Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

Today was education day. Curtis wasn’t so excited about touring a gold mine and then Soweto, but I know he will never forget the things we saw today. We started off the morning by finally getting online and posting all the entries wrote every night but couldn’t upload. I had them already to go so it went fast. Then we rushed through email and hit the road for Gold Reef City.

I can only imagine the letdown it must be for a kid to go to an amusement park and only get to ride one ride…and not a very exciting one at that. But we went to tour the mine and learn more about the history of South Africa than ride the rides…and time didn’t allow us both. Curtis was disspointed, but a great sport about it. In the end, I think he really liked it and I don’t think would do it differently. We saw a video of how gold mining shaped South Africa which had footage from throughout the last century. Johannesburg was built on gold. The gold rush boomed the population and industry…at one point 33% of all the gold in the world came from South Africa. We also toured an old inactive mine. They loaded us up in the cage and dropped us down into the earth. Some of the mines go six kilometers deep (we weren’t nearly that far down) and get very hot and uncomfortable. We walked through the tunnels and saw the tools that were used to break apart the earth and collect the rocks into the carts. I’d been down this same mine before and also an operational mine in Welkom where we were dropped a mile into the earth, but I wanted Curti to see it.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

It’s late, I’m exhausted, and frustrated. The whole drive back today Curtis and I were looking forward to getting online to talk to Sandi and the girls. But we couldn’t get online. I tried to send Sandi a text message to let her know we were okay and that didn’t go through…so I decided to call her. I thought I had enough for at least 10 minutes of talking but after she answered we barely were able to talk one minute before it cut us off. So I hadn’t really told her anything, didn’t get to say goodbye, and now I have zero credits on my cell.

Today was a long day of driving, from Lower Sabie to Joberg. We stopped on the way out of Kruger and watched some monkeys with new babies. They were nursing and we got some very sweet pictures. Some of the little ones wanted to play but their mothers kept hauling them back in close. Another tiny one was trying to learn how to climb a little bush but kept falling over, it was very cute. A few miles down the road we saw a mother lion with two very small babies. It must be that time of year… But she was quite far and so the pictures aren’t so great with the lion cubs.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

Early on in the trip I was worried that maybe 9 nights in the Kruger Park might be too many…and that we might actually start to get bored. But that hasn’t been the case at all. Every day has been exciting and offered us something new. If I didn’t get bored, I was sure Curtis might, but he has been right there with me mentally on all of it. With the exception of the moments he was feeling sick, of course.

It was nice to sleep in this morning, until about 6:00. We had breakfast and I couldn’t help but feel sad that the wilderness trek had come to an end. Not so much because I would miss our little hut and camp area, although I will. But because of the wonderful friends Curtis and I have met during these three days. We exchanged emails and in fact are going to meet our Joberg friends on Sunday for a braai before we leave, but I can’t shake the sad thought that I might never see Obert and Andre again. I will certainly try and keep in touch with all of them, it was a magical experience and the opportunity to meet and get to know everyone is certainly the highlight of the experience.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

Today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday, except when they took us out for our morning walk they stopped near where we had seen the lions. Orbit said to stay very close and quiet today because this area was an active lion area. We found many of their tracks and fresh dung as we hiked, but no lions. After a short while, Andre stopped us to play a game. I seriously would not have played but everyone else went along with it so I decided it must be safe. He drew three lines in the sand, one close, two further away, then picked up a small handful of round dry buck pellets and gave us each two. The idea of the game is to put the pellet in your mouth…yes, you read right…and yes a pellet is poop. Then you spit it as far as you can. The South Africans went first, then Curtis. I got him laughing at one point and he almost couldn’t spit the second one…so I told him he better hurry before it gets soggy. My first attempt didn’t go well but my second one sailed way past the far line. I think I got a nice spin on it or something…lol. Afterwards I thought what I should have done was pretended to put it in my mouth then pause and say, “hey, this is pretty good,” as I was mock chewing.

