Mpumalanga and Kruger Park
Back in SA!
Objective of the day: reach our hotel before the night.
Failure.
We first stop in Pilgrim's rest, an old gold miners village, restored in the same spirit as it was before, pretending not to be touristic, although the prices and the concentration of shops and restaurants tend to demonstrate the contrary. A lovely place which makes you feel like in the 19th century in the US. I just hope we won't remember the place just as "where we had the most disgusting hot chocolate" (made with water) or "where we nearly fought with two guys that cleaned our car and were asking for more than 40 rands".
The Blyde River Canyon
We then went to the place we were expected to sleep, right in front of the "three rondavels", most famous and gorgeous place in the Blyde River Canyon, known to be the third biggest Canyon in the world. We could only realise the beauty of the place the next morning, when the day had come up!
We staid three days in the region of the canyon, planning to visit the canyon in itself on the last day. The thing is that we WERE in the canyon since the beginning without knowing it, because all we could see where cliffs with nothing in front of them, nothing comparable to what we call a 'canyon'. It's funny to think of it now, because telling it like that it look quite obvious (or stupid, choose the adjective) that we were in the canyon. But it wasn't that obvious I swear!!!
Anyway, we saw really beautiful landscapes, big water falls, the Bourke's Luck Potholes being my favourite because the water turns on itself and drew big holes in the red and black rock.
On the last day we left the mountain region to go back to the valley, where you can find maybe one of the most famous and exiting part of SA: the Kruger Park!
The Kruger Park
We entered the park through the Phabeni gate, Middle West of this huge park bordering with Zimbabwe (North) and Mozambique (East). The specificity of the park is the elephants. There’s a huge concentration of them in there, and we could already see it the first day. While driving towards our lodge, we could see one, then two, three, four and more elephants on the side of the road. After a couple of minutes, they decide to cross the road 5 meters (sorry united-staters) behind the car... and yes, there was this best picture to take of the baby elephant following his mum, not holding her by the tail because he was too small, but that would have made the photo perfect! Well, I made a movie of this so you'll have to wait to see me and my laptop to see it!
Arriving at the lodge, we saw a bunch of people stop on the side of the road, staring at something. The "thing" was a dying lion that people were happily watching at and waiting for the last gasp. I took a picture to show you but that was really disgusting of the human kind...
Anyway, we had a perfect beer-and-braai night at the lodge, enjoying the pleasant temperature of the air and hearing the roars of the rut male antelopes.
Day 2: looking for new animals to take pictures of (because let's face it, you don't go to a safari to enjoy the nature or study the animal life, you want to take the perfect picture with the lion targeting the antelope, who is drinking with the elephant and chatting with the giraffe), but tired of being in the car for three hours, we stopped at one of the few bars in the park. And while we were having breakfast, an elephant enters the restaurant's kind of terrace, making everyone running inside except one woman (who I suspect of being German according to the colour of her skin), which got stuck under her table while the beast was dubiously watching at her. I was more shocked by the local guards who were chasing him throwing eggs at his face than by the situation of the woman. I know an elephant doesn't feel the crash of the eggs on his skin but still, it is very humiliating...
We spent 2 days safariing there, seeing more and more elephant, until the point that we went to their water point, where they were more than 50 coming and going around us! Your don't feel like totally safe in this situation!
Then we went out of the park to go to a neighboring private reserve.
Although I don't like the idea of going to private reserves because you're not going on your own in the wild, and it looks fake, that was the perfect place!
We could have a real rest after 10 days of car, lying aside the swimming pool, going to safari like total tourists with a guide that was destroying the whole vegetation of the park to drive us to the animals we wanted to see. And the animals we wanted to see were lions... and we did see lions!!!
First we saw the mums and the simbas, and finally we saw Mufasa, lying in the middle of the road, waiting for us to take pictures (never forget your primary goal: taking pictures!) at 5 meters. Awesome!!!
We then went back to CT after two days in this little paradise.
