Kruger National Park

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  Skukuza, Mpumalanga, South Africa
Friday, July 18, 2008

Woke up at seven after a good night's sleep in a very cozy, comfortable room and had a wonderful hot shower. Breakfast was the usual cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But this time nobody complained about how thickly I spread my peanut butter. For some reason such things don't seem to matter to this group. And as if things weren't going well enough, just as I was handing in my key at the reception, I heard on the radio an announcer saying "and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by 220 points . . ." Really, just at the moment that I was passing by the radio, I was greeted by that good news, almost as if it were meant just for me. With all the good things happening now, I can't help but be in a good mood.

This mood carried over onto the truck as I was a bit more talkative than usual with my group mates. We entered the gates of the famous Kruger National Park and spent the day driving through the park spotting wild animals, including elephants, giraffes, impalas, buffalo, a couple of lions and a variety of birds, ranging from beautiful ones to big ugly ones

01-Some kind of evil looking bird

.

While I'm in the Kruger park, I can't help but think about my dear friend Duen in Bangkok, whose dream it is to visit this park, as she once told me. She has researched the park thoroughly and knows a lot about it and its animals. I hope she gets to see it someday and I can thoroughly recommend the tour that I am on as a way for her (or anybody else) to visit it.

It was an altogether lovely day spent driving through the park looking at animals, having a couple of nice meals and enjoying each other's company. Nothing to complain about today . . .

19 July

It just kind of keeps getting better! Some of the others went out at 6 am for a game drive but I stayed in my warm bed, only to emerge for a lovely bacon and eggs breakfast at 8 o'clock. We then spent the morning continuing our drive through the Kruger National Park and I saw a couple of the rarer animals this time that I had never seen before, such as a leopard (on the hunt - sneaking up on a group of impalas), and a rhinoceros - as big as a car

02-African striped horse

. Actually it looked a bit like a dinosaur.

We arrived at our next campsite in the park at about two in the afternoon, at which time we had lunch and then were given the afternoon off for personal matters. I used my time for the exciting task of washing my clothes. I thought the reception (where the internet is located) would be open at night so I planned to spend the evening reading and writing e-mails, but it turned out that it closed at 18:30, leaving the rest of the evening free for me. I should have used the internet first in the afternoon and done my laundry in the evening instead as the laundromat is open until late.

We had an early dinner (17:30) because some of the people in our group were going off for a night game drive. I didn't go for the night drive because I feel like we do enough driving during the day - and I see enough animals during the daylight hours. The last thing I want to do is then spend more time driving around - in the cold and dark - to maybe see some animals at a different time of their daily cycle.

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03-Wildebeast or something similar	04-The ferocious king of the jungle	05-My hut for the first night at Kruger	06-View of river from camp
07-The elusive leopard	08-Rhino as big as a car	09-My hut for the second night at Kruger	10-Rhino family
11-Rhino in his full glory

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