South Africa – Kruger National Park & Shangaan Cultural Evening

Kruger National Park

On October 23^rd, we entered into South Africa.  The weather was the hottest I have experienced in my entire life – 43C plus humidity!! We were all melting in the truck.  The wind that entered through the windows was sweltering hot and every part of us was sweating.  It was not a pretty sight.  It was a welcome relief to finally arrive at our campsite after over 500km of driving and have a nice cold shower.

The next morning we were up early for our full day game drive in Kruger National Park.

On our game drive, we saw buffalo, rhinos, impala, elephant, lions, lions sleeping after enjoying their succulent buffalo dinner, giraffe, a dung beetle pushing a ball of poop, a turtle, a tiny 2 week old elephant, many birds, a hyena and more. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a leopard so my mission of seeing all of the Big 5 in Kruger wasn’t accomplished.

Here are photos from the Kruger Game Drive:

 Rhino

Buffalo

Buffalo gnawing on green grass

Elephant eating...nom nom nom

2 week old elephant following its momma

The lion is sleeping after polishing off her succulent buffalo. Must be suffering from a food coma :)

Shhh....lion sleeping!

"I see you"

 "Roar, this is my buffalo"

Pretty!

 Zebra

 Lots of elephants in the park

Giraffe

Shangaan Cultural Evening

After our long day in Kruger National Park, we went back to our campsite to get ready for our Shangaan Cultural Evening.  This involved traditional African dancing and a traditional African cuisine dinner.  I was pulled up on stage (black eye and all) to join in on a dance routine. I can’t dance if my life depended on it, but at least it was fun for my friends who were onlooking and having a great laugh. LOL!

Here are a few pics:

Kat and I - scar buddies forever.  Kat was the one whose knee I took a bite out of and whose knee battered my face. Ahh, memories.

 Traditional dance

Our evening feast!

This was also the final night of us all being together as our tour was ending the following day and it was the last night that I would have to sleep in a tent!

On October 25^th, we made our last overlanding truck journey into Johannesburg.  When we arrived, it was also time for me to say goodbye to new friends and to catch my evening flight to Cape Town.  The safari was an amazing experience and one of the top highlights of my trip.  My month in Eastern and Southern Africa has been so incredible that words cannot describe the experience I had.  Absolutely loved it!