We hiked further and ended up having breakfast on the same rocks that we’d watched the sunset the night before. Then we hiked to the dry river bed and the bamboo stocks and sandy base. As I watched Obert in front of me carrying is assault rifle and dressed in khakis, I couldn’t help but think about the soldiers in Vietnam. We veered out when we hit water and were standing on the bank looking at an elephant when Andre whispered, “Lion!” He pointed across the river and 40 yards away under a palm tree was a large male lion watching us from the shade. Everyone fell silent and moved in close and I fumbled with the camcorder. Once we’d spotting him, he didn’t stick around. He stood and vanished into the palm trees, then reappeared moving to our right. Then he roared, an elephant trumpeted, and we heard brush being crushed. We didn’t see nor hear the lion again, but we heard the elephants and could see the tops of their trunks sticking above the trees, sniffing around. It was pretty funny looking. With the lion on the move (and they said there were most likely at least 2 others with them), the rangers moved us away and we then continued our hiking.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

Obert knocked on our door at 5am, while everything was still dark. I fumbled for my light but didn’t get right up knowing I had 45 minutes before we left. They had coffee and rusks for a morning snack but Curtis and I don’t like either, so we headed out with empty stomachs (breakfast is on the trail). They drove us out to the starting point and we marched out in single file in the early morning light through the bush. It was pretty exciting being on foot in an area rich with African wildlife. They stopped and explained the tracks we were seeing, the spore we found, and the birds we were hearing. It was fascinating to learn how to identify male or female by viewing the dung alone. We found evidence of both black and white rhino, which was exciting because I’ve never seen a black rhino in the wild. They can be quite aggressive and are very few in number.

Andre stuck his finger into the dung to determine how warm it was, then licked his fingers to see how wet it was. I had noticed he used one finger for sticking and the other for licking and I thought it was something Crocodile Dundee might do. But then he told me I had to do the same because I was an American. So I played along and, like him, used one finger for the sticking and the other for the tasting. He laughed and seemed surprised I had noticed his little trick. Hehe…I think he figures us American’s are pretty clueless in the bush.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

I was sad to leave Gomo Gomo, even though the morning game ride was completely uneventful. In fact, I was actually dreading the wilderness trail and part of me wished I hadn’t booked it…which is really strange considering I had been most excited about it in the beginning. But, I can tell you now that I am here on the Sweni trail…there are absolutely no regrets.

Curtis and I are sleeping in a tiny A-frame hut. Mosquito netting hangs from the ceiling and surrounds each of our cots. My bed was covered in ants when I got here…little tiny ones. I must be mental to think that is kind of neat. I brushed them off and sprayed a bit of bug spray on the edges and it seemed to do the trick. I did like the luxury of Gomo Gomo, but I also really like roughing it too. There are six of us on this trail; Curtis, me, and two very nice couples from Joberg (Jannie and Christelle and Bernard and Odette). Our two rangers, Andre and Obert, seem like very cool guys, they will be leading us on the walks. The camp is small and rustic. It sits on a small hill that overlooks a watering hole right below us, and then another one in the distance. The kitchen area is right on the edge of it. As we talked tonight around the fire, the a hippo 20 yards below us was grunting, snorting, and rolling around in the water…at times only his pudgy pink feet were visible sticking up out of the murky pond. When he grunts, it is loud. I mean, he’s barely 20 yards away from us and bellows out a brusk deep grunt. We also saw a rhino walk though the plain in the distant (the first we’ve seen and the last of the ‘Big 5′ for us). Right now as I lay here, I can here hyena calling not too far away. I still have my fingers crossed that we’ll hear lions.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

It was hot when we went to bed, but I wanted to hear the sounds so I turned off our fan. Curtis was asleep, he was exhausted and went to bed before dinner and missed out on a huge meal around a fire pit. But turning off the fan to hear the sounds didn’t help, the wind picked up and drowned out even the crickets. At least it helped cool things down a bit. I did get a scare in the middle of the night. I woke up to a light banging sound and rolled over to see our front door wide open to the moonlit bush, banging back and forth. I jumped up, pulled it shut, and something ran off from close by. Then I searched the room quickly with a flashlight, no so much concerned a lion or leopard might have snuck in as I was about a snake sliding up my bedpost while I was asleep. I had to stop thinking about it so I didn’t wig myself out.

