Monday September 29th

Slap Shot and I got up at 2am and showered and gathered the rest of the stuff we were going to take with us on the safari. The group was meeting at 2:30am to get taxis together and go to the airport for our 5:45am flight to Johannesburg. About half of our group didn't get any sleep at all last night and had just got back from the clubs in down town Cape Town so by the time we left the ship it was 3am. We split two taxis for 13 people, shoving 10 into a 7 person van. It was the cheapest way to do it. We finally got to the airport at about 4 am and it was empty. We sat around for a while before security opened and we could go through to the terminal. We were flying Mango airlines and we had a bright orange plane. We took off with no problems and everybody fell asleep for the two hour flight to Johannesburg.

We were scheduled to get picked up by our safari guides at 9am and our plane landed at about 7:45, so we had a little time to kill. Nobody left the airport, in fact we were scared to leave the airport because recently there has been a lot of violence against Americans and Johannesburg is ranked among the top few most dangerous cities in the world. In the airport, there was a huge digital screen that read "619 days till kickoff". Cape Town is hosting the world cup in 2010, and though everybody was excited about it, nobody seemed to be able to find and memorabilia. Finally at 9am we were picked up by Nelly, on of our tour guides. The 13 of us crammed into a 13 person minibus and it was very, very tight. All of our bags were piled up everywhere and it was going to be an uncomfortable ride. I was expecting an hour or so to Kruger. No way, we asked him how long it was and he said 5 hours! We were very confused and thought he was messing with us.

After an hour an a half of driving we stopped at a gas station for a potty break. People got some snacks and stuff as well. I was the first to ask him what was in the trailer we were towing and he said nothing. I asked him what it was for and he said luggage. Maybe he could have told us that at the airport!! Anyway we all put most of our big bags back in the trailer and gave us a little more room in the bus. Lucky for us we didn't sleep much the night before so as uncomfortable as we were, at least we all fell asleep relatively easy.

Another hour and a half of driving and we stopped in a small fishing town for lunch. We all got burgers/chicken and it was reasonably priced. (We later learned that the restaurant has a deal with most safaris and if they take their groups there, the guides get free meals). It was a much needed stop nonetheless. Only another two hours of driving.

The scenery in the first part of the trip was a lot of farm fields and mountains. The mountains were huge and very barren. This was also true for most of the second half until it turned into "bush lands". Basically, high grass, shrubs, and a few trees. We were getting close. Finally after 5 long hours of actual driving we pulled into our private game reserve at about 4pm. This is not where we were staying for the night, but this lodge and our lodge are run by the same company. We got off and waited for another group of people to arrive to go on a sunset game drive.

Half of our group went with a few other people already at the lodge for their drive, and my half waited for the new group. We ended up sitting around for almost an hour waiting for this other group which did not make us happy. I should have said before, our group was 9 girls and 4 guys. Slap Shot, Andy, Raphael and I were good friends from back on the ship. Lacey and Ari were also with us but went with the first half on the game drive. Basically it was the boys that had to wait for the other group because we were off exploring when the girls left and missed our opportunity to jump in the first car, but some people were going to have to stay behind anyway.

This first lodge was a small group of houses arranged in a circle with a swimming pool in the center and a kitchen and small sheds on the out skirts. It was a more expensive housing option offered by the company we arranged our tree house safari through. It was all surrounded by an electric fence, but the fence was only turned on at night. Right outside the fence was a watering hole and we got to see a family of warthogs come up and drink. We sat on a balcony from inside the fence and just watched them for a while. Finally the second group got there and we were able to set off on our game drive.

The vehicles had three rows of 4 seats in and had no roof which made viewing very easy. Right away, we saw a giraffe and some impala (antelope). I was not expecting the bush to be the high grass and lots of shrubs and trees. I was picturing open savannah like in the Lion King. We drove around for an hour or so before sunset and didn't see much of anything besides the impala and some Kudu, (looks like an elk with a hump on its back similar to a camel) and has spiral horns that go straight up. Nelly got out a spotlight and we drove around in the dark a bit before heading back to the lodge. The game reserve had dirt roads so it's not like we were driving around randomly looking for animals.

When we got back to the lodge we learned that the early group of girls that left saw multiple giraffe and even a rhino! We were very angry. The entire group loaded up into our tight van again and drove about a half hour to Marc's Tree house Lodge, where we would be sleeping in Tree Houses. This was in a separate game reserve. Most all of the private game reserves around Kruger National Park have their gates open to Kruger to increase the area the animals can roam in. Right inside the gate half blocking the road were a herd of water buffalo! They didn't bother moving and we had to drive around them. We got down to the camp and the tree houses were very spread out. There was a few building in the center of camp, a pool, fire pit, and an overhang with picnic tables around the fire where we would eat dinner. We all grabbed random keys and went searching for the tree houses. We split up in pairs, though most tree houses had multiple beds. We soon learned that most of the tree houses were not actually up in trees, just on stilts back in the trees a little bit. All of the houses were built by thick reeds which made them look really cool. There were trails through the woods connecting everything within the camp. Outside each tree house was a bath house with a toilet, sink, and shower. Each tree house had a balcony or porch and mosquito nets for over the beds. They were very cool and I feel like me explaining them doesn't give a good description so check out the pictures I emailed home. There was no fence around the camp within the game reserve, so we had to be careful at night walking around, though it is most always safe to do so.

We got to our game reserve around 8:00 got settled, and had dinner. It was squash soup to start, then a beef casserole with rice, followed by cake for dessert. It was all very good and we ate around the campfire. It has been a very long first day, and tomorrow we have a bush walk in the morning at 6am!