Lions and Leopards!

Internet is a nightmare, so I am going to include the last few days into one blog.
Our last evening game drive at King’s camp was Friday night and it was an adventurous one. There was rumor that lions were in the area, so we spent the first hour and a half trying to find them. It was amazing to watch the trackers work. At one point, our tracker and guide parked the vehicle, grabbed the
riffle and went out to track on foot. We were left in the vehicle and told to just stay still if anything approaches. While they were gone, we could hear chatter over the area radio about a Leopard in the area who was playing with a brand new baby impala. This is common for leopards to do before they kill. Finally, our guide came back and left two trackers to track on foot and we were going to look more in the vehicle. As we were driving, the temperature dropped and the wind really picked up. We could see that the sky was getting pretty dark and we felt a few drops. 20 minutes later, Colbert (our guide) got word over the radio that Sam (our tracker) had found the lions. So, we hauled ass over to the area,
Sam jumped back onto the front of the truck and we drove deep into the bush. We got in and there they were-lying on the ground, resting up for their evening of hunting. It is remarkable how close you get to these massive animals. They give you at look at first and then they act as if you are not even there. Being around them was such a powerful experience. The three lionsthat were there were part of a pride of four. They are all pretty young. The sad part is that their pride was 9 strong, but the rest have been killed by other lion. Their Dad got old and lost his territory and their Mom was killed by 2 other lioness.
We watched them for a while. They didn’t do much…mostly, they slept.
We left them and decided to race over to the leopard that was playing with the impala. After 1.5 hours, she had finally put that poor baby impala out of it’s misery and was feasting on it. We raced over and by the time we got there, it was dark and starting to rain. The guide put the spotlight on the leopard and what a site. She had the baby impala up on a large branch and she could care less that she had an audience while she ate. The impala was small enough to only be a snack for the leopard.

We were able to take a few pictures before the rain picked up. We were handed some rain ponchos and it took us about 10 minutes to get out of the tough spot we were lodged into. By the time we got onto the road, it was pouring! The winds were strong and we were surrounded by lightening and thunder. The rain was coming down so hard that it felt like hail. It took us about 15 minutes to get back to the lodge and it was not a fun ride.
The next morning was our last drive at King’s camp. It wasn’t too exciting. However, we did finally see buffalo, which completed the “big 5” for us!
We got back to the lodge, had some breakfast and then headed off to the airstrip for our next bush plane adventure.
Our little plane appeared from the clouds and made a quick landing. When the pilot stepped out, I asked him how the flight over was (so I could determine if I was to get on the plane or not), and here is what he said:
“It was pretty tricky with this weather. We should be in a bigger plane, but THIS WAS THE ONLY ONE THAT WAS LEFT. It’s harder to fly in the clouds, because THERE IS NO RADAR UP THERE.” When I told him that he said all of that to the worse person he could say it to, he then told us that we would by flying below the clouds because it is a requirement when there are passengers in the plane. When we got on, he proceeded to write out our tickets for us!
The flight over wasn’t that bad at all. About 20 minutes and we landed in Sabi Sands on an airstrip that actually had a building near it. Apparently, this is Richard Bransen’s airstrip and he lets our lodge us it.
We were collected and drove 5 minutes to our new lodge: Leopard Hills. This place is gorgeous!! We somehow ended up in the honeymoon suite. From what I understand, the only difference is the view. The lodge itself is settled into a hilltop. We have an amazing, panoramic view of the bush and a beautiful clearing with a waterhole. We have our own, private plunge pool and an outdoor shower.

We had some lunch where we met the other guests: A couple from the UK, a couple from New York and a couple from Dallas! We chatted for a bit and when in to get ready for our first, Leopard Hills, game drive.

Safari!!!

One of the rules of the King's Camp lodge is that you can not walk anywhere alone after dark. Creepy-right? The lodge itself has a low, surrounding electric fence, but that is only intended to keep elephants out as they trample and destroy everything in their path. There is one leopard who likes to come into camp every once in a while to see whats going on. There are also baboons and impala that come in. We found out last night that none of these are the reason we must be escorted at night. After blogging, it was pretty late, and we had Oscar (who is our escort and keeper of the flashlight) walk us down the single path to our room. Every step there was either a scorpion, snake or other creepy, unidentified object. Ugh!

