Safari in Kruger Park

After four days of statistical conference, three colleagues of mine and I joined a four-day safari in Kruger National Park.

To get there, we had to take a plane from Durban to Nelspruit, where our guide was waiting for us. The plane itself was one of the smallest I have ever been to and it started flying towards the Indian Ocean, in the wrong direction! Thanks Lord, the pilot turned the plane soon afterwards and we arrived without problems.

The first thing I had to do when settled in the park was buying a hat like Indiana Jones. Once bought, we could start looking for animals. In Skukuza, our campsite, I was lucky enough as to pick the last hat of XL size (the other hats were either size S, small, or XXL, huge) and have a look at the result: four statisticians worried about the financial crisis.
We managed to watch the Big Five (leopard, elephant, lion, buffalo and rhino) before the end of the second day. Big Five are those animals which were deemed as most dangerous to hunt but, needless to say, we did not have any intention of hunting them. The best moment of our visit was when a leopard decided to walk close to the road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y1v952jpj8

We also spotted giraffes, hippos, springboks, crocodiles, birds, vultures,... One can easily feel danger in the park every second. Humans do not rule there and one must be very careful. The lions we spotted had blood in their mouths. Moreover, a hippo came through a lake and five metres from our car opened its huge mouth in a clear sign of who had the power in that lake.

We even had a problem with an elephant when a hood of them was drinking water. Ah, elephants, I feel now kind of tired of them, I have seen so many of them. Just to close this blog, here is a picture of some elephants.In the next entry, I finish the trip to South Africa with Blyde River Canyon.