Kruger Safari

We are back from our first safari in Kruger National Park and it was amazing. It felt like we were in a National Geographic episode. We saw many elephants one even touched the truck, thousands of impala, hundreds of monkeys and baboons.

                                        Photo Credit: Rachael Costello and Micah Costello

There were lions, warthogs, kudo, waterbuck, bushbuck giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, African buffalo, wild dogs, hyena and tons of birds. We didn't see leopard or Zebras. But the highlight was two separate sightings of a total of SEVEN cheetah. Cheetah are usually solitary animals but there was a family of cheetahs; a mom and her 5 cubs (which were now her size) spotted near The Skakuza Restcamp where we stayed. On the last day as we were driving back to camp a man stopped us to tell us the cheetah family had just been scene on the parallel road and they were headed right for us. We waited and sure enough first came mom and then a few minutes later the 5 cubs.

                                                                                                family of cheetahs 
                                                                Photo Credit: Rachael Costello

Then we got to witness the most amazing thing: a cheetah hunt that resulted in an impala kill. We saw them running and we turned the corner of the road just in time to see them push it to the ground and start devouring it. In about 30 seconds the sky was filled with vultures. I have goosebumps even now thinking about it. Our safari guide, Debbie was out of her mind ecstatic. In eight years she had never seen a live hunt and kill, let alone 7 cheetah in one day. After the cheetah kill Micah said " this was the best day of my whole life" 

Mairyn, Micah and I want you to know that several times while on safari we said out loud that you would have loved this and we wished you were here to see it.