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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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… 

Yesterday when I asked Curtis if Africa was anything like he imagined, he said no way. The traffic in Joberg was as bad as anything I’ve seen in Seattle, the cities packed with people, and buildings lined up one after another for miles…er…kilometers on end. Today when I asked him if Africa was anything like he’d imagined it, he got a big grin. It was.

The day started stressful though. The host of our Bed and Breakfast turned me completely against our junker of a rental car, which wasn’t hard, when he told me that if I was seen driving that around with our luggage packed to the ceiling (small hatchback), we would get robbed. They’d run out at a street light, hit the window with a spark plug, grab a bag, and run. His description of the spark plug really made it visual, he even explained how they break off the conductor on the bottom so it will shatter the window. Or…a buddy would be hiding in the bushes and shoot it out with a pellet gun. Well, Curtis and I already hated the car, so we took it in for an exchange. At first they looked at my existing contract and said my bill was twice what I had reserved. I felt sick. Then they wanted 5X that amount for an upgrade…my heart fell to the floor.

In the end, after explaining and negotiating, I got the upgrade for R16 more a day. After the exchange rate, that is less that $2. So for about $30 for the whole trip we went from a scary tin can that stalled at lights to an almost new mid sized sedan. Very nice! We couldn’t stop talking about how glad it had worked out until past Pretoria (which because of the traffic was a couple hours). Now all our luggage fits in the trunk…unseen. Whew!

Read the rest of this entry »

Note: I have posted a small selection of the nearly 4,000 pictures we took on the trip. You can see them here.

Finally, after months of planning…we are off!

How does Curti sleep so easily? He zonked right out on the 15 hour flight from DC to Jo-berg, and he’s been sawing logs all night long while I toss, wander the small room, and snack on cheese. I’m glad he can sleep, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been awake since midnight and it’s now 4am. Hopefully by tomorrow night I’ll get myself on a sleeping schedule that matches the sunlight here in South Africa.

We took a redeye from Seattle to DC thinking we’d have a day in the capital, but it didn’t work out so well. We did go to the Natural History Museum but we were both so tired it was hard to really enjoy it. We ended up sleeping in our rental car on the side of the road for a couple hours. But we would have been better to just get a good nights sleep. Curti loved our rental car, being the frugal guy I am I had opted for the cheapest and we got a free upgrade.

The flight to Jo-berg was better. We watched “Leatherheads,” ate a decent dinner, and then both slept good. Again, Curtis zoked right out and it took me an hour or so to join him but then I slept a solid 9 hours, it was aweseome. Woke up with only two hours to go…and then it went fast.

Read the rest of this entry »