Back in SA!
Objective of the day: reach our hotel before the night.
Failure.
We first stop in Pilgrim's rest, an old gold miners village, restored in the same spirit as it was before, pretending not to be touristic, although the prices and the concentration of shops and restaurants tend to demonstrate the contrary. A lovely place which makes you feel like in the 19th century in the US. I just hope we won't remember the place just as "where we had the most disgusting hot chocolate" (made with water) or "where we nearly fought with two guys that cleaned our car and were asking for more than 40 rands".
The Blyde River Canyon
We then went to the place we were expected to sleep, right in front of the "three rondavels", most famous and gorgeous place in the Blyde River Canyon, known to be the third biggest Canyon in the world. We could only realise the beauty of the place the next morning, when the day had come up!
We staid three days in the region of the canyon, planning to visit the canyon in itself on the last day. The thing is that we WERE in the canyon since the beginning without knowing it, because all we could see where cliffs with nothing in front of them, nothing comparable to what we call a 'canyon'. It's funny to think of it now, because telling it like that it look quite obvious (or stupid, choose the adjective) that we were in the canyon. But it wasn't that obvious I swear!!!
Anyway, we saw really beautiful landscapes, big water falls, the Bourke's Luck Potholes being my favourite because the water turns on itself and drew big holes in the red and black rock.
On the last day we left the mountain region to go back to the valley, where you can find maybe one of the most famous and exiting part of SA: the Kruger Park!
The Kruger Park
We entered the park through the Phabeni gate, Middle West of this huge park bordering with Zimbabwe (North) and Mozambique (East). The specificity of the park is the elephants. There’s a huge concentration of them in there, and we could already see it the first day. While driving towards our lodge, we could see one, then two, three, four and more elephants on the side of the road. After a couple of minutes, they decide to cross the road 5 meters (sorry united-staters) behind the car... and yes, there was this best picture to take of the baby elephant following his mum, not holding her by the tail because he was too small, but that would have made the photo perfect! Well, I made a movie of this so you'll have to wait to see me and my laptop to see it!
Arriving at the lodge, we saw a bunch of people stop on the side of the road, staring at something. The "thing" was a dying lion that people were happily watching at and waiting for the last gasp. I took a picture to show you but that was really disgusting of the human kind...
Anyway, we had a perfect beer-and-braai night at the lodge, enjoying the pleasant temperature of the air and hearing the roars of the rut male antelopes.
Day 2: looking for new animals to take pictures of (because let's face it, you don't go to a safari to enjoy the nature or study the animal life, you want to take the perfect picture with the lion targeting the antelope, who is drinking with the elephant and chatting with the giraffe), but tired of being in the car for three hours, we stopped at one of the few bars in the park. And while we were having breakfast, an elephant enters the restaurant's kind of terrace, making everyone running inside except one woman (who I suspect of being German according to the colour of her skin), which got stuck under her table while the beast was dubiously watching at her. I was more shocked by the local guards who were chasing him throwing eggs at his face than by the situation of the woman. I know an elephant doesn't feel the crash of the eggs on his skin but still, it is very humiliating...
We spent 2 days safariing there, seeing more and more elephant, until the point that we went to their water point, where they were more than 50 coming and going around us! Your don't feel like totally safe in this situation!
Then we went out of the park to go to a neighboring private reserve.
Although I don't like the idea of going to private reserves because you're not going on your own in the wild, and it looks fake, that was the perfect place!
We could have a real rest after 10 days of car, lying aside the swimming pool, going to safari like total tourists with a guide that was destroying the whole vegetation of the park to drive us to the animals we wanted to see. And the animals we wanted to see were lions... and we did see lions!!!
First we saw the mums and the simbas, and finally we saw Mufasa, lying in the middle of the road, waiting for us to take pictures (never forget your primary goal: taking pictures!) at 5 meters. Awesome!!!
We then went back to CT after two days in this little paradise.
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