Today we got up early and spent nearly the entire day huting for animals. It was a great success, with some close-up views.
Birds: Blue Sterling, Hornbill, African Eagle, Saddle-Billed Stork (rare)
Antelope: Impala, Wildabeest, Kudu
Other game: 30+ elephants in a herd, Rhino, Zebra, Mating Giraffe, Warthog, Vervet Monkeys
The big highlight of today was the elephants. I can now say I was charged by an elephant in the bush and lived to tell the story. What can be quite scary in the Kruger is when large game such as elephants cross the road. You can be literally blocked in by the herd, with nowhere to go. The park actually mandates you stay 50 meters away. If your car gets between a momma and a baby elephant, you better hope you have real good car insurance. If the elephants come out of the thick bush and surround you, there's nothing you can do. Which is what happened today. At first we thought we had a herd of 10 elephants or so, which was fantastic in itself. As we were definately too close (about 20 yards away), they started crossing the road. It was around this time we realized it wasn't 10 elephants we were watching; it's more like 30. Some of them ambled literally feet from the front bumper of our van. All four of us were watching a big bull male elephant just about 20 feet from us---Too close!!! He was roaring, waving his ears, and on occasion putting his head down to mock charge. As this was the the largest elephant I've ever laid eyes on, I will honestly say it was scary. However, what was scarier was his buddy, another male that came charging out of the bush, straight at our car (actually, straight at ME!). I froze and all I could let out was a soft, "Whoa." That was the wrong thing to say, as Eugene hadn't seen it in time and instead of punching the gas, he slammed the breaked when I said, "Whoa." Long story short, the elephant was no further than 10 feet from us, at a full charge, head coming down to smash our van to bits... I'm not exaggerating at all here. One more second in that spot, and this story would have ended much differently. Although elephants top speed is around 30 mph, sharp turns are not their forte. So Eugene punched it at the literal last second, and we all agreed we'd prefer not to see another elephant at that close range again...
Camp tonight was in Berg-en-Dal, a camp with larger 2 room huts. We shared a nice place with an outside deck and grilling area. South African's don't grill or bbq, they "Braai." And that's exactly what we did. We got some steak, chicken, pork, and African sausage, Braai rub, fire, and Eugene worked his magic along with a full bar of drinks. I went to bed tonight wondering if we ate too much or drink too much. It was both. You have to eat a healty diet to stare down a charging elephant...
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