Sunday, October 2.
We had an early start on our second day in SA. We met at 4:50 AM and boarded two open touring vehicles and headed for Imfolizi Park for a safari. During our one hour drive to the entrance we got to watch the sunrise on a windy, cold (by SA standards for the area) morning. We drove through the park stopping when we saw things of interest to take pictures. The best way to describe our day is to show the pictures with short captions.
We stopped for breakfast (coffee, cereal, milk yogurt, bread and jam, and fruit. As you can see it was chilly, mostly because of the wind.
Later we stopped for lunch which was grilled steak and sausages (being grilled by one of our driver/guides), rice salad, macaroni salad, beans, and fruit. While they were cooking some of us wandered up to curio shop.
The highlight of the safari was of course seeing animals in their natural environment.
We saw lots zebras. The picture on the left gives you an idea of the landscape. The two zebras on the right were playing with each other and having a good time.
This rhino was grazing with in about 25 yards of the road, perhaps closer. It was interesting to see the symbiotic relationship between the little birds and the big animals. You can see the bird just below the rhino’s ear eating insects that are on the rhino’s skin.
We saw impala’s everywhere. This heard was in the road and wasn’t too interested in moving out of the way. The picture on the right is a male who was enjoying the day.
Our guide pointed out the stripes on the back of the impala that look a bit like McDonald arches. So, they have nicknamed impalas fast food for lions. You can see the “arches” in picture on the right.
Giraffe were common in the park as well. Not as common as the impala but we saw multiple groups of them. The one on the left is very young. There are several birds on the neck of the giraffe on the right getting a good meal. Giraffes are marvelous animals—very graceful.
We stopped and looked at a rhino carcass that was being scavenged by vultures. In the picture you can see three birds on the animal. They would fly in, stay for a minute and fly away, likely to feed a baby in their nest. The vulture on the right might have been bring a nestling some delicious rhino meat.
Water buffalo were spotted as well. In this case in the vicinity of a group of impala. On the way out of the park, one of our vehicles spotted an elephant.
After a full day of being in an open vehicle with temperatures around 55 with a strong wind, we were cold. It was relief to get out of the wind for few minutes. On the left Richard has his face covered with a blanket, while Cathy is on the floor out of the wind.
It was great day with lots to see. We were all tired when we got back to our rooms.
After some rest, we went out to eat and then headed out on a night safari. Once again we got into the open vehicles and headed out into another game preserve. Each vehicle had two lights and whenever we spotted animals we would stop and look at them in the lights. It was cold during day; it was bone chilling cold in an open vehicle at night. Plus, it rained off and on. There was not enough light to get good pictures, but we saw zebras, bush hogs, water bucks, ridtboks, rabbits, giraffes, spotted hyenas (a fairly rare sighting), wildebeest, among other animals.