After a long flight through Amsterdam we arrived into Johannesburg(known as Joberg) at 11:00pm and stumble around looking for a KLM office and the Budget Rent A Car office. We split up (which we find out is not a good idea because everyone is paranoid about safety) and I find Jessica back at the Budget office after I get the car and try to find her. We then call our Couchsurfing host John and wake him up and ask for directions. After getting lost at least once and yelling at each other we managed to find the right highway to John's house, arrived about 12:30am, met John and bedded down for the night.
We woke up really late and luckily John works from home so we did not bother him too much with having to get up early and leave. The day was pretty much over so we just took it easy and planned our next few days. The next day we went to the Lion Park outside of Joberg so see some of our first lions, even in captivity. It was not too bad but as we will see soon not nearly as great as the real thing. We then booked a tour for the Soweto Township which is probably the most famous in South Africa if not around the world because of where the first signs of real struggle began to end apartheid. We took off from a really nice hotel outside of Joberg with a tourguide named "Life". The tour was interesting in that we got to see the township and what life might be like. But it was somewhat surreal as the township has over a million people living in it with the largest shopping mall in SA and much progress. Don't mistake that for how other places are in the world as far as progress but not as inhospitable as I would have thought. DUrnig the time we spent in Joberg we tried several times to visit the apartheid museum without any luck which was a bummer for both of us. But we resolve to visit on our way back from Botswana into Joberg. We also met another great and interesting couchsurfing couple, Barry and Francis who has coffee with us one afternoon. WE hope to see them in the future.
WE had orignially not intended on going north after Joberg but our host John convinced us to travel to Kruger National Park and boy are we ever thankful. WE drove there on Monday and due to an administrative mishap arrived at a closed entrance and had to drive back to another after the gates are closed at dark. The entire park(the size of Israel) is closed down from sunset to sunrise to keep out people who are not already in and animals in who need not wander. After arriving at the next gate at dark we waited for our escort to drive us to our camp for the night. As we followed him in our little Toyota Yaris in complete darkness except for headlights we came around a bend and ran into two hyenas on the road. They looked at us with suspicion and it was at once an erie and awesome sight for us both.
We awoke to lions roaring outside our enclosed camping area and bugged out early to drive to the camp we were supposed to stay at. As we drove through the park on sealed roads very slow looking for wildlife we began to experience what would be the next few days for us. After seeing a few elephants and giraffe from a distance we turned off on one of the many dirt roads. As we came to a T junction with two cars stopped we spotted a male lion just laying in shade watching a heard of impalas. We were in awe at how close we were and Jessica too hundreds of photos with her new camera. The lion was getting ready to chase the impalas because he was downwind and they could not smell him and as he crouched a mercedes rounded the corner from the other way only to scare the impalas off. The lion laid back down and took little notice of us. We continued down the road to see more elephants, zebras, birds and then right before our camping area a huge waterhold of hippos. They were very cool but also close so we kept our distance because hippos are very pissy and aggressive. After taking loads of pictures we went to our camp and pitched our tent. We had a raging thunderstorm that night and awoke to a wet tent on the outside and ground. We broke camp and drove to our last camp again spotting many animals including wilderbeasts, four awesome rhino(just eating on teh side of the road)more elephants(was mini-charged by a huge male on the road), tons of giraffe, water buffalo(drove through a herd)and a leopard relaxing under a tree bout 200 meters away. We arrived at our last camp and turned in for the night after a great day of wildlife viewing and not realizing how lucky we had been. The next day we got up at 5:00 to head out before the heat of the day. We came up a hill and saw a trucked parked on the side with a few lion laying in the road and a few more in the rocks. We pulled over to watch while the cubs played and the ambled back to the rocks. At times a few were no more then 5 meters awayt from our car, another unbelievable sight for us!! We then headed out of the main gate at a different entrance and made our way to the city of Nelspruit for the night to stay with couchsurfers Henni and Hester. TOO Continue...
