Fig trees, another early morning and onwards…

Those who know me well are probably pretty aware that I’m not renowned for being a morning person.  Not quite a bear with a sore head, but maybe a dog with a sore wotzit.  Or something.  Which made it all the more surprising that I was quite fine with the idea of waking up at 5 this morning for another game drive, to see if we could find Frodo or one of the other leopards again.  But to be honest, when you get sunrises like these, it’s pretty hard to be too upset about being awake.  That, and the two coffees to get the morning started…

So anyway, off we headed into the sunrise, bouncing along the dirt roads like there was no tomorrow.  In the end we didn’t find our leopards, but did find the cheetahs again – and again just missed spotting an impala kill.  I was amazed at how close to the lodges the cheetahs made their kill – would have been a hell of a view from the balcony of room 4!

The afternoon took us to Mkuzi national park, for some more wildlife spotting and a wander through the fig forest.  Well, not quite the wander one would expect back home perhaps – this wander came with a rifle-toting guide.  He told us it was in case of attack by the wildlife, but I have a feeling it may have had more to do with the poachers that are known to operate in the area.  They don’t tend to mess around, apparently.  In any case, the most danger we were in was from a a particular vicious butterfly … although I was looking behind me warily when Flippie started making baboon mating noises.  Thought I was about to have an entirely different animal encounter…

Another game drive in the evening, spent quite a while trying to track another leopard but no success in the end.  Today was spend in transit,  with a 6-7 hour drive from Phinda to Joburg airport.  Returned the rental car without a hassle (no charge for the crack in the windscreen – hooray!) and other than the long queues for checkin, all is good.  So I’m sitting here typing this at the airport, reflecting on my time in Africa.  I had a whole range of insightful and poignant comments that occurred to me in the car, but can’t remember any of them now, so I think I’ll just sum it up in two words: Come here.  If you haven’t been to Africa before, you owe it to yourself to make the trip at least once before you die.  It’s an amazing, wonderful place that photos and blog entries can’t even start to do justice to.  So … well … that’s it really.  Book yourself a ticket.  And I have to say one last time just how FANTASTIC Vic, Flippie, Fanie and Louma were to us – without their hospitality, advice and general wonderfulness, the South Africa leg of this trip wouldn’t have been half as much fun…

And now, on to Zurich.  We aren’t planning on eating while we’re there – due to both the high cost of food and the high cost of having to buy an entirely new wardrobe if we carry on with the volume of food that we’ve been enjoying so far.  See you in Europe!

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