At Your Own Risk...

To Nelspruit, South Africa

Well, our time has come to an end here in Kruger. It's been pretty cool roaming around this huge place looking for animals -- kinda like being in a gigantic zoo. On the way out of the camp, we stopped at the store to pick up a few things and then noticed the restaurant and deck overlooking the river.  It was beautiful; I don’t think I even knew there was a river here.  In the distance, we could see monkeys jumping through the trees and a Water Buck here or there.

We weren’t in any great hurry, so Meg and I went for a short stroll while the kids played at the small playground, hopping around the wooden pylons.  It makes sense now why Philippa was disappointed when she visited Etosha in Namibia. It just doesn't have the same amenities, picnic spots, restaurants etc., that Kruger does.

We finally got on the road around 9:30.  After a short stop at an overlook, Dex spotted a huge elephant way off in the distance.  As often happens, you stop and watch and watch, and before you know it, you’ve snapped fifty pictures because every few seconds the animal is just a little bit closer than it was a minute before.  

In this case, the elephant ended up crossing right behind us and then proceeded into a clearing where a lone rhinoceros was standing.  It was really awesome to see the two face off.  The elephant looked like it was going to chase off the rhino at first as he tossed dirt up at it with his trunk and shook his head.  The rhino started backing up, but then moved forward.  I guess the elephant had been bluffing because he threw in the towel, turned around, and took off.  By this point, however, the rest of his herd (technically, a “parade”) was crossing the road and the whole episode repeated, this time with the larger group and two rhinos, but with the same end result -- the elephants left the rhinos in peace.

The next cool thing we came across was a croc right next to the dirt road with its mouth wide open, just waiting ... for some unsuspecting motorist to come by.  Yikes.

Joe and Christina from Germany

Lunch stop outside the KFC

We didn't have a clear destination for the day, but mostly just wanted to get down the road toward Johannesburg (Sandton). Once we got to Nelspruit, however, we decided to call it a day and get out of the car.  Meg found a room at the Mercure Hotel, which turned out to be pretty dang fancy with its huge main lobby open to a beautiful outdoor pool.  The security guard, high walls, electric fencing and warning signs, however, made us wonder whether we should be worried.  The sign by the parking spot read: this parking area is at your own risk and the Mercure hotel does not accept any liability or responsibility for any death….

In any event, the heated pool was a big hit.  Afterwards, Meg and I started working on our Indian visas since we'll be there in less than a week.  Fortunately, the process can be done online. There were plenty of questions to answer: employment details, education level, parents names, grandparents ethnicity... plus we needed a few attachments -- jpeg passport photos and pdfs of our passports.  

After five nights of camping (and with WiFi access to boot), it felt pretty nice to be indoors again. We were too lazy to cook or even go out to eat for that matter, so we just ordered in from a nearby restaurant. Dex and Kylie took baths and then turned on the Minions.  Hmm, we’re not really slavedrivers, though I’m pretty sure they did some math in the car today.