More Kruger

The Bush Braai (BBQ) was excellent. We were picked up by the same guy who brought us tools in the morning in a jeep similar to what was used at Elephant Plains. 2 other couples in their 20s (South Africans) came along, and we met a second ranger and 2 cooks at the dinner site. On the drive, we saw 2 lions off in the distance, walking along the road. Fortunately, we didn't see anything while we were there. On the way back, we saw a few jackals, a few antelope (either impala or bush buck) and a few birds. The food was typical South African fare: beef stew, chicken, potatoes, pap (a maize porridge, which I was surprised to discover UG liked, since it was white), awesome sausages, and a pudding and custard for dessert.

This morning, we slept in until the luxurious hour of 7:30am. UG saw a baboon on the deck when he got up, but it was gone before I got out of bed. After watching the hippos for a bit, we took an 8 hour drive to go get groceries.

We headed out to the next camp, which was supposed to have a better grocery store than our camp. We took the dirt roads to get there, along which we saw 3 giraffe, a turtle, and of course lots of antelope.

At the other camp, we had lunch, but the options were identical to our camp. We picked up some wildebeast sausages to grill on our bbq pit. The coals are going now. If it's terrible, we'll be getting bad cheese burgers from the camp restaurant. Or maybe pringles.

On the way back, we took the paved road, and encountered a traffic jam, which indicates a good animal sighting. Sure enough, a lion sleeping in the grass about 20m off the road. People in a couple of other vehicles told us there were more up the road, so we passed on and looked carefully. It's amazing how many rocks look like ears when you've been told there's something there to find. At one point, I thought I saw something, but UG had already passed it, so I said, "Backup!"
UG, still driving, replied, "What?"
"Back. Up!"
UG, stops, "Did you see something?"
"Of course I saw something, why else would I tell you to back up?"
UG: "Then why didn't you say 'stop'?"

It turned out to be a termite mound.

So we turned around and went back to see if the sleeping lion had moved. Nope, an even bigger jam waited for us on the return. This time, we waited out the other cars, found a good parking spot and waited until he woke up. Overall, we waited about 40 minutes, plus a half hour driving looking for others. But we were rewarded with some great shots, and only 2 other cars were still waiting by the time he got up, groomed himself, then walked across the road for another nap.
We weren't about to watch him sleep for another hour, so we moved on. At a bridge, we encountered a large troop of baboons. UG got some great pictures of tiny baby ones wrestling.

Further up the road, we came across a lone vervet monkey. As he walked along the road, I noticed he had blue balls. Literally, bright teal coloured testicles. Now, I knew nobody would believe me, so I tried to get a picture. At one point, he jumped up on the hood of out car and caused us to frantically roll up the windows. We drove on and got some distance between us, so I rolled my window down to try again, because he kept moving so all my shots were of his brown bum. UG handed me his camera and suggested I try that. While picking up UG's camera, the monkey jumped up on the open window and scared the pants off me. I screamed, which scared the monkey back, and scared UG even more. But I managed to get the window back up without the monkey actually getting in the car. But now we are looking for a car wash to get the monkey germs off.

Closer to camp, we stopped to look at a herd of buffalo, and found a pair of giraffe right in front of them, which offered a great photo op.
Instead of going right back to camp, we decided to check out a "hide" about 14km away. A hide is an enclosed structure which you are allowed to get out of your car, sit in and watch whatever animals walk by. This one was situated right over a narrow river, with as many as 10 hippos right in front. We also saw a crocodile swim by. We sat and waited for one or some of the hippos to get up and move around, and an elephant came along and took a drink, then climbed into the water and walked off up the stream. By this point, a tour bus had ignored the sign prohibitting their entrance, and the other sign requesting silence of the visitors. So we left. I think we put about 150km on the car in our 8 hours of driving today. And now I am watching my manly man cook over open flame.

Tomorrow we head out of Kruger, to Swaziland, and we'll be visiting another game park there for 2 nights.