South Africa Trip 2021

 Our last day before starting home we woke up to a misting rain.  It was pretty cold and the blanket lined ponchos we were provided felt very good.  The sprinkle didn't last long, but it did remain cold. He calls himself Baghdad Burt. Foster, our tracker stops to tell us  about his life in the local village.  His mother was a fortune teller which was a gift that others recognized in her.  It was not inherited or assigned.  Growing up, when he had a headache or stomach trouble,  his mom treated him with elephant dung.  She would burn it and treat him with the smoke or shake it up in water and drink it.  He said it worked and he demonstrated for us. Our last evening game drive we watched the lions by floodlight.  Our last dinner was in the wine room.  Each evening they served us in a different room.  We had towel animals on our bed each night and the last night a hot bubble bath was drawn in our room.  So many nice litt...

 We are here in Springtime just before rainy season. It has worked out perfectly for weather and not too many people due to COVID. Tourism is just starting to come back. We have had a small tour group and lots of attention.  The reserve has mostly dry dead looking scrub which allows us to see the animals from a good distances and not too hot except mid day.  Our game drives are early morning and late afternoon.  As soon as the sun goes down the temperature changes drastically.  Mornings can be pretty cold with an open top and traveling fast, but the Jeep is equipped with blankets and hot water bottles for each person. Sunrise in Manyeleti A gang of Buffalo Wildebeest    Our mornings search was for lions and leopards. We saw a few other nice sightings on the way, but the highlight was a lioness with her new 3 month Cubs. This was the first that Alistar had seen these Cubs. Lions sleep 18 hours of the day so you don’t get to see activity very often. They...

 Our tour group of six flew 1 hour from Johannesburg to Kruger National Park area.  One couple of our group chose to go to Kenya for a tent / safari experience, So there are 3 couples going to Kruger. We are staying at Tinswalo Lodge meaning “the intangible feeling of peace, love & gratitude bestowed upon someone that gives you a meaningful and worthy gift”.  Our lodge is actually right next to Kruger national Park on a private reserve of 66,000 acres. There are four lodges in this private reserve and we find out that it allows us to go off the roads to get closer to the animals. We arrive at the lodge at 1:00 and are greeted with great enthusiasm, dancing and singing. The lodge has not seen AMA guests since Feb 2019.  Of course, lunch and welcome drinks are ready outside on the patio. Elephants are coming up to the lodge for fresh water.  We have had to skip meals and cut way back they serve us so much.   Elephants come to drink at the main lodge. Afte...