Living the Dream

When I was 8 years old, I told my mom I wanted to go to Africa so I could see the zebras roaming around. And here I am, living in Africa, with the luxury of seeing zebras almost every time we leave Polokwane. This weekend we went to Kruger National Park to do some proper African bush camping. Kruger is just 2 hours from Polokwane. It was an amazingly awesome weekend and it really was living the dream. I can't wait to go back. I had to choose from 150 photos- so I left a bunch out, but these are the ones that made the cut.

I love this pic- look how much the Giraffe love each other! And you can see zebras, impalas and even a little warthog.

Elephants at our sun downer

The "Big Five" in Africa are: Elephant, Leapord, Lion, Buffalo and Rhino. We were lucky enough to see everything except for lion this trip. The leapord was a flash in the grass, and then we watched him run away from the road, but how awesome to just be driving along and see a leapord! Next time, we hope to see our lions.

Baboons drinking in the Olifants River

Gregg and I sat and watched this waterhole for about an hour. We saw about 50 zebra come and go, along with a true 'African safari' combo of wildebeest, impala, warthog, kudu and giraffe. There was a lion in the area, although we never got to see them. The animals were on high alert, frozen in their tracks for minutes on end aware of the lions, and knowing that the waterhole is an easy target for a hungry lion.


Kudu

You can't see them, but there are elephants behind the grass. Love love love African sun downers!


Check the hippo in the background! This was the first time I saw a hippo out of water in the wild. If you get in between the hippo and the water, you can consider yourself deader then a doornail.

Overlooking the Olifants River- check out the Elephants!!

Huge Kudu!

Buffalo- these guys just stare at you until you leave. And they kill the most people second to hippos. Don't want to upset these guys!

Enjoying the cooler temperatures of the evening, and kicking back a few Savannas! Yes Gregg, you are still married. haha

Our rockin campsite

It's a little different in this country as your camp site has electric wire around the entire premises. And now you know why... Hyena!!! How creepy is this photo??? The entire night about 4 different hyenas walk the fence line in hopes of catching a hand or a foot out of the fence to munch on. Or just some extra braai meat that they are obviously used to. On the second night, there were two hyena pups- maybe 8 weeks old or so. Now those little guys were cute.

Thank goodness for electrified fence...

They are kind of cute when they lay down and look so innocent!