Okay, so we woke up this morning, at 5:15 a.m., we opened our front door and, HELLO, an impala was right there munching on our little tree. We had a little stare down and around the corner came her little baby. So sweet. We walked around them as they continued to munch, had some coffee and loaded into the vehicle for our morning drive. Not 2 minutes into the drive, we came across 6 giraffe having their breakfast. One of them was a small baby, whose legs were obviously still unstable. We drove more and came across many Impala, Kudoo, and Waterbuck.
Another hour in and we came across a small herd of elephant. Beautiful! They acknowledged us and continued to eat. This herd had two, very small babies. At least one of them, was still nursing. We watched them for a while and gently moved closer. Another vehicle from our camp came flying in a little too quickly, which really set one of the little guys off. He began "trumpeting" and flaring out his jumbo ears. He clearly thought that he was much bigger than he actually was. We were well entertained by him!

After that, we pulled up to a large watering hole for some coffee and biscuits. We watched the hippos across the way and those that needed to, had an opportunity to "shake the grass." This is my new favorite term :)
We drove some more and saw a few more elephants, before we pulled onto a spot by a dry riverbed for a "Bush Breakfast." Basically, all of the staff from the lodge brought breakfast to us and we enjoyed it out in the bush. From there, the tracker drove our vehicle back to the lodge and we did a bush walk with our guide. We received our instructions to walk in a single file line and always follow his instructions. If we "bump" into something, we were to stand very still. He proceeded to load up his riffle and off we went. The elephants were close but not too close. Other than that, we only saw a few birds and some spider nests, before making it back to the lodge. The rest of the day was really relaxing. We had our first workout since leaving the states and took a dip in the pool.

We are on our way out for our evening drive and Im really hoping to see a lion! We are only a buffalo and a lion away from seeing all of the "big five". Im really looking forward to another hot bath drawn upon our return and dinner in the Boma.

We have another drive, here, in the morning and then we jump on a bush plane to head to our next lodge. yikes. I will update again once we get there.

XOXO

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Once again, im very behind on blogging. Internet has been hit or miss. I actually, so have a lot of blogs on our laptop, but the only internet access we have now, is the one computer at our lodge. As we expected, because we are in the bush!!!
We left Cape Town today feeling like we could use one more day there. What a fantastic city! We flew 2.5 hours to Nelspruit where we were to meet our bush plane that would take us deep into Kruger National Park. So, our bush pilot met us after we collected our bags and he honestly did not look like he was old enough to have a driver's license. I have not been a good flyer on this trip and it's gotten worse. My first question to him was if this would be a smooth flight and his (laughing) response was "no, it will be quite bumpy." First time in my life that the pilot of a plane Im flying on carries my bags for me, onto the tarmac, loads them in the back seat and proceeds to help us step onto the planes tire and into the plane. They say this plane was a 6 passenger plane. The two of us and the pilot barely fit. We climbed into our seats and the pilot gave us the same "safety" message you normally get from a flight attendant while taxying. He started up the plane, waited for his cue that we were good to go and then turned around to give us a thumbs up to let us know we were good to go. Terrifying take-off!! Not only was it bumpy, but the wind was blowing us all over the place! Luckily, our cruising altitude was only 3500 feet. This made for a beautiful flight. Thank God Eddie had the camera to take some pics because I was white knuckling the two handles on the side of my seat. 35 minutes later, we landed on an airstrip out in the middle of nowhere. When he helped us back out of the plane, I asked him how old he was. 22, flipping, years old! Honestly, think about what you were doing at 22! We were picked up in a game vehicle for a 10 minute, dirt road, drive to King's Camp. Gorgeous lodge! We were greeted with a cold wet towel and a cold drink. As soon as we signed our lives away, we were taken to our stunning "hut". Only the pictures will do this place justice. Very safari themed with elegant accents. The best part is the double, outdoor shower. We had some lunch and at 4:00, we headed out for our first game drive. This is an open vehicle, with 6 guests, the guide who was driving, and the tracker that sat on the front of the Land Rover. The first hour was full of kodoo and spring bock (small deer like animals). ABout an hour in, we located a rhino and her baby. It was unreal to see these massive, beautiful animals in their natural environment. We ended up chasing them, which was quite an adventure. An hour after that, we came across our first leopard. They suspect that she just gave birth. She was absolutely beautiful and we were so close that we could hear her panting. We watched her for a while and then drove down the road where we stopped for a "sundowner" which is basically a cocktail at sunset. We drove back to the lodge to get ready for dinner. When we walked into our room, they lit a bunch of candles in the bathroom and had drawn a hot bubble bath. We had our Thanksgiving dinner, which for us was grilled ostrich, sweet potatoes and chocolate mousse.
This is a brief and probably horribly mispelled update. I will post pics tomorrow, but for now we have to hit the sack as we have a 5:00 a.m. wake up call for our a.m. safari.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! Much love!

okay- so we owe everyone lots of info and there is so much to share and it was so amazing, I need to slow down to give the experience justice. I the mean time, Ill tell you about today. Cape Town is fantastic! It's like San Diego on steroids. It's about double the population and...I hate to say this, but it is, at least, twice as beautiful. It's stunning! We started our day with a trip up to Table Mountain, which was more fantastic than I thought it would be. Incredible views of the town.

