Kruger National Park

In July Ryan and I went to Sabie, Graskop and Kruger National Park. I have to say it was much better than anything I could have expected. Sabie and Graskop are just north of Nelspruit in Mmpumalanga province. It's absolutely gorgeous there with surrounding mountains and it's so green, I nearly forgot how green trees can be. Ryan adjusting to driving on the other side of the road was a bit terrifying at moments but I held my breath and just looked on at the scenery. Our first night we stayed in Sabie at this adorable bed and breakfast. It was like heaven. This amazing shower, swimming pools and a great breakfast. We spent the evening eating amazing lasagna and had drinks at this cute little mountain pub. As the evening went on, there were some very drunk afrikaners who made friends with us. They were ridiculous and amusing at the same time. But it made for fun jokes for us.

Our second day we toured through Graskop and ran into Kaitlin near Hazyview area before entering the park. It was really fun to see her, realizing peace corp is small. Never know when you'll run into anyone!!! And then, we entered my heaven and it was like being on excstacy for me, or so I would imagine at least.

Not five minutes into the park we saw the first of literally thousands of impala. And literally another five minutes in we saw a heard of elephants, thus the beginning of my infatuation with their big ears, strange trunks and ability to destroy a tree in a matter of minutes. Throughout the next four days, we saw Elephant in herds, one by one, with babies and in different geographic settings. We saw them marching through rivers, disappearing into thick trees and wandering through the savannah.

That evening as we arrived at the first bungalo resort, we decided to go for a drive. Ignoring the rather large signs and all instructions, we clearly missed the part that says NO DRIVING AFTER DARK! LARGE FINE! So, while trying to maneuver through the signs and having Giraffe nearly stick their head into our car, we followed the safari trucks as dusk was falling to find two female lions on the side of the road. It was amazing...before the drivers yelled at us that it was illegal and we had to go back. he said it was a 2000R fine if we did not return to camp. Scared and annoyed we went back to camp. Where as, we had to then wait to recieve our ticket for ignoring the signs and driving after dark. So, we then purchased a lot of alcohol, returned to our lovely bungalo, listened to the monkeys in the trees and drank away the worry of having to go to court tomorrow and pay 2000R. Our fine ended up costing nearly nothing but we did spend our first morning in the district court at Kruger National Park. But, we saw a large family of warthog on our way out and the rest of the day was unreal.

We vistited watering holes and saw crocodiles, hippo, cheetah, hyena, elephant, zibra and giraffe, as well as many other fabulous things. The landscape changed often and it was really fun to drive around. At any rest stop to eat, there were monkeys waiting to grab anythign they can. The baboons are the park clowns for sure, as Ryan said. He fell in love with them. And on our third day, we were robbed by monkeys.

Waiting at a beautiful lookout point above the Olephants River, we got out to take a picture, one of few places you are allowed to "alight from your vehicle at own risk." As we were, some young vervot monkeys charged us and before knowing what happened, they were attached to the car and when we looked around, there was one inside the car, taking our apples and our bread. They are smart. He pulled the bag and wrapping off the bread, threw it aside and jumped out of the window into the trees. THey looked on smug and successful. It was too funny to be angry.

After seeing lions at night and cheetah during the day, we left Kruger and visited my site for a few days. The entire week and a half was fantastic and Kruger went far beyond my expectations. I am excited to go back again and spend more time in Sabie. After years of loving animals, watching safaris on tv and drooling over leopard print and cheetahs, seeing them in the wild in real life was like a dream. And doing it with Ryan made it that much more perfect.