To Letaba Rest Camp, Kruger NP

A 2000 year old giant baobab tree.

White backed vultures.

A spotted hyena.

African wild dogs, or painted dogs.

What an unbelievable lucky sighting!

Saturday, October 21^st.

Another early start for a long day of driving. We rode back along that bumpy dirt road for the fourth time to get to the highway. We drove for a couple of hours before stopping at a big mall in the city of Polokwane. I went to a coffee shop hoping to catch up on e-mails to see if I needed to know anything about the upcoming Madagascar trips. I had a chai latte and found the internet was terrible. I managed after a couple of tries to post a note on the blog to say that I was alright and that the computer was holding up, but I had no access to wi-fi for a while. Then I tried checking e-mails and got one from Carol with the title Ian Jones, in which she told me that he had died. I tried responding but was unable. Very frustrating. Four friends in seven months....

We continued driving for a couple of hours through some very pretty highland hills before reaching a picnic spot by a 2000 year old baobab tree, awesome. After lunch we finally arrived at Kruger National Park. After checking in we did a two hour game drive on the way to our campsite. We saw a few female kudos, three elephants, a few white backed vultures, hippos, a Martial eagle, a hyena and then a pack of five African wild dogs, or painted dogs. That was incredible, they were laying right by the side of the main paved road. There are estimated to be only between 400 and 500 left in the wild. The are the most endangered large carnivore in Africa. How lucky could we be? I was really excited about this, because I thought I had missed the opportunity to see them a few days back. A couple of kilometres from our camp in Hwange NP there was a wild dog centre where they keep two dogs for education reasons. We passed it on the way to Hwange and it was closed by the time we came back to camp after seeing that lion pride. So, this was even better than that.

Shortly after we arrived at the camp and set up. Then I had a much needed shower before dinner. After dinner we had an optional two hour night game drive. We saw lots of different animals, mostly the usual, but not great quantities. Although we did see two civets, which are night time feline predators, and a bushbaby which has large reflective eyes. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get photos at night.