South Africa - Day 14

Day 14 - JFK-SLC - October 25, 2017

We were actually supposed to make it home late in the evening of October 24, but the airline had other plans...

Our flight was delayed and then when we finally boarded the aircraft we were on our airplane waiting on the tarmac for some issues that extended longer and longer.  I think we finally ended up being on the plan for about 1.5 hours before they had to return to the terminal because the pilots wouldn't be able to make it to Salt Lake City before their work time ran out. As the airplane was waiting to return to the terminal I was on the phone with Delta and was able to score some seats on the first flight out in the morning.  Almost everybody else had to wait for this flight to actually take off and head to SLC, which ended up happening around mid-day.

We tried to catch some sleep in the terminal.  By 3AM it wasn't worth it to get a hotel room because our new flight left at 7AM.

We were exhausted, but finally made it home.

Next up on the blog is a trip to Kauai in January 2018.

South Africa - Day 13

Day 13 - JNB-CAI-JFK - October 24, 2017

Our flights were uneventful, so here are a few layover shots.

Alison catching up on Marco Polos, voicemails and texts once we got back to the US.

Tomorrow we make it home.

South Africa - Day 12

Day 12 - Kruger National Park Day 4 - October 23, 2017

Today we got up with the sun to go on one last early morning safari drive.

Hard to wake up.

Our little hut in the camp.

We spotted an elephant right outside the gate.

Warthog.

Monkeys.

There is a pride of lions on the sandbank near the river.

A couple of views of the lion pride through the binoculars.

We returned to our hut and got all packed up. Alison eats blocks of cheese like its nobody's business.

We put our masks on and asked a friendly person to take a picture. You never know what kind of quality photo you'll receive.  This one was especially exciting, because there were monkeys in the trees around us who starting shrieking and hissing at us.  It actually kind of freaked us all out, and caused quite a scene which of course attracted everybody's attention to that weird family wearing the animal heads...

Baby monkey riding on mommy's back.

Elephants through the trees.

Our last elephant. It was now time to start the long drive back to Johannesburg.

This rhino looked to be on his last days.

We had some time to kill so we stopped by the temple for a photo op.

You wouldn't believe it, but they had a Mugg & Bean at the airport.

And thus begins the return journey - Johannesburg - Cairo - New York City - Salt Lake City.

South Africa - Day 11

Day 11 - Kruger National Park Day 3 - October 22, 2017

We took our time getting going this morning.

Playing kindles.

Spot the bird with a mohawk on the railing.



Breakfast in the tree house.

We spent some time watching animals from our tree house.

Antelope chilling in the river bottom. I don't think that we saw much beyond that.



A view of the Crocodile River from my drone.



A view of our Airbnb.

Kate wearing the amplification headphones. These headphones amplify the bird calls and animal noises while blocking out closer sounds.

Binoculars.

The view of the tree house from the street.

The bridge from the house.

A lizard friend.

We were sad to leave this place.  It was perfect for us.

Lyla practicing for her big animal head moment (see below!).

We made our way back to Kruger NP to drive around and spot animals.

Warthog.

Rhino.

Time for an elephant bath.

Impala.

Overlooking a Sabie River.

Horsehead photo #1. We ate lunch on this deck at our favorite Mugg & Bean. When we stood to the side and put our masks on the restaurant was noticeably quieter while everybody snared and some people snickered.  One of the best parts of wearing the heads is noticing the reactions from everybody around us.

Yawning hippo.

Crocodile.

We were intrigued when we came upon this eagle on the side of the road.  At first we were afraid that the bird was injured.

Then we noticed the snake that it was sitting on.

When our engine started it scared the eagle which grabbed the snake and flew another 10m away from the road.  Crazy stuff.

Another lizard.

We made our way to a remote lake further north in the park than we had ventured previously. We found some hippos wallowing.

This was probably the coolest experience of our time in Kruger.  There was a pride of lions resting and lounging just off the side of the road. We sat and watched them for a while before slowly pulling away.

About a minute down the road, we came across this herd of elephants crossing the road in front of us and heading right towards the pride of lions.  Not wanting to miss out, we flipped around and went and parked near the lions again. We were curious as to what would happen.

We were surprised when we saw another herd of elephants walking towards the lion pride from the other direction. It turns out that this was one big herd of elephants. They knew where the lions were at, so they split into two groups and walked around the lions before rejoining into one herd on the far side.

The lions all perked up when the elephants passed, but their attention was split between the groups of elephants on either side.

I can't remember what bird this was, but it was pretty with it's bright red head.

Monkeys just chillaxin.

African buffalo.

We were searching and searching for hyenas as they were the last animal that we were reasonably confident we would be able to spot.  We were just a few minutes away from camp and the sun was falling when Kate yelled that she had spotted a hyena. We only saw one, and only for a few seconds, but we were proud of that.

The only other animal that we really wanted to see was a cheetah, but they are very rare in Kruger so we didn't have any expectations that we would see any without a guide.

We finished the night eating at the fancy restaurant in our camp. Ada was brave and tried the escargot.

Not bad she says.

Tomorrow is our last day at Kruger.