Kruger Park

Went to Kruger National Park this weekend and we saw all of Africa's Big 5. That means we saw the most dangerous, highest valued animals in a hunt. We saw lions, rhinos, hippos, zebras, giraffes, wild dogs, hyenas, impala (everywhere), leopards, buffalos, chameleons, etc. We stayed in two different camps at night in rondawel-style huts, which were surprisingly warm! Our guide speculates that it was hovering around 0 degrees celsius the first day and it was FREEZING! But the afternoons warm up quite nicely. It's a very confusing climate! The rondavels kept us warm, but the wooden cabin wouldn't heat up past 15 degrees indoors with a heater on. We spent last night in Nelspruit as well, and woke up in a 13-degree celsius room. And there was no hot water tap in the sink lol. Beautiful afternoon, though. Go figure!

Waking up at 3:30am for our first day was difficult! We drove from Nelspruit to the park, which takes about an hour, and the gates open at 6am and we were the first inside. Our night drives went from around 4:30/5pm until 8:30pm, then we would eat dinner and wash the dishes and head to bed. There hasn't been much time for rest.

Today we got up at 6am (which was sleeping in), since the hostel was driving us to meet our bus to the airport in Johannesburg at 7:30. It was by far the least comfortable van/mini bus EVER! But after over 4 hours (we must have taken the milk run because it's a 3.5 hour drive), we arrived and realized it would cost too much to visit Jo'burg and Soweto and come back for our 7pm flight. So we hopped on a  free airport shuttle to a hotel and ate by the pool outdoors (the wind was chilly, so we were the only ones crazy enough to go outside). We even got our nails done and RUSHED back to catch our flight back to Durban just in time!