well as it could. Short lines. Long flight brutal. Leg went numb. Slept for a few hours and woke up at 130am africa time. 

Nov 24

Drove 5 hours from jberg to Kruger. Left at 3am. Wasn't too sketchy. People jaywalking on freeway. Long drive. Pot holes and crazy passing cars. Arrived in Kruger and went to orphen gate. Drove around for a few hours. Saw a ton. So amazing.  

Went to lodge. Unembeza. Napped and ate a 3 course meal. Relaxing. Crashed hard at bedtime 

Nov 25

Full night of sleep! Got massages. Felt amazing.  Drove to New lodge. Kwambili. Bumpy road and hard to find. Ate lunch and relaxed. Had our first game drive. It was very rainy and I didn't have much faith we'd see much. Our ponchos soaked through quick. It was cold. We tracked something for 30 or so mins then we found lions! A group of 5. Amazing. Later, we saw a elephant at dusk! New animals we saw. 

Went back and had dinner. Could hear lions during dinner and while we were in bed. 

Nov 26

Woke up early for a game drive. Not tons of luck initially. We started to track a "kangaroo". Drove in some deep bush, running over trees. Then we saw them. 2 leopards! And they mated in front of us twice! I guess they are rare. Saw two elephabts as well! Then we got a flat tire but made it back just fine. Then we drove to our new lodge phelwana. It was very nice. We have our own pool. Giraffes wander around right outside our door. We ate lunch then went on a in-park safari. Our guide was awesome and from the bush. We saw more animals up close. The we ate dinner and needed more gas so we drove out of the park and filled up. It was a stressful drive and we got lost. As we turned around on the freeway, we ran into a couple lions on the other side of the fence. It was crazy. We got home and crashed. 

Nov 27 

Rained most of the day! So it was a lazy one. We did do a big 5 game drive where we didn't see anything new, just up close ones. A whole den of Hyenas. Herd of elephants. We joined two other British Jewish couples that were hilarious. Then ate and went to bed. 

Nov 28

Went on an early morning bush walk. It was just us two and very relaxing. Learned about all the small stuff around and saw some Warthog, giraffes, crocadiles and hippos. Then we left and drove to the sabie River. Our lodge was disappointing, but still nice. We did a sunset game drive in Kruger. A large 21 seater truck picked us up but we were the only two on the tour. The drive was fun. We saw a cheetah! So excited. Then we used spotlights in the dark to spot animals. So fun. 

Nov 29

Woke up early for another drive in Kruger. We saw a couple of leopards! One walked right against our vehicle. We almost saw a lion. The we got home and crashed. The food at sabie is weird. 

Nov 30 

Left sabie. Stopped at a cave on the way to airport. Oldest cave in the world. It was chill and enjoyable. Caught a flight to cape Town. Drove to hotel and crashed. 

Dec 1

First full day in cape Town! We walked down to v a pier. It was pretty cool. Very pier-iah. We decided to drive down to cape point. It was a beautiful drive. Hell of a lot of tourists though. Climbed to a Lighthouse. Stopped in hout bay for fish and chips.  Went home and crashed. 

Dec 2

Went to the old biscuit Market. Really crowded but sorta cool. We then went to a cool street called bo kaap. Colorful houses. Ate Indian food. Tried table Mountain but weather was bad. Went to pier and ate amazing steak and bibodi. 

Dec 3

Day was rainy in the morning. We drove to The World of Brids and Monkey park. It was surprisingly pretty awesome. The highlights being a crow making weird toddler noises and the monkey jungle. Monkeys jumped on my lap and my shoulder. I loved it. Our new hotel is really relaxing and nice. We ate a late lunch at a nearby restaurant. We were then a able to go up table Mountain. It was an amazing view. Hiked a bit at the top. Went to bed early! 

Dec 4

Woke up at 230am to drive 3 hours to Gansbaai for shark cage diving. Didn’t see any great whites but lots of copper sharks. Most of the boat of tourists were sea sick. 

Kudus

Giraffes

Buffalos

Hyenas

Impala 

Hippos

Wild dogs

Zebras

Warthogs

Monkeys

Lions 

Elephants

Babbons 

Big carnivorous slug

Crocodile

Storks

Leopards

Cheetah

White tailed mongoose