Panoramic Road and Kruger Night Drive

First, let me note that a post on Swaziland is still forthcoming, I'm waiting for some photos to put into my video that I filmed that day that I'll get from some teammates.

Now, onto the good stuff!

Friday, the MPTA, also known as the greatest organization in South Africa saw it within them generous selves to take us on an amazing weekend trip. It started with the panoramic drive on Friday, a night drive in Kruger, Friday night, and then a full day drive in Kruger on Saturday.

The panoramic drive is something that I've blogged about on here before, God's window, potholes, etc. What we weren't able to hit last time due to a fading sun was the Three Rondavales (I'm not going to try and spell that right), and really, I'm not sure if I even saw them, there was no one there to point them out to me. What I did get to see was the third largest canyon in the world, and the largest green canyon in the world. (This is the same canyon that we jumped into). Having been to the grand canyon about a year ago, these pictures are very reminiscent of it.

We of course went out where we weren't supposed to be, right past the "Don't go past this point" sign and played around on the cliff sides, taking some great photos.

It seemed like a good time for some meditation on a rock with this kind of beauty in the background.

Turns out this is one of my favorite kind of shots...I call it, "Goofing-around-pretending-you're-falling-off-a-cliff-when-you-really-shouldn't-be-since-you're-actually-on-the-edge-of-a-ridiculous-drop Photo" or a GAPYFOWYRSBSYAERDP Photo.

I believe these are the three Rondavales, the third of which reminds me of a line from Naked Gun and Police Squad, and also salt silos on the side of the road.

We also went to God's window, but that wasn't very exciting and it was a bit hazy so no good photos. From there, we went to an adventure park! We spent an hour on ATVs, 4 wheelers, quads, whatever you want to call them, where I was, I kid you not, yelled at in the first 30 seconds on the back of one. They had us going around a little test track and I figured I might as well open it up. I'm immediately flagged and told "Yeah yeah, we get it, you can ride, now slow down". A little lame, but whatever. It was this screwing around that got me put in the very back of our little ATV caravan through the jungle where I had a delightful time. Also, it should be noted that this was no where near the "You're going to die" tongue lashing that the Evil Knieval Brothers got, too funny.

After the ATVs, we went and did a 450 meter zip line where as you're careening down it, you reach speeds of 60 mph. That was a lot of fun. There are pictures of both of these activities, but obviously not with my camera since I was busy doing them, and not documenting. Doing and documenting is a big challenge...one which Ethan was able to accomplish: he filmed the entire zipline, I'll link to that when it comes online so you can see what it was like.

Then (yes, it's only 4pm!) we headed over to Kruger for a night drive. I had anticipated that we'd be stopping at the hotel prior to heading out on the game drive and thus had all my "layers" in my bags and not on my body at this point. It was such a lovely day that I was cajoled into a false sense of warmth that I would very quickly lose as the game drive got underway.

For those of you who are curious, here's the vehicle that we did our night drive in:

So again, South Africa in the winter is freezing cold at night, most especially when you're driving along in an open air vehicle looking for large animals. What an amazing night it was though! In safari talk, there are what's known as the "Big Five", the five hardest animals to hunt, find, whatever. Seeing all five of them is quite an accomplishment; they are the Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino, and Buffalo. The most elusive, of course, are the cats, in particular the leopard. Our drive lasted three hours, during the course of which we saw Zebra, Buffalo, Hyena, Elephants, White Rhinos, Impala, Gazelle, and all sorts of little animals, but the most exciting was when we came upon another vehicle spotting into the woods and lo and behold we saw a Lioness! But not only that, we didn't just see her, she came right up to the vehicle, so close that we heard her breathing and making little noises! (She was actually trying to cross the road and our driver kept pulling the car in front of her so she couldn't cross)

Amazing animal, and so close you really could have reached out and lost a hand!

I also have a video of the lion encounter which I'll try and post later, what an incredible experience, in particular after so many hours of watching discovery channel and national geographic with my dad growing up, to finally see one in person in the wild. Wow!

Video:

I have pictures of the other animals, but the lion was the only one that we saw the first day and not the second during our day drive. I'm still getting the hang of low light photos, so instead of blurry zebra, buffalo and elephants, I'll leave you with two pictures of a South African sunset in Kruger Park.

And if you thought this day couldn't be topped, just wait til you see the photos from Saturday...Hippos, Giraffes, Crocodiles, and a Baby Elephant!