Today has been cold, overcast, and rainy. It sucks to get up at 5:00 to enjoy the the best photography light of the day…and be robbed of it. Not only that, but our game drive was pretty sparce. We did go back to the leopard kill and two hyenas were finishing off what was left of the warthog. One would eat and the other would run patrol, watching all around them for the leopard to return and claim his dinner. They didn’t care so much about us, in fact when we first arrived the one on patrol walked right up to the land rover and looked Curti in the eyes. It was almost like he wanted his neck scratched or something, like a puppy dog. Hard to imagine that if I reached my hand down to pat his back he’d bite my whole arm off with one chomp. Their jaws are like rock pulverizers.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning… 

The day started rough and ended spectacular. No…I didn’t sleep through the night. I would have though, but Curtis threw up a couple times and then couldn’t sleep himself. Poor kid. We think it was something in the hamburger I got him.

We still got up early and even though he was feeling sick, he wanted to get out and take the same loop we’d been on last night. But only 20 minutes in to it, he threw up again (out the door) and then got a bloody nose. He pinched it but we didn’t have anything to clean him off with…so he had blood all over his face and felt horribly nauseous.  We finished out the loop (saw the same lions from last night, hyena, jackal, and a herd of a hundreds of buffalo), but poor Curti didn’t really care. He’d take a look and fall back to his seat and hold his head. At the lions I asked a guy in another car if he had a tissue for Curtis…he did and we got him cleaned up a little.

I drove back to Satara and went in the shop and bought an elixir to help an upset stomach. I mixed it, Curtis drank it, and we headed back down the road. He was feeling better within an hour, thank goodness. We headed out of the park, watching for animals along the way. Didn’t see much, but we did stop and watch some baboons on the side of the road. There was a tiny one with them that hadn’t really learned to walk yet and the adults kept picking it up to keep it from our view. After we sat there a while, the loosened up and let him play while we watched them groom each other. One of them sat still while the others picked out the bugs and ate them. It was cool how it would move and adjust so they could get a better angle. It reminded me of when I was little and I’d have to sit still in the chair for 45 minutes while my mom cut my hair.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning…

If it wasn’t for the wind, I might have finally slept through the night. In the middle of the night, while I was trying to get to sleep, Curti said “the cheetah wants to eat me!” I said, Curti, it’s okay….you are having a bad dream. He answered (in his normal voice, clear as day) “I’m not asleep dad, I’m fine. And the cheetah…I mean the leopard wants to eat me.” I asked what leopard and he said, “the one by the gate. He told me he was going to eat me when we came in.” What do you say to that? I told him I wouldn’t let it and he went back to sleep. In the morning he remembered talking to me and laughed about it. He can’t really remember why he said that.

Today started out really slow. We got up at the crack (5:00) and out on the road early. But rather than the early morning light I expected, it was overcast and windy…a huge letdown. I kicked myself for sleeping in on the perfect morning and figured I’d just have to get pictures of animals in the wind if that’s how mother nature was going to treat us…

We drove all day…from 6 to 6 today. 12 hard hours of searching and hunting. We took a dirt road along a river bed and saw a huge group of baboons that walked right past us, that was pretty cool. There were lots of babies hitching a free ride by hanging on underneath their mothers. What looked to be a group of about 20 teenagers all ran up the tree next to us and were swinging on the branches, playing tag, and looking down at us. Then the elders passed through, walking slow and looking tired.

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Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here. If you didn’t start reading on Day 1, you might want to start from the beginning…

We went spotlighting last night, which was pretty cool. Saw a porcupine, bush babies, bush buck, duikers, kudu, several civits, and even an ardvaark (very rare to see in Kruger). We also heard an elephant trumpet but couldn’t see it in the darkness.

We got a late start this morning, slept in….argh! I didn’t make it through the night again, woke up at 2 and laid awake ready to go until about 4:30, then I crashed hard. At 7:30 I heard noises outside and it felt like the middle of the night. Somehow I rolled out of bed and Curtis seemed to be in the same mode. He did not want to wake up either. Dang 9 hour time difference! Maybe tonight I’ll make it until 4am.

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