Second Full Day in Kruger National Park

Our safari guide gave us another great day today. Saw the big 5 before noon: lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo. We meet him at 5am and headed further along the highway to enter the park at a less used and faster entrance, and to access a different part of the park before it got hot. We saw some thing we had not seen before! A LEOPARD!! It was at a distance, but we got to see it coming down from a tree, waiting in the shade behind some grasses, and then walking a short ways before we lost sight of it. A herd of about 15 Impala took off running as fast as they could once they realized that the Leopard was endangering them. In a nearby tree, was the carcass of an adult Impala, probably from that leopard, who had killed it and carried it in its strong jaws, up to drape it over the branch of a large tree. That had been the day before, and the carcass was beginning to smell; the guides felt that its very close proximity to the road scared off the leopard with so many tourists in vehicles crowded in their bumper to bumper vehicles to watch her eat dinner. The other things that were new to us today were some Nyanga, an antelope similar in size to the Impala, but with vertical white stripes on its torso. We saw male Ervervet Monkeys, who have bright blue balls. We saw two extremely young baboons who were being nursed by their mothers. Another first for us what to see five different sightings of lions, some in pairs, others as a pride of up to 8 lions, lioness and small cubs; but most of the sightings were at a distance, only one was quite close to the road where we could get great photos. We also saw the usual constants: hundreds of Impala, lots of elephants, buffalo, giraffes, baboons, water bucks, kudu, rhino, hippos both in and out of the water, African fish eagles, a spotted hyena, wildebeest at a distance, and of course, quite a few zebras. It was very, very hot by mid-morning and then the afternoon was relentless as the sun beat down and the hot air blew into us as we rode in the safari vehicle; much like we think it would be to sit in a furnace or having a hair dryer on high, held in front of your face. I know it says here it was only 30C but truly it was at least 40C. We had 35 minutes break in mid-morning and an hour at 1pm for lunch and then were back at our hotel just after 3pm, anxious to get back to our air-conditioned room!Read more