Kruger Park: Part II

The next morning we got up at 3:30am for a 4:30am departure and a 5:30am arrival at Kruger to wait for the opening of the gates at 6:00am. This was probably the most miserable time for me thus far of my journeys. The safari jeep we were in was an open air jeep. This was miserable because in the drive that took us to Kruger took an hour of highway at a temperature roughly 35-40F. Yeah, I could have bundled up right? Nah, my stuff is still in Amsterdam, so a t shirt an a light sweatshirt had to do. Once we arrived at Kruger, we were allowed to get out and stretch, and a few of my buddies successfully pried me out of my fetal position to get warmed up. I eventually did, but there was a chill in my body for the remainder of the day. My worries were quickly forgotten when within an hour of our arrival, we saw our first: a rhino. It is important to know about the BIG 5. Thi Big 5 are the animals that make up SA currency on the bills: Water Buffalo, Rhinos, Elephants, Lions, and Leopards. People can easy spend an entire weekend in the park and only come out with a sighting with 1-2 of the five. It is difficult to see all 5. So, as a personal goal of mine, I challenged myself and our group to find the 5. We spent most of the day searching and we finally parked at 3:00pm with 3 of the 5 (Buffalo, Lion-far far away, and a rhino). We ate, rested, and then returned to our Jeeps for a night safari. Many of the predators are night hunters, so that was the best viewing time. Usually, as our guide told us, it is a sighting for a fews second, and usually the scamper back into the bush before you can get a good view. This was not so for us. We saw two male lions on the road, and they laid in front of us for about8 minutes before walking away. We saw elephants, lions, hippos, hyenas (one of the tougher sightings), and two leopards. By the end of day one, we had seen all of the Big 5.
Getting up the next day to go on a safari didn't seem to have the zest we had before because we had seen all of the possible animals that the park had to offer, except for one: a cheetah. Cheetahs are an endangered species and in Kruger Park, there are less than 150 of them. To put that into perspective, Kruger covers roughly the same area as Isreal. This park is massive and harbors less than 150. Low and behold, an hour into our safari, we saw a cheetah stalking some impalas. Pumped, I took some pictures for proof, but zoomed up so much that you could harldy make out the cheetah. It was equivalent of one of those pictures you see of the Loch Ness, of Big Foot. There was no evidence. I settled just for watch as the cheetah waited patiently for its prey. It sat in the grass watching them for more than 20min before it got up an scared away the impalas. We were disappointed because we wanted to see a take down, and now, surely, the cheetah would disappear. Instead, two more cheetahs jogged out about 80yds away and began wrestling with each other. Their banter and playfulness eventually migrated closer. How close? This close.

Yes, they are within feet of our car. Our guide was ecstatic. He said that in the 15 years he worked in the park, he had never seen a cheetah so close to human. He and the other guides agreed over the radio that this sighting was all in their top 5 sightings of all time. As you can image, we were going crazy at this sight, and the rarity of it. We were very lucky. Feeling fully satisfied we drove back to Old Vic's tavern with our guide, Crazy Dave. We played pool, ping pong and relaxed. It was a great day.