Our camp on the third night was supposed to offer us with plenty of cheetah sightings but somehow we missed out on that and the nearby leopard. Pulling into our fourth and final camp we were simply exhausted of sitting in the car and were quite pleased to find out that this camp not only had a resident lion pride but also offered bike tours through the bush…so we signed up.

The bike ride was easy enough, just making our way through the bush and through fields. We took in a bit of education, learning that the buffalo would eat the grass in front of us even though it tasted bad because they were so big they had to eat anything they could find and no one else ate that grass. We learned that the bike ranger with us had used his gun once, Dec ’06, to give a bull elephant a few warning shots. We also talked a lot of lions and how they are opportunistic hunters who will basically take what can get. (this is foreshadowing)

In the end, other than rhino tracks we only found live hippo to look at but it was quite nice sitting on the riverbank watching them as they woke up (nocturnal) and began setting out to begin their night of foraging for food. Apparently they can travel as far as 15k in a single night, before returning where they started from, in search of food. As a result, they make nice easy trails for bikes to follow and we followed one of those back to the truck…hoping (well, I and the rest were hoping, Jill wasn’t) to get up close and personal with an elephant but we didn’t. Back at camp nothing was stirring but a couple of hyena looking to collect food scraps.

The next day as we were leaving camp we very nearly ran into hyena as they were running around doing something, probably with a carcass but we couldn’t see. Another car there told us that if we turned around and went the other way we’d find a pride of lions, and we did….a bunch of them including not just lioness but also a big lion who couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to sleep, or mate.

Continuing on with the day we saw more elephant, zebra, giraffe, ostrich, and buffalo as well…all before we stopped for our first break…probably our best morning yet. Driving out of the park though we were being very careful to stop at the stream beds that were rumored to house leopard and the fields rumored to house cheetah but still no no avail. Then suddenly Jill screamed “stop, lion.”  Yes, we know the video is awful, but we thought you might get a kick out of it!

After having seen our fill of lion earlier in the day, this wouldn’t have been quite so exciting except that this lioness was hunting, completely frozen and staring down a couple of warthog a mere 10 meters away. Usually the cats don’t bother hunting in the day so this was quite a sighting and we were, well, excited at the chance of seeing an actual kill. (The bike ranger the night before had only seen 2 kills in the 4 years he’d been working at the park.) In the end, the warthog got away (the lioness missed the pounce and probably didn’t want to chase it down in middle of the day when it was hot out…warthog isn’t so big anyhow) but you can see from the video, we were clearly excited…and missed most of the action but oh well. It seems that lioness was part of a group of about 5 that had been likely sitting minding their own business when the warthog strolled nearby and this lioness couldn’t resist the opporuntity, despite the sun, since they were so close. In that little group there, not far from where we saw (likely) this very pride hunting two nights prior, we saw several lioness, another lion, and even a cub. Not a bad way to end 4 days in Kruger, not bad at all.

Well the special thing we got for New Years were last-minute reservations at Kruger National Park!  We’d been trying to get reservations since September, but it wasn’t until the week before when we were in Mozambique that anything was available.  Thank you cancellations!

As the gate swung open and the park guard gave us the #1 rule- do not for any reason exit your vehicle– I felt like we were in a famous movie about a fantasy dinosaur park. In fact, I expected to see big game animals almost immediately given that several South Africans had told us the park was like an open air zoo. Immediate they were not, but it didn’t take long for us to see a large traffic jam ahead of us. Rhino! A huge black rhinoceros stood in the grass not more than 10 meters from the road. With 10 cars, safari trucks and SUV’s crowding in to get a view, we waited our turn took our pictures and sped on towards the interior of the park.

It was our first “big five” sighting. Africa’s “big five” are so grouped because they are the most dangerous for hunters: lion, elephant, rhinoceros, leopard and water buffalo. They are the animals we came to see, but besides them Kruger is also home to cheetah, impala, wildebeest, zebra and giraffe amongst many others. In anxious anticipation we drove on from the rhinoceros towards our first camp.

One of the most popular national parks in the world, Kruger Park is about the size of Israel. Almost all of the one million visitors each year visit the southern sector of the park, creating at times traffic jams of sorts. In fact, the first few sightings we had were only because we saw several other cars pulled over looking into the bush.

Moving through the park at 20 km per hour, we spotted herds of impala and wildebeest and even a few zebra. Given that it was the hottest part of the day, we didn’t expect to see much game up and about, but in fact we were surprised. Through the trees we saw our first elephant! A small breeding herd of about 5 in total, the elephants didn’t even seem to notice our car along side them. Keeping our distance we watched them until they disappeared into the bush.

Thrilled we continued on our way, now in a rush to get to camp before the gates closed. A few minutes before sunset, we spotted several hippopotamus in a pond just outside the gates of our camp. Lumbering out of the water towards the grass, the hippopotamus called to each other and grouped themselves along the riverbank. It was a thrilling end to our first day in Kruger.

**We’re uploading our Kruger pictures slowly due to low-speed internet.  Bare with us for a few days until we can get them all up.  As always our latest pics can be seen on our picture page or on our flickr page.  Thanks!