We spent three nights at Vuyani Lodge, a private game reserve located adjacent to Kruger National Park, a 3 million acre wonderland of wild animals. We had morning and afternoon group safaris at Vuyani and also had a full day private safari in Kruger.
The accommodations were wonderful, the service was unparalleled, and the safaris were dramatic and exciting and full of fun.
Here’s some of what we saw (no words necessary on most of them, but I’ve added a few details on a couple of the photos below:
This herd of elephants walked single file across the road in front of us, went down an embankment, across the river, and up an embankment on the other side. No idea where they were going, but they were definitely on their way somewhere. Funny thing was, they acted as if we didn’t exist. We didn’t even merit a glance from these behemoths.
In case you can’t tell, this is a brown-spotted hyena nursing her pups. She was about ten feet off the road and she, like the elephants, completely ignored us. You can see, though, that one of her pups couldn’t resist taking a look.
We arrived at Vuyani in the afternoon. That morning, one of the guests had taken a great video of a rhino charging their safari truck. He stopped just short of colliding with the truck, but succeeded in scaring the hell out of everyone riding in it.
We saw a band of about 30 baboons hiking single file across a dry river bed. The little guy below was having a ball learning to climb a reed that was too thin to support his weight.
This is a yellow-billed something or other (I couldn’t keep track of all the names our guide threw at us during the course of the day.) He was a cheeky little devil who tried to steal our lunch.
Jamie sitting on the running board of our Vuyani Safari truck.
After hours of bouncing around in the scrub, a tea and coffee break is just what we needed.
Jamie and Hendrik, our Vuyani Lodge guide, during the morning coffee and tea break.
Jamie and Frank, our guide at Kruger National Park. I asked Frank how long his family has been in South Africa and he said they go back so far that no one knows.
Wow! Awesome pictures!
Gorgeous photos!