You access Table Mountain, via cable car. Each one holds about 65 people and as you are going up, the floor of the cable car rotates, so that everyone gets a good view.

We left table mountain and hired a car/driver to take us around the other popular Cape Town destinations. Our driver was Justice and he was great! He was very funny and very passionate about South Africa. And...he LOVES Obama.

So, the first spot Justice took us to was to see the penguins in Simon's Town. Most penguins you find are in Antarctica, but for some reason, these guys prefer South Africa.

They were very cute

Then, we arrived on to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point...the farthest ends of Africa...the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.

We were walking around, when a group of about 25 Germans wanted us to take pictures of them. Each one of them handed us their cameras. Eddie, Justice and I were all grabbing cameras and taking pictures. They had been drinking champagne on the coast and were a little toasty and hilarious! Once they were finished, I handed our camera to Justice to take a picture of Eddie and me. We walked over to the point and when I turned around, all of the Germans were taking pictures of us!

We left there and Justice drove us around beautiful Haut Bay and Camp's Bay and gave us a lot of info on the history of South Africa.

The next day, we had a wine tour scheduled. Mervin picked us up and, again, was a wealth of knowledge on South Africa. He took us to our first winery, which was beautiful. It's funny how it looks so similar to California wine country, but so different at the same time. We had a private tasting paired with cheese. The tasting consisted of EIGHT wines and these were not small pours! We left there and went to an amazing lunch in the Franschoek region and it was delicious! We were able to hit one more winery and then we headed back to the hotel and had a great conversation with Melvin on the way. We had a nice dinner that night and left the next morning for the bush!

We arrived in Zambia a few days ago. We have no internet service, so I have been blogging in a word document, so I can paste it into the blog as soon as we have internet again.

After spending about 30 hours in London, we flew to Johannesburg to catch our connecting flight to Zambia. I’m not a very comfortable flyer. Sometimes I’m okay and sometimes, I’m a mess. I was perfectly fine on our flight to London. I was okay for the first few hours of our flight from London to Jo’burg, but the last half was a little bumpy and I was a mess! So, I didn’t sleep at all. I was basically on the verge of a panic attack for 6 hours. The turbulence wasn’t bad; it just lasted a long time.

We arrive in Jo’burg at about 6:00 a.m. and it was very cold, rainy and windy. Ker and Downey arranged to have someone from the airport meet us right as we stepped off the plane. They guided us to customs and then walked us to the front of the line. Before we could clear customs, they had as stand in front of some sort of thermal imaging screen that they were using to test people coming in for swine flu. Once we made it through, we were escorted to check in for our flight to Zambia and then through security. It was great to be able to move through these places so quickly, but it was also kind of sketchy. We had about 2 hours before our flight to Livingstone and we were exhausted enough to fall asleep on the ground for a little bit.

Zambia Day 1 (Hippos are loud)
We were met at the airport by someone from our lodge (The Islands of Siankaba). We hopped in the van for our 45 minute drive to the lodge. There was another couple with us, Raj and Latissia, who had just flown in from Lusaka which is North of Livingstone. As we drove along, they gave us some great information on Zambia. Along the way we picked up another friend of theirs, Chloe, who also lives is Lusaka and her husband would be meeting us later.
We drove through downtown Livingstone and as we made our way out of town, we were thrust into Africa. Lush and green from the new rains and people walking along side of the road…women carrying fruit on their heads and babies on their backs. Many women were carrying water as far as miles, from the Zambezi River to their villages. As of now, that’s the only way for villages to get water. We pulled onto a dirt road that we stayed on for 4 miles until we arrived at the lodge. We were greeted and checked in and then escorted to a pontoon like boat. From there, the boat drove us down the Zambezi a bit to the main part of the lodge. I am going to do my best to describe this lodge and its very unique beauty .There are 7 chalets on one island and the bar, pool and restaurant on the other island. The two are connected by a series of bridges…most swinging rope bridges. Everything is open air. The chalets are incredible. They are tucked into the vegetation, so you hardly notice them when you pull up. From the outside they look like giant tents raised upon stilts. In fact, the outside of these chalets are actually tented. Inside is all made of teak wood with a big gorgeous comfy bed and a claw foot tub. The “wall” facing the Zambezi could be completely opened by unzipping it and rolling it up and outside was a great deck. Beautiful! We had a delicious lunch and rested before the sunset cruise.
We met in the lobby for the sunset cruise. Joining us were the 4, only other guests at the hotel. Raj, Latissia, Chloe and Rob. As we got on the pontoon it started to rain. Not a problem-we had some umbrellas and the rain only lasted for 5-10 minutes. We did a cruise down the Zambezi and past the resident family of 13 hippos. We didn’t get too close as they are not very friendly. We cruised around a bit a pulled up onto one of the tiny islands in the river. Richard, our captain, poured us some drinks that we had selected before leaving the lodge. Eddie and I were EXHAUSTED and debated doing the sunset cruise. I’m so glad we did! It was really nice to chat with the other two couples about Zambia and their “home” countries. The scenery surrounding us was surreal. In front of us was a double rainbow (from the departing rain clouds), to the left of us was the stunning sunset and behind us was a family of hippos. As the sun went down, Rob announced that this was my and Eddie’s first African sunset and I’m so glad he did-we were so wrapped up in our surroundings that we momentarily forgot how special this sunset was to be.

