lundi 28 janvier 2008

The one about South Africa

My my my... more than a month has passed and I have not posted...

But hey, you cannot work and have holidays and post all at the same time !

So here I go about my second trip to South Africa, a country that I've learned to love more an more, whose people are so admirable, a land of beauty that is the birth place of my only hero : Nelson Mandela.

My trip started hazardously : the KLM plane that was going to take me to Amsterdam just did not take off. And why ? well... I really dunno... this is the state in which the reactors were when we were waiting to get into the plane :


covered with a red cap... and the crew was nowhere to be seen... bad omen ? no !!!! We changed airlines with Air France and by mere miracle our luggage followed us up until Joburg where we arrived exactly on time !

We spent New Year's Eve in the Kruger Park. It is THE national park of South Africa. As big as my home country Nicaragua (hey, don't believe me on that... is just an impression, but maybe I'm right... I'm just lazy to check that out).

They say that if you visit the Kruger, you get to meet the Big Five (elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard). Well... we just met three of them, and not the big cats :( I'll have to go back to fix that...

We did meet some abusive vervet monkeys that stole our New Year's food... aaaah ! the wilderness !

We drank like sailors and danced to my Ipod selection. The craziest of us decided to go on a morning walk right after the party at 5 am... I postponed that walk until the 2d of January.

I think that helped us to be able to actually see some animals, since the alcoholic aura was not around us warning the beasts to get out of our way ;)

What you need to know is that you're not supposed to get out of your car inside the park (it's deadly dangerous). We were guided by some rangers who had weapons and knew how to read tracks and other "traces"... like rhino shitholes :



The rangers told us that's where the rhinos leave messages through shit : "I'm the master of the premises" or "Whatever..." or "I'm available, fuck me"

They were able to spot a rhino mom and her puppy and took us to where they were resting. We got a glimpse of her :


We had to be very quiet and not let ourselves know or else she could become very agressive. Everything went well, or else I wouldn't be posting... duh !

These are some of the best pics of animals that I took in the Kruger :

Kudu


Kinda prehistoric bird

Waterbock
(see the white circle around his ass... that's how you know is a waterbock)




Elephant dust spa




The majestic Impala (symbol of the Kruger Park)

Baboons


Baby vervet

Buffalo

And that's all folks ! at least for today... I have to get my beauty sleep !

3 commentaires:

::: sissi ::: a dit…

fantastic pictures! also i need to go there some time, it looks really great!
glad you had a good time :)
holidays are the best!!!

S. a dit…

WOW ! Les photos sont magnifiques ! La nature, les animaux, y a que ça de vrai ! (bon, aussi le repos, dormir etc etc):D

Anonyme a dit…

Au fait, lorsque tu dis "And that's all folks ! at least for today", est-ce que cela sous-entend que tu vas publier d'autres photos ?
Nous attendons. Cela nous plairait bien de voir des clichés de l'Océan Indien, et de Joburg aussi...(nous= au minimum mes multiples personnalités et moi :p)

Bon weekend !