Safari!!!!!!!

One of the most amazing weekends yet. We went on a three day safari to two game reserves Hluhluwe & Umfolozi. It was a 4.25 hour drive to the reserve. We stayed mostly in Hluhluwe, in the Hilltop Camp although the reserves are side by side. We arrived on Friday and went out that afternoon until nightfall. We ate dinner and then went straight to bed. The next morning on Saturday we work up at 5am to go out until breakfast. The Breakfast Buffet was heavenly! All Saturday we went out and ate a packed lunch and finally came back at dinner. Sunday we went out early again and then went out till late afternoon, when we headed back to African Enterprises. The photos will walk you through Adam's and my Safari time.

The group of people in our truck for the weekend
Our driver Andy is in the middle
(There were two other trucks full of people)

We had a really fun group!
From left to right: Brittany Wesser, Byron, Me, Megan, Adam, Andy(Guide), Brittany Watson, Bethany, Katie, and Rachel!

We stayed in little huts, so cute

My roommate for the weekend: Katie

Me in our hut!

The ceiling really was just straw and poles

Our cute little beds

The sink and fridge

The closet, fully stocked for tea time including a water heater!

A spider on our wall >:[

Adam saw this Duiker by his hut

The orange flowers outside our hut

The Guinea Fowl by our hut

Adam and I heading out in the truck! Day 1

The first giraffes we could get a clear shot of, we were also told it's rare to see them sitting down!

Two Greater Blue-eared Glossy Starlings, so beautiful

A herd of 8 rhino

A little closer up

A mama and a baby walked right in front of us!

All of the rhino we saw in the park were white rhino, one of the Big 5

The other type, black rhino, are the rarest animal in South Africa

After they crossed the road, they just stopped to graze

The mother's horn was huge!

This was a dead carcass in one of the watering places, it was probably killed by lions, but hyenas had cleaned it out

The 2nd one of the Big 5, the cape buffalo

Their horns looked really neat, especially because it looks like they grow out of a helmet

Ox-Peckers on the back of the cape buffalo, very cliche Africa

A cape buffalo calf

Big 5 #3- African Elephant!

This male was very large and was in must

Must meant that he was foaming scent bubbles from his glands to attract a female

A female inyala with typical white drizzle marks on her back

Male inyala

Scenery (no animals)

We came upon a giraffe, but when we went around the corner...

There were a bunch, all walking in a row

There all left up the road

With the giraffes, there were also a bunch of zebra

This was a little baby

They were really close to the truck

Zebras in the province where we were looked a little different than in other places

If you can see, they have what's called "shadow stripes" of brown, in between their black stripes

We followed the giraffes up the road and saw one eating leaves with his large tongue!

A lot of the bushes we saw had been stripped clean from the giraffes

The giraffes were one of my favorite things to watch

They walk with their legs: Both right, both left, both right, both left

Only 4 mammals in the world walk like this

There are 13 giraffes in this picture!

Adam's favorite: the Warthog. The warts are the growths under its eyes

More giraffes!

I could have watched them eat all day

Hyena! We were the only group to get to glimpse a shot

We found this rhino laying in a pile of ash, while watching him he sneezed and a big cloud of ash rose up

He was covered in ash after that

Sunset over the African Savannah

Beautiful end to the first day!

Going out bright and early on Saturday

Adam called me his black jellybean all bundled up

What our view looked like

Rhino early in the morning

A fairly dirty zebra with a good view of the shadow stripes

A Baboon, known to be quite vicious

They really do have wild looking butts, this happens when the female goes into heat

Here is an endangered samango monkey

Adam and I after breakfast, when it started to get a little warmer

Here is big lizard on this hill if you can see it

Next we went to a blind to see what we could see there

The blind looked onto a waterhole, one of the few that was left in this drought

This is what the waterhole looked like from the blind

A closer view of what we could see

Even more zoomed in. There was a warthog drinking

Back on in the trucks we shortly came across some Kudu

This was a male, they are known for their beautiful horns. Also the meat is delicious!!

Scenery Picture (no animals)

Big 5 #4- Finally some Lions!

This one standing up was hacking up a hairball

We saw 6 all together, 5 females and a young male

At sunset, if you look close you can see a rhino under the tree

A bush-baby! A good end to the 2nd day!

The next and last day (Sunday) we saw a herd of cape buffalo all laying down

This was a male waterbuck, you can't see it but it had a distinct white ring around it's tail

We also saw a small grouping of wildebeest

My favorite animal of the trip: Wild Dog, the 2nd most rare animal in South Africa!

We saw a pack under the tree but this one emerged. It was beautiful!

The end of pictures but there's still some...
Videos:


A giraffe walking, both right, both left. Really cool!


Giraffe Running


Zebras!

Giraffes!

Big 5 #1- Cape Buffalo

Big 5 #2- Rhino

Big 5 #3- Elephant!

Big 5 #4- Lion!