A little behind?

Hello! We just made it into Cape Town today! We have just spent three days in Zambia...with no phones, no internet, no T.V. and it was fantastic! So...we are obviously behind on our posts. I am in the process of the Zambia post and I must warn you now that it is long. We have travelled to manyplaces, but I will tell you now that Livingstone, Zambia is the most amazing place I have ever experienced. The rest of Africa has a lot to live up to. Posts coming now...

London

We are relaxing in the B.A. lounge at Heathrow after our 24 hour whirlwind in London. This was my first time here and I loved it! Eddie and I have already decided that we must come back, as we only scratched the surface on this trip.

We got in yesterday morning at around 10:00 a.m. We made it through customs with our personal belongings as well as two, 40ish pound boxes of notebooks, pencils and other school supplies. As soon as we passed through customs, our new friends Jay and Carol were waiting for us. Ill explain who these wonderful people are when I post about the notebooks that are going to Zambia. We had some coffe with Jay and Carol and then hopped in a car bound for the city. Knowing we didn't have a lot of time, we dropped our bags in our room and hit the streets of London. Our first stop: Plummers Arms Pub. We had a pint of London Pride, some fish and chips and a lamb burger. From there, we jumped on the highly recommended Red Bus for a tour of the city. About 20 minutes in, I fell asleep and didn't wake up again until we got to the Tower of London. We hopped off and realized that the tower was only open for another hour, so we just walked around the surrounding area. The air outside was nice and crisp and the wind was STRONG.

We hopped back on the bus just as the sky darkened and the city lit up. We jumped off again at the picadilly circus, fought the crowds for a little while and then decided to head in for dinner. The area we stayed in was called Belgravia and it was perfect. The area itself was nice and quiet and appropriatley described as a "leafy residential area". It was really easy to walk everywhere from there. We left our hotel for dinner with empty bellies and absolutely no destination in mind. We had a lot of choices...Lebanese, Thai, Russian and we finally decide on Portugese. I had some grilled prawns, squid, fish and rice and Eddie had salty clams and pork...YUMMY! We had a night cap back at the hotel and were in bed by 10. I don't think I got more than 3 hours of sleep

This morning we got up and had breakfast and much needed coffee at Starbucks (shameful, I know). We walked around a bit and made our way to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. We got there about an hour early, but noticed that a lot of people were already there and standing at the driveway outside of one of the gates. Following about half a dozen police motorcycles, a little commotion and a lot of squeals and excitement came a car carrying a little lady in a fancy hat. It was The Queen stepping out, following her not so well received speech the day before. What a treat! About an hour more of waiting around and we saw the changing of the guard. It was a lot more musical and a lot longer than we antisipated. So, We devoured some lunch and headed to the airport. One more 11 hour flight and we are in AFRICA. Ten years of dreaming soon to come to fruition...

It's time!

Sooo...we are sitting in the B.A. lounge at LAX awaiting our flight to London. How did this trip get here so fast???
The past few days have been hectic and friends have definitely noticed the stress on my face. True to form, I procrastinated on many things, including packing. We were up well past midinight just trying to get everything in order. We have some significant weight and luggage restrictions that made packing a little tricky.
Fast forward to now, we are all checked in and are much more relaxed following a cold beer and an extra bubbly glass of champagne.
Time to board! Ill update soon!