The weekend was GREAT, full of animals and animation. We took off Friday afternoon and if it was not for an hour on the border we probably would have made it in an hour. Roads in South Africa are clearly better, and driving is not that full of unexpected events like the N1 to Xai-Xai. We stayed at a really nice B&B in Malelane, next to the Malelane gate, the Vila Langa, that I definitely recommend. Cheaper than the big lodges and really nice people. They organized everything for us and service was great and very familiar.
The adventure of “where-on-earth-did-they-leave-the-service-concept” started early at dinner. We went to The Deck for dinner, a nice place by the river, amazing food, inexistent service. Just hard to believe…
We had an early start on Saturday, at 4.30 and at 5.15 we were already by the Echo Safari office, ready to go in our adventure. At 5.45 we were queuing at the gate, led by Washington, our guide, in an open vehicle. The camera was not even out and a Hippo ran away from us, the first car to enter the Kruger 
Park that morning. After being greeted by the first of the big five, the Rhino, and as we passed the first bridge, Washington tells us “ I can see some eyes there, but not sure what animal”. The sleepiness (or should I say ignorance) led us not to pay attention. It turns out that we later found out that our guide could see a leopard, the second of the big five. With the zoom at 24x, we had trouble seeing it… That was impressive.
But Washington was indeed there to impress and to prove the difference that the guide can make in your experience in the Kruger. As
he drove us through at least three herds of elephants (also big5), he heard there were lions around but they were on the move, which meant we probably would missed them. Undefeated, he points at a red tree and says “see, there’s the lioness”. To our amazement, the 24x zoom of the camera did show a lioness. As I kept working on the picture, he says “look, there is a lion going by”. At this point, Bernardo, who did not have the camera is thinking the guy is insane and it turns out that suddenly a lion turns up in the lenses of my camera… What a sharp eye! And that made the 4 out of the big five.
We still had time to observe closely an old elephant for a while, letting him in piece while he prepared to cross the road. A tourist was not as patient and as he decided to drive through, we had a funny Jurassic Park moment as the elephant ran after the car… Luckily he took to long to start the chase…
We thought the Buffalo was going to defeat us in our mission of seeing the big5 
but as we exited the park, the bridge over the crocodile river (clearly full of crocodiles) greeted us with two nice buffalos sitting there as they were waiting for us to say goodbye. The six hours of safari were totally worth it. The sunrise was cold and the blankets were barely enough to deal with it but we clearly did not care. We stopped for breakfast at the picnic site to amaze Bernardo a bit more with the wonders of the South African self catering culture. We ordered eggs.. they brought eggs, onions, mushrooms, bacon and sausages and did the barbecue right there…
We were not as lucky in the night safari. We went to the Crocodile Bridge gate since Malelane was booked out (also arranged by our B&B) and were not that lucky with the guide. We saw some bush monkeys, a hyena and giraffes but clearly another three hours looking at the bushes only with a light looking for animal eyes was clearly not as exciting. Apparently it really depends on the guide, and we spent all our brownie points in the morning! We still enjoyed a beautiful sunset, one of those that Africa has to give you like nowhere else in the world!
The adventure of “where-on-earth-did-they-leave-the-service-concept” started early at dinner. We went to The Deck for dinner, a nice place by the river, amazing food, inexistent service. Just hard to believe…
We had an early start on Saturday, at 4.30 and at 5.15 we were already by the Echo Safari office, ready to go in our adventure. At 5.45 we were queuing at the gate, led by Washington, our guide, in an open vehicle. The camera was not even out and a Hippo ran away from us, the first car to enter the Kruger 
Park that morning. After being greeted by the first of the big five, the Rhino, But Washington was indeed there to impress and to prove the difference that the guide can make in your experience in the Kruger. As
he drove us through at least three herds of elephants (also big5), he heard there were lions around but they were on the move, which meant we probably would missed them. Undefeated, he points at a red tree and says “see, there’s the lioness”. To our amazement, the 24x zoom of the camera did show a lioness. As I kept working on the picture, he says “look, there is a lion going by”. At this point, Bernardo, who did not have the camera is thinking the guy is insane and it turns out that suddenly a lion turns up in the lenses of my camera… What a sharp eye! And that made the 4 out of the big five.We still had time to observe closely an old elephant for a while, letting him in piece while he prepared to cross the road. A tourist was not as patient and as he decided to drive through, we had a funny Jurassic Park moment as the elephant ran after the car… Luckily he took to long to start the chase…
We thought the Buffalo was going to defeat us in our mission of seeing the big5 
but as we exited the park, the bridge over the crocodile river (clearly full of crocodiles) greeted us with two nice buffalos sitting there as they were waiting for us to say goodbye. The six hours of safari were totally worth it. The sunrise was cold and the blankets were barely enough to deal with it but we clearly did not care. We stopped for breakfast at the picnic site to amaze Bernardo a bit more with the wonders of the South African self catering culture. We ordered eggs.. they brought eggs, onions, mushrooms, bacon and sausages and did the barbecue right there… We were not as lucky in the night safari. We went to the Crocodile Bridge gate since Malelane was booked out (also arranged by our B&B) and were not that lucky with the guide. We saw some bush monkeys, a hyena and giraffes but clearly another three hours looking at the bushes only with a light looking for animal eyes was clearly not as exciting. Apparently it really depends on the guide, and we spent all our brownie points in the morning! We still enjoyed a beautiful sunset, one of those that Africa has to give you like nowhere else in the world!
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