Kruger!

Due to some unforeseeable circumstances, Jill and I are still in Africa. Everything's fine, we're just flying out tomorrow (2 days later than planned).

Anyway, HandJ, Jilbo Baggins and I went to Kruger for the weekend. Let me tell you what, it was effing awesome. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I'm so glad we went.

Road Tripping
I've been taking anti-malarial drugs for a couple days and one of the side effects is weird dreams. On the drive up to the park on Friday, I was most definitely lucid dreaming. I have no idea what was real and what wasn't. I was telling Hannah that I was afraid to start talking in the car because I didn't want to sound crazy.

Stars
The stars in the park were crazy. Apparently I have never seen what the night sky is supposed to look like. The Milky Way was so bright and clear. I feel like I've been cheated my entire life.

Animal Sightings
We actually assigned a point system for animal spotting. You got one point for each new animal spotted and one point every time you spotted one of the Big 5 - elephant, rhino, leopard, water buffalo and lions. We stopped keeping track, though, so I don't really know who won the game.

Lion Kill
We went on an organized night drive through the park. After about 10 minutes, the driver stopped and shined a light on this tree. Turns out, there was a gen-u-wine grade A chameleon chilling in the trees. Honestly, my first thought was, "Are you freaking kidding me? You are pointing out a chameleon? I want to see some animals get destroyed." But, it was actually pretty neat.

As the drive went on, we got to hang out at a fresh lion kill. All the ladies were ripping apart a water buffalo carcass. It was BADASS. We were probably 15-20 feet from the animals and we could see them tearing flesh and crunching bones. There were a bunch of cubs, too, and a male lion passed out on his back with his paws in the air. We've all been there before, amiright? It's funny to me that the animals are completely used to having cars and people stare at them. They didn't even bat a lash at having spotlights shown on them.

We actually returned to the lion kill the next morning. There were two males still feeding and we were, again, within a stones throw. I wish I had a better way to describe it other than as badass, but I don't. It was just straight up badass.

Leopard
Later that morning, we were driving through the park and saw a cluster of elephants - including a baby - drinking in a stream. We stopped the car and watched for a bit. Then, out of nowhere, James goes, "OH MY GOD THERE'S A LEOPARD!" Chaos ensued. All four of us rolled our windows up and down, started swearing and laughing, and just generally panicked. I think it was the coolest moment of the trip to the park. I could have stuck my hand out the window and touched it, it was that close.

Baboons
At one point, we were driving through the park and a troop, also called a congress, of baboons came parading down the road. There at least 50 baboons, if not more, just walking towards us. I have to say, I've been pretty hard on baboons this trip. I think they are creepy and smell really, really bad, but seeing that many was pretty cool. I'm not totally sold on them, but I no longer want to barf when I see one.

The trip was truly amazing. I'm so glad we went.