Adventures in Kruger

This entry is for July 26-28. Sorry for the delay with this entry, but I just found out that nobody had boggled about Kruger yet, so I gladly volunteered to do it. There is a lot to say about those three days though, so this might be a long entry. There's really only one thing that I can say to start this off: "Elephants, zebras, giraffes, oh my". But let's start at the beginning. The morning we left was a very, very early morning. To put it in perspective, we got breakfast at 8:00 AM after driving 2 hours. That would prove to provide extreme grouchiness from everybody during the drive which lasted until 3 or 4 PM. When you drive that long, you have lots of time to look out the window and by doing that we saw and learned what this country in about. A big highlight was seeing the sunrise. It was a big and bright red ball slowly bouncing up over the horizon. (Don't worry, we got pictures.) Also we passed by Soccer City and saw the big stadium. It was cool to imagine it full of thousands of screaming fans.

After many hours of driving, a book of Mad Libs, and conversations that will never be forgotten, we pulled into Kruger National Park full of excitement. The concept of the park is awesome. It is just a huge open space full of animals with roads running through it. The roads aren't fenced in and neither are the animals, which provided us with some shocking, yet exhilerating experiences, pictures and videos. On our approximately 2 hour drive through the park to our site, we became a team of 15 lookouts, on the hunt for wild animals. During that stretch of time, we saw flocks of springboks, impalas (both very common), elephants, ostriches, zebras, warthogs, and thanks to a great eye from Kim, a lion sleeping from afar. Our camp was just a cluster of about 80 one room, two bed huts with bathrooms and communal kitchens (one for every ten huts). There was also a store, a center of operations, and some beautiful lookout points over the river, where hippos and crocodiles were constant. We settled in and went to bed satisfied, thanks to a great sausage dinner from G-Win and the knowledge that we would finally be able to get a normal teenage amount of sleep.

After waking up, getting ready and eating breakfast, we were ready for our safari adventure. The idea is you just pile into cars and drive around the vast park, trying to spot animals through the bush. You really just have to get lucky to see them, and lucky we got. It took a while and some grumpy complaints until we saw all the the things we did, but it taught us good things come to those who wait. We had been driving around for about an hour and had seen just the common things like impalas and springboks, plus kudus, zebras, and giraffes. The kudus actually scared us because they looked like mixes between zebras, giraffes, deer and horses. Anyway, after a big period of seeing no aniamls, we were amazed to come across an entire herd of elephants literally 10 feet off the road. They all decided to cross the road right in front of us and a few brave ones charged after us, causing us to back up right into another group. (Editor's note: We didn't really get "charged"...It was more of a steady walk toward the vehicles. No humans, animals or vehicles were damaged in any way. Gersh and Lara were nervous at this point, but everything was ok.) We saw about 30 or so elephants in all, some from about 5 feet away. It was amazing to see the power of God's creation in its natural habitat and beauty.

Then we had lunch and returned back to camp to register for the guided tours which is where guides drive safari vehicles. There is a morning, night and sunset drive, and then a morning walk for the adventurous ones (Nicole & Kim). Everybody did at least one tour, with some people doing two. I did the night drive and the morning drive which is what I will explain here. The night drive is very cold so you have to deck out in warm clothes. You also have to use these mega-spotlights to see anything. On this drive we saw two leopards, elephants, impalas, spring hares and stuff like that. Oh yeah, we also saw a pride of lions hunt down an impala ten feet in front of us and heard it get eaten. We also saw a hyena luking in the shadows, waiting for the remains of the carcass. It was awesome and mind-blowing to see these things, and it really helped to show the diversity between here and home. After finishing the drive and hanging out at the huts, we went to bed for a nice 3 hour sleep because the morning drive left at 5 AM. We saw the same pride of lions on the morning drive but really not too much else. We then packed up our gear and embarked on our journey out of Kruger and back to Joburg. On the way out, we were speeding along the roads with the mindset of getting home quicly and not stopping for animals. But that's not waht God had in mind. We slowed to look at an elephant and realized we were amongst a group bigger than the first one. We were surrounded on both sides by hulking monsters and cute little babies. It was God's way of telling us to appreciate his Creation and not take for granted or get content with what we'd seen. We needed to realize that we could be blown away at any time, whether expected or not, wanted or not. No form of God's creation should ever be overlooked, from little flowers to majestic sunsets. It's all there to be looked upon with awe over its existence. So don't ever get content and forget to appreciate what you have, because God loves everything, and hopefully, so will we.

Jack