Kwa-Mbili Game Lodge Thornybush Private Game Reserve

... park is the site of the popular eyewitness viral video Battle at KrugerThe park lies in the east of South Africa, in the eastern parts of Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces. It is one of the largest national parks in the world, with an area of almost 12,000 miles. The park is approximately 216 miles long, and has an ...

... next morning we called and verified the availability. The biggest problem we ended up running into was getting a rental car – well, mainly because we really wanted to stick with our buddies at aroundaboutcars (since they are like half the price of the big boys). Finally, though, by just after noon, about 15 hours after we began planning (7 of which we were asleep) we were on our way. To tell you how "flying by the seat of our pants" this trip was, we were filling ...

... not kept to the lines. There are taps, braii’s, laundry facilities, good ablution blocks and communal kitchens with electric hobs and sinks with hot/cold water, and hot water boiler. Skukuza has 2 restaurants, cafeteria, internet café, ATM, post office, reception, pool, a variety of accommodation and a very large shop. Plus library and information centre’s, and fuel station. It was a noisy camp that night ...

... that the monkey calls are a warning to other animals that a predator is near, and he believes that we should be able to find a leopard if we leave quickly. The leopard is by far the hardest of the big 5 animals to spot. The big 5, consisting of lions, leopards, rhino, elephants, and cape buffalo; are the most dangerous animals to humans. They are also what defines a successful safari trip. We jump on the Land Rover and quickly head out ...

... for about 2 minutes without saying anything. She looks up at us and asks us for our flight information. While digging through my bag, she tells us nevermind, then she says that we don't have a flight for today, we were supposed to travel on the 13th. Normally I wait till after breakfast to make smartass comments, so I politely told her that we did travel on the 13th, that was when we took our 15 hour flight from the States to ...

... enjoyed it. I forgot how large the park is so when we had spans of 1 or 1.5 hours with no sightings, I was a little bummed but it completely made sense. What we did see were plenty of elephants, giraffe, impala (aka "the McDonald's of the bush" since everyone eats them), lions, waterbuck (aka the "toilet seat"), warthogs, etc. we also managed to catch a glimpse of a leopard fully immersed in a tree. how anyone saw it, i really don't know but they are ...

... by our pool back at our room. Soon, we had visitors - vervet monkeys! At first they were cute, but more kept arriving, and was it just me or were they eyeing us like they had something in mind? Soon they were on the deck, on the roof, in the trees, drinking out of the pool, and sitting on the wall by the outdoor shower. When one jumped up on the back of Kirsten's lounge chair, we decided it was time to move inside ...

... spotted them out his window. When he saw them I almost drove the car into a tree because he went crazy and scared the hell out of me. We threw the car in reverse and sat watching them for probably a half hour. Dave made the mistake of leaning a little too far out the window of the car and scared them to the point where we both thought the lions were on their way into our car...probably not the ...

... knowledgeable indeed. At last a good guide in Africa! He certainly knew his birds and bird calls and would be able to determine what animal was making any sound that came from the bush. I don't think I get to use my ears enough when back in 'reality' and found it very hard to remember and distinguish ...

... are plenty and they're nasty, and he keeps ******** on my stuff! We also seem to have mice in our room... :) And: one fell victim to the other monkey. Flea, the satanic little gnome of a monkey with an affinity for ears, bit Sophie's ear and she had to have a team of doctors (=volunteers) with headtorches clean it and tape it up :) 17 Water won't deter the monkey anymore (he hates being squirted) and the sun is still poisonous to me. As of today, there ...