Full day safari

  Nelspruit, South Africa
Friday, February 1, 2008

Jen showers first and I run out of water (both hot and cold) after about 15 seconds of icy cold water.  This sucks on so many accounts but mostly because I'm not even close to clean to begin with and I wind up with soap in my hair!  I try three other tree's showers, to no avail, before resigning to being dirty for the day.  Ahhh, the beauties of life in the bush.  We walk no more than 5 feet away from some kudu (deer like animals) on the way to breakfast before we realize that we've woken up an hour too early.  Who does that?  I'm glad as we sit mere feet away from monkeys and kudu play in the cool morning hour.  The kudu are eating the amarula fruit and I anticipate the response as they supposedly get drunk off this fruit (just as we did off the alcohol last night), and it is only 7 am.  It works as we later see one jumping in and out of the river beneath our tree house, just splashing around aimlessly.  Jen gets very close (about 3 feet) to one before it slowly moves along.

We head to Kruger, at a snail's pace as always, after another solid breakfast and I'm glad to have Richard in our land rover for the day.  He's finally figured out the difference between "fuck up" and "fuck off", which provided for much comic relief. 

I wonder what's in the elephant graveyard!

We see hundreds of animals and literally come face to face with an older male lion as he paused a few feet from our rover before deciding to walk around us. 

My what big pupils you have!

Jen and Richard get really scared and I pretend that I'm not and that I could have taken him the whole time!  Jorge taunts him but the Lion backs down thankfully. 

Just make my day...

Overall, the experience is nothing like the great migration we saw in Kenya, but I love nature and wildlife so I enjoy it like a fat kid enjoys cake.

Back at the camp just in time for another stellar dinner around the table, we all share stories and we are once again accompanied by new travelers.  The Irish couple is very friendly but the Brazilians (couple?? He's 31 and she's 21) head off to bed immediately after dinner is over. 

Around the campfire, under the stars

It's Jen's B-day at midnight and we drink more than usual in her honor, inspired by the new Irish couple and Mr. John's 6-pack purchases as the bar keep announces last call. 

Jen celebrating her b-day

A terrible rendition of happy bday basically ends the night but we wound up going to chill on our balcony with Richard for a bit...  Not sure why, but we get eaten alive for the first time on this, our last night in the bush.