Queue the Elle’s
We got up At 5:30 am again today for a short game drive. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful morning. We saw more birds than anything; however, we did see a number of baboons, monkeys and warthogs. We were able to see a different area of the park where an abandoned lodge stood. Very rustic looking, but not old and built more indigenous to the structures from the region. This part of the park is very beautiful. From here we headed back to the lodge, changed and had breakfast before heading out to the airport. On our drive out of the lodge, a pack of elephants crossed the road. We also saw monkeys, zebras and a warthog with huge tusks almost ran in front of the car. It is almost like they queued the animals to wish us farewell.
Another successful adventure!
Now on to the north east of South Africa and St Lucia.
We flew from Port Elizabeth to Durban. The outskirts of Port Elizabeth is very dirty and garbage scatter everywhere. At certain points, you do not want to ride with the car windows open as the smell is very bad. The tin shacks and congested, dirt road neighborhoods we have seen throughout the country were almost elegant in comparison to these very poor living conditions.
Once in Durban we drove 2 1/2 hours to St Lucia for a 3 day adventure. The hotel we are staying at is the most rustic of any we stayed at so far. This is ok as we will be very active for these three days. Starting with a night drive tonight. They picked up at 7:00 pm and we drove less than 10 minutes to the park. The ultimate goal of our driver was to find a leopard. As the night wore on, he seemed to become obsessed over it. We drove and drove, seeing hippos, antelope and even an elephant, but never saw a leopard. We were scheduled to get back at 9:30 pm which would have been fine, however, we didn’t get back until 10:45 pm. This made for a short nights sleep as we needed to get up at 4:30 am for our trip up to iMfolozi and game drive the next morning. Don’t think I ever need to go on another night time drive.