Out of Africa

I am back with another report of another day.

My Dad woke me up at 5:00am. When we get home I am going to tell my Mom to get him in trouble.

In the morning our guide saw some footprints and he stopped to take a look. Just then we all heard a roar. We drove to where the roar was coming from. And guess what, this was super rare, we saw two male lions hanging together. They were about 13 years old. They cooperated with each other. We saw the same lions again at night. They were walking around like they owned the whole park.

Then we saw some rhinos and a baby rhino. They almost walked up to us. In the afternoon we saw a herd of elephants. You can tell if they are male or females by their heads. The males have a round forehead. The females head goes down straight like a triangle. But believe me their head is not a triangle. Take my word for it.

Yesterday, I really wanted to see wild cheetahs. So I told our guide, Eugene, that he could not leave until we saw some wild cheetahs. And guess what, today we saw three out of the four cheetahs that are in the park. My Dad got angry with me because I did not listen to him and was playing with my camera and did not save my battery. So, I was not able to take any pictures. I have borrowed all the pictures for today from my Dad.

We also saw two other male lions – one was older and one was younger. We also saw their kill – it was a wildebeest.

I made a lot of new friends at the lodge. Some live in Joburg and the others in England. My friend Marika’s father is also from England.

When we flew out of the park I saw an elephant from the air. He was walking on the road.

Now we are at Johannesburg airport waiting for our plane to go home. My Dad tells me that we have about 3 feet of snow in Santa Fe. It has been super hot here.

I really, really, really had fun on this trip. My favorite part was the game drive where we saw the cheetahs. I enjoyed all of the game drives. I also enjoyed making friends. Since I was only there for viewing animals, the rest of the trip was not that important to me.

For my next trip I want to go to Australia because I want to see Steve Irwin’s zoo. I will see you again on my next trip.

From Jo'Burg to Madikwe game reserve

We are now in Madikwe game reserve. We arrived in Madikwe at 12:30PM. We flew in a small plane. It only took 12 passengers. We landed on dirt landing strip. When we got here we saw giraffes, wildebeest and impalas. The giraffe was scratching its belly on a thorn bush.

On our first night in Johannesburg, we stayed at our friend’s, Peter and Karin’s, house. I played with their dogs. I really liked Bella. Bella slept with me. She woke us up in the morning at 4:00am by jumping onto our bed. My Dad wanted to throw her out but I didn’t let him.

Yesterday we went to the cheetah farm and it was fantastic. I asked one of the gentlemen whether a father cheetah ate its children and the answer was no. I saw a king cheetah and they are rare. The king cheetah has black stripes n its back. We also saw the black hyena and wild dogs. When the hyenas were being fed they were laughing.

We went to take a picture with the king cheetah and it hissed at me. It thought that I was food. They had to calm the cheetah down otherwise I was going to be his lunch. We took a picture with it anyway.

After the cheetah farm we went shopping at a flea market. I bought another cheetah and a hippo as a companion for our (my Dad’s) hippo at home.

At night we went looking for a restaurant but we couldn’t find any because it was New Year’s Eve. So we ended up ordering room service.

The next update to my blog will have pictures of the animals we see on our safaris.

From Cape Town to Zambia

We arrived in Livingstone, Zambia. It is named after the explorer David Livingstone.

We are staying at a lodge which is surrounded by animals. The most common are some crazy monkeys.

When we arrived at the lodge, we took a cruise on the Zambezi River. We saw a crocodile on our river cruise. We also saw hippos in the water. We ate dinner outside.

On the next day we went to see Victoria Falls. They are the widest and the biggest. They are almost 1 mile wide. We walked opposite the falls. There was a rainbow because of the mist and the sun.

In the evening we went on a game drive. We saw gazelles, wildebeest, rhinos, giraffes, a warthog, zebras, water buffalo and an iguana. Then it started raining and we were sitting at the back of the truck. But I got into the truck and I was lucky.

When we got back to the hotel, my Dad was going to the room and he spotted a dominant male hippo near our door. My Dad couldn’t get inside to get our cameras. The hippos are very dangerous and they are very fast. The crocodiles are even scared of the hippos. I don’t understand why the hippos aren’t considered one of the “big 5”. In the evening about 10 hippos came out of the water and were grazing all around the lodge. I loved it. All of the guests needed a guard to take us to our rooms.

Today morning we got to see the elephants. I got to feed a baby elephant and a female that is pregnant. I got to touch an elephant.

After breakfast we went to a village. The village has two chiefs, one male and one female. My favorite part of the tour of the village was the carvings. We also saw women making beer and the men sitting around, watching. The shopping at the village was hard because everybody wanted us to buy carvings from them. But we managed to negotiate a good price.