Hotel Numbi Hazyview

Early on the 15th day of our journey we departed for the airport in Durban and flew to Mpumalanga airport for Kruger National Park. Here we transfered by coach to the Protea Kruger gate Hotel a beautiful open area at the registration desk was the gathering place for people going to and from their safaris. Here we ...

... Dam. By the time we hit the Lower<br>Sabie road we were in high spirits and would have been quite happy to<br>leave it there......<br><br>Then, as tends to happen on the Sabie road or 'Eloff street' as my volks called it all through my childhood, we rounded a bend to be greeted by +- 15 cars all jostling for position.<br>This usually means one thing, a cat! After a few minutes straining to<br>see what all the commotion was about we were told by another vehicle<br>that a ...

... to vacate. Off we go only to find the lion's brother doing the same thing. Must be a family thing. More photos, more remarks. Time is coming to an end as it is well past 10 AM. We're headed back to the entrance and use the driving time to fully register what we have seen and how close we have been. People speak of the Big Five in awe and we have, in two days, seen all of them, up close and personal. This is what ...

... their culture and history, I just didn't like being there. Even though it wasn't scheduled in our itinerary, the group decided to go to the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (aka the cheetah project) and do a brief tour. The centre is home to a number of cheetahs and other animals that either cannot survive in the wild or that are being rehabilitated for eventual release into the wild. Along with the cheetahs, you'll find a baby rhino, painted dogs, a ...

... would look if we hadn't killed all the Indians but rather relocated millions of people to far off places and forced them all to change their lives and culture. It's something to think about... On to the excellent stuff... We arrived at Kruger park at around 3 in the afternoon... 30 seconds after entering the park we saw an elephant (He's paid to be there)... so we quickly arrived at our camp sight a bit tired, but luckily we had a second to drop our bags off before we went out for ...

... marred only by Sam, one of the Californians, who spent the entire meal on his iPhone. The whole 2 1/2 days we shared with them, he was like a freaking iPhone commercial, talking about how great it was. We could hear the entire conversation from where we were sitting. After dinner, the Texans, Andrew and Bob, joined us for a glass of wine since it was their last night, and all of us were just laughing about Sam and his stupid iPhone.

... has - someone bought 4,500 Rand worth of work from him and then refused to pay the last 500 Rand. My cousin phoned her to follow up and the woman blatantly refused to pay him. A very unpleasant situation. My cousin pointed out to the driver after the conversation that he must not give up the goods until he has received payment in full. Heaven knows he puts an enormous amount of time and talent into the work and I believe he and other ...

... I'd just been lucky in the number of animals I'd seen but I couldn't believe that some people sign up for four days of this and I even heard of some who intended on spending a fortnight in the park. You've gotta be some kind of David Attenbrough/National Geographic obsessive to want to do that... We stopped for a picnic lunch at a visitor centre where we could also have purchased complete zebra hides (bullet hole still visible) had we so wished, but ...

... Infact when we called home to Vancouver Island it was the same temperature! It was a case of two extremes, apparently a bit of a pineapple express was happening at home, and unusually low temperatures were being experienced where we were in South Africa. We arrived during a huge thunder and lightening storm. The power was out when we got to our bed and breakfast. We treated ...

... can get incredible close in many cases and avoid disturbing the animals. The big thing that most people on safari are trying to find in the "Big 5". These five animals, the elephant, rhino, water buffalo, lion and leopard, were selected by hunters as the five most dangerous game animals to man in the bush. Despite this, the hippo has killed more humans than any other animal in Africa. Despite this, the name and list have stuck so everyone is talking about ...