Amazing trip: The Kruger National Park, South Africa

We were super lucky to see a leopard as we drove in to the park! I spotted it!

More Cats...

These lions we saw lying on the sandy dry river bed. Right where we were planning to be for our early morning game-walk!

We got out a little further up the road and walked anyway!

Neil, our guide, was well armed, with info as well as a gun in case of emergency. Here he points out hyena poop: it's white because they eat the bones. Other animals will eat their poop for calcium.

On our walk, we were also accompanied by another guide/ranger as well. At one point, there were about 20 elephants, including lots of babies, all around us. We couldn't see them all, but we could hear them, and our guides could see them. We kept having to walk further and further up, to make sure we didn't get between members of the group, which could be very dangerous. At one point, we heard the elephants make lots of aggressive noises--they had come across the lions we'd seen earlier and were chasing them off. Elephants don't like lions. Elephants are the real kings of the jungle.

Pretty soon, we saw the group of lions the elephants had been trying to chase off. We counted about 11 or 12 lions running across the riverbed (above). I was glad we were a far distance away, because there were 3 or 4 young cubs, and 3 tiny tiny cubs with them--we wouldn't have wanted to be too close to them! Or, their protective mothers, rather.

As we were finally nearing the place where we'd left our vehicle, we heard a growl... we had stumbled back upon some more lions! It was a warning growl. We kept a safe distance behind our 2 guards, who ushered us quickly to safety. Later we saw these two from our vehicle--they were the same ones we'd seen at the beginning of the day. And we passed only about 20 meters away from them! All in all, we had been very close to over 20 elephants and about 14 lions. It was an exciting morning in the bush!

The beauty of the bush

Monkeys & Baboons

Unusual to see baboons in the trees in the middle of the day, these guys were watching 2 head-males of different groups duke it out in a territory battle. We heard it, but didn't see it.

Crossing the Road: Small & Large

one of the "little 5," a leopard tortoise

Birds

my very favorite, the lilac breasted roller

my second favorite, guinea fowl

a juvenile Marshall eagle (the largest bird in the park)

hornbill (a.k.a. "Zazu" from the Lion King)

I don't know the name of this beautiful little bird

some other type of eagle

Antelope and Others

kudu

klipspringer

waterbuck (these are the ones with the white rings on their bums)

Impala, called the "MacDonald's of the bush" because everyone eats them,
and for the black "M" shaped markings on their bums

Giraffe

Babies

getting bored of all the elephants?

Alright then, "see ya!"