The Waddell Family: Come on Safari with us...

Come on safari with us!!! At the end of April, Pat and I stayed at the Arathusa Safari Lodge in Sabi Sands/Kruger National Park in So. Africa. Here is what we saw...

The Africans have a well know term here - it's "BIG 5." The Big 5 are Lions, Leopards, Rhino, Elephant and Buffalo. Your goal on safari is to see the BIG 5!!

Big 5 sighting #1 - Lions. The cubs were a bonus!
The sun was going down fast, so some of the pictures were a little dark.

Above: You can see another game drive vehicle right in front of us checking out the lion cubs too.

Big 5 sighting #2 - Rhino.
Below: You can see our tracker, Rufus. Each vehicle has a ranger and a tracker. Phil, our ranger, was even a little scared. That rhino kept getting closer and closer to us. Phil kept saying... "Rufus...if he gets any closer jump in...Rufus...jump in, jump in here." B/C the tracker rides on the very front of the vehicle. That Rhino got within a foot of Rufus and Rufus never moved an inch. Just as calm as can be.

Some venomous snake we saw while out driving.

Myself out of the truck having sundowners! A sundowner is like happy hour on a game drive. (On the morning drives you stop half way through for coffee and snacks. On evening drives you stop for "sundowners.")

Above: Now I know this photo is crap. BUT if you look close you can see a bright blue and purple bird flying away. Phil told us that when 2 people were about to get married they used to take a feather from this bird. The feather would be put between the guy and the girl's hand. Then their hands would be taped together - so that they couldn't separate at all. They would have to go 5 days together. They did everything together - including going to the bathroom!! After 5 days, if the couple could still stand each other, they could marry.

Above: Another Rhino sighting.
Below: Big 5 sighting #3 - Buffalo.

Sun Downers on Day 2! We were with all of the Asians, but they were a really fun group.

Above: Hyenas at night.
Below: Big 5 sighting #4 - Leopards!

HA! A leopard...in a tree...with a kill. Just as I thought we would see!
But really...apparently it's impossible to see this. It was Phil's birthday on this day, so Pat said, "hey Phil, we'd like to see a leopard up a tree with a kill...it's your birthday, so it could happen." haha they we all laughing, like ya right, we'll never see that. AND THEN WE SAW IT!

Hello Hippo!

Then we got to see cheetah. Cheetahs are solitary animals. They are only together when they are mating or if they've had cubs recently. BUT somehow, good old Phil found us a bachelor group of 3 male cheetahs.

Well, we saw them keep inching up slowly and slowly and....then we had to leave to give someone else a turn to see the cheetahs. Here they only allow 2 vehicles in at a time.AND what do you know! We missed a kill by 3 minutes! Darn!

Some Zebra and Giraffe!

More leopards...

FINALLY! Big 5 sighting #5 - Elephant. You'd think elephants would be the easiest to find, but not our vehicle - couldn't find any till the last night. Then we found the whole herd of them.

Above: This guy walked right up to Rufus's shoe and put his trunk on it to smell it. Then Phil very slowly and quietly knocked 2 times on the hood the the truck and the elephant walked right off. Talk about being "in the wild."