Life with MK: Kruger National Park

Today was a very early wakeup call as my alarm went off at 5:10am. We had a simple breakfast and then got in our safari 4x4s for a day of game driving in Kruger National Park in the northeast section of South Africa. Kruger National Park is an enormous park that spans three countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique) and is home to many species of wildlife, including the Big Five. I began the day having already seen four of the Big Five including elephant, rhino, buffalo, and lion and I only needed to see a leopard to complete it. Unfortunately we never were able to find a leopard but at least we saw a bunch of other cool animals!

We began the day by driving to the gate of the park where we checked in and entered. Our guide had asked us what we wanted to see during the day and we told him all of the rare animals we wanted to see like the leopard, the honey badger, a pangolin, african wild dogs, hyenas, etc. He told us we were trying to make life hard for him, but laughed about it. We were pretty sure we wouldn't see most of those things, but we could dream right. He basically said we were very unlikely to spot most and he hadn't even seen all of those animals before.

Our first animal spotting was a giraffe with her baby right near the road. It was very cute, but the light was low and it was on the other side of the 4x4 so I wasn't able to get a very good picture. They were really cute though, especially the baby. We then spotted a herd of elephants right near the road and they were awesome. Little did we know that elephant sighting would be far from a rarity for the rest of the day. We continued to drive on and the next thing we knew we came across a pack of four to six african wild dogs! It was so cool and actually quite unexpected due to the fact that there are only about 200 of them and Kruger is roughly the size of Wales! We were very excited!

After those first three sightings I can't tell you the exact order that we saw the rest of the animals for the day, but we saw a ton. There were many animals that I had seen previously in Uganda, and some new ones as well. I saw my first zebras, wildebeest, impala, kudu, vulture, parrot, and hornbill, as well as waterbuck, duiker, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, buffalo, and elephants. I'm sure I'm probably forgetting a few animals that I saw as well, especially some of the bird species we saw today.

We stopped at a resort-ish place inside the park for a breakfast snack and rest and after lunch was when we heard on the radio that a pride of lions had been spotted. We turned around and drove the 16km to the place they were seen in order to see the pride of lions. They were a bit far from the road, but at least we saw one big cat! I'm still a little sad we didn't see any other large predator, but I will live. The only bad thing about seeing the lions was that it made us do a second loop around park of the park we had already seen instead of seeing a new portion along the river. Anyways after the lions we went on our way to the lunch spot, stopping for a few animals along the way including a huge elephant that crossed the street between both of the 4x4 vehicles our group was in.

Lunch was at a picnic area within the park and we had chicken drumsticks that our tour guide had cooked for us in the morning. They were good, but the rest of the meal had mayonnaise so once again I had a bit of an unbalanced meal. At least the chicken was good and I had an apple in my backpack. After lunch we set off in the direction of the gate we would exit from, seeing a few more animals along the way, especially impala, giraffes, and elephants. We encountered a large herd of elephants with a baby who were trying to cross the road and a stupid man in a blue truck got in their way. The elephants looked kind of pissed and started looking like they might do something to his car, but he backed up and nothing happened. I kind of wish I had seen something go down (so long as nobody got hurt). It was a pretty cool experience. We also stopped at the place where the famous YouTube video "Battle at Kruger" happened. It was cool to see the location and you should watch the video if you haven't already seen it because it is amazing.

After the area of the battle we headed on our way out. We were driving along a road and spotted the rarest of our sightings all day, the elusive honey badger! It was ridiculously cool and we were so excited. We got to see the full viciousness of the animal as it literally ripped apart a terrapin and we could see and hear it crunching on the shell and eating its meat. It was nuts and such an amazing thing to have seen. Our guide had never even seen a honey badger before and was also really excited. We never ever thought we would actually see one. After the honey badger we really just saw one more elephant before exiting the park and driving back to the campsite.

Once back at Hotel Numbi campground we relaxed a bit and started cooking dinner. We watched a group come perform some cultural dance and song around the campfire and then ate a traditional meal that reminded me a lot of Ugandan meals, but this was probably better. We had made a posho like dish that was probably more like a mix of posho and polenta, African spinach with a peanut butter sauce, fried cabbage, and beef with tomatoes and onions. It was so delicious! I ate my entire meal and was so satisfied. I also packed up tonight since we are changing safari vehicles tomorrow due to the trouble the vehicle has had. Tomorrow it is off to Botswana and we have a full day of travel. I had a wonderful had and I'm excited to see a new country soon!