Winter Break and Kruger

There was a 3-week break between the second and third term of the school year.  Some fellow PCVs and I took advantage of the time off to do some traveling.

First we went to Polokwane where we stayed at the Polokwane Game Reserve.  This is the largest municipally-owned game reserve in South Africa. There are reasonably priced accommodations on the park grounds.  Also, since there are no large predators in the park, you can walk, run, ride a bike or drive through it.  Such a nice place.

Then we headed off to the Blyde River Dam and Kruger National Park areas. Kruger is amazing but you cannot get out of your car except in designated areas. It is such a large park you could spend days exploring it and, since we were driving faster than a crawl, I am sure we missed a lot. But we saw so many animals it became common-place to see a giraffe, a herd of elephants or springbok.

Our first day in Kruger we sat and watched one herd of elephants for quite some time and got to see an elephant warning the herd when a fast car approached. So we knew what was happening the next day when we came across a herd of elephants crossing the road. You can see in the picture below one elephant stood guard, watched us, sounded a warning and looked at us menacingly. It was the first time I was actually a little scared. An interesting fact: the older a giraffe is the darker is it's coloring.