Paradise Camp Limpopo

I've just received mu luggage today, after South African Airways lost it on the way from Livingstone. Fortunately, I was able to buy some underwear and borrow some things from others in my tour group. This is a much more diverse group than the last one, with 14 travelers from England, the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the ...

... taken with a big cat!


From here we went on a 2hour ride around the reserve to look at and learn more about the different animals so again here we saw vultures and the different breeds – Eqyptian, Cafe Griffon etc, ostrichs and the vervet monkeys were hanging out with them and stealing their scraps, brown hyaenas, wild dogs, cheetahs and something extremely rare, so uncommon to see in Africa... the friendly impala!! (ha!).


Limpopo, South Africa mbsteve

... nice. Last year we had a really good night drive here where we saw lions and hyenas.

From Punda Maria to Mopani we saw:

Elephants, impala, hyenas, warthogs, bataleurs, buffalos, nyala, duiker, suni, grysbok, eagle, giraffe, stork, zebra, kudu, buzzard, waterbuck, hippo, egyptian geese, mongoose, ducks, crested barbet, monitor lizard, heron, wildebeest, steenbok, ostrich, hartebeest, plated lizard, skinks, batis.

... Maria Restcamp:

impala, long tailed shrike, elephant, nyala, bushbuck, giraffe, zebra, kudu, tessebe, buffalo

On the Punda Maria Loop we saw:
drongo, roller, nyala, impala, kudu, pigeon, warthog, grey rhebok, francolins, elephant, suni.

at the hide at Punda Maria we saw:
elephants, kudu, impala, nyala, buffalo, baboons, starlings.

at the camp we saw:
thick tailed bushbabies, bats and heard lions roaring in the night.

... including a baby. SO AWESOME and we got so close so we sat and watched them for a while and our ranger was telling about them. We werent paying attention to the other side of the vehicle and one of the other students all of a sudden says 'um theres 2 large bulls coming this way! So we all check it out and sure enough 2 huge elephant males are walking straight for us! EEK! so we moved the car and came back and one of the male was still hanging out at the water hole, the ...

... engrossed in watching; at every angle I looked there was another fantastic array of colours and silhouettes...the sun disappearing as a brilliant pink fireball..........the trees looking completely black against the sky........true to African artwork that I have seen depicting the sunset.Anyone who has been fortunate enough to witness this mesmerizing sight will know what I mean when I say I don't think I will forget this part of Africa............Wow.adrienne

... on the road around the vehicles. Absolutely awesome!! We also went back to check on the carcass and the jackals were having a real feast. Back to camp for a shower (slept in our clothes and with our boots on just in case we had to do a runner, like to be prepared), and to get some breakfast. Weather starting to get real warm now and it's not summer just the start of spring. Hopefully we'll get the start of the rains before we go and see the bush bloom.

... The lodge is ALL game. The napkins, sheets, table clothes, even Kleenex and tooth picks have a fur design. Bet serves us a lovely meal: salmon mouse, steak and ice cream with perfect fresh fruit. We are out in the wild, play liar dice and listen to Bert's stories, about life and death in the nature. Ann makes her remark of the day: well, you get born, you **** and you die. With that thought, we all go to sleep, because tomorrow, tomorrow: we go to Kruger

... a flippin house spider! But it was great. Finally that day we had the special privledge to go in with the caracals. They're beautiful cats with long tufted black ears and egyptian like eyes. They curled around our legs and licked our hands - just like a little domestic cat - but you should see these guys at feeding time, they rip apart a large steak in a few minutes! Other news - Cubs are fine and doing well. My favourite is Norman, we often purr to ...

... heads out of the water, mouths open and making sounds. Some wildebeest and kudu hang by the shores looking on. Dad is a bird fanatic; he stops to show us birds all the time. We are still searching for the Big Five, but catch a group of baboons taking naps and grooming each other under a tree by the river. A little while later, we're driving through the planes and some zebra catch our attention, then we see a big tree full of baboons, underneath and around the zebra and rhinos ...