As most of you know, I went to South Africa for my honeymoon. We spent 4 nights in Cape Town and 3 nights on a private game reserve for a safari. It was absolutely incredible! If you ever get the chance to go, don't hesitate. If you have any questions about traveling there, I would be happy to help!
This is a view of Table Mountain from the V&A Waterfront. Table Mountain was recently voted as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.
During our day tour of the area, we took a boat out to Seal Island which smells absolutely horrid.
Then we went to Boulder Beach which is where the African Penguins live. They were SO cute. The babies were brown balls of fluff.
Then we drove to the Cape of Good Hope.
And climbed up to the top of the "mountain" at Cape Point.
These guys were hanging out on the road when we were leaving the park. Isn't the baby adorable? (Sorry for the peen shot)
The next day, we went to the Cheetah Outreach Program and met this handsome guy, Joseph. He was purring the entire time we were with him and he was SO ridiculously soft! I love him
Dinner out one night in Cape Town. I had the best scallops of my life here!
We took the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain. I didn't know what the view was like until we got home and H showed me his pictures because I started hyperventilating on the way up (I'm afraid of heights).
Our last full day before leaving for the safari, we went to Gansbaai and swam with Great White Sharks. They're the only kind of sharks in the area and they were amazing! A shark swam directly at our cage and bit the cage directly in front of Sean. It was pretty terrifying but awesome at the same time.
Yay! I just swam with scary ass sharks!
Me at the tiny, 1-room airport in Hoedspruit.
I got a kick out of the monkeys' blue balls.
Baby zebra.
The birds sit on a lot of the animals and eat the ticks and parasites. They're buds.
This is the Son. He and his dad are the heads of their own prides and are NOT friends.
This is the Dad. We could hear one of the two male lions roaring really close to our camp during dinner one night. The next night, we came across this guy FREAKING out (roaring, pacing, spraying EVERYTHING). Apparently, the son had wandered into the dad's territory which is a big no-no. The dad spent the entire night marking his territory again and searching for the son so he could kill him. The whole time, a female lion followed him around at her own pace and sometimes it was like they were "talking" to each other (roaring back and forth).
The elephants were the scariest animal on the safari. We had just seen these guys and were driving off to have our sundowner drinks when we turned a corner and a HUGE elephant charged our car. Our ranger veered off the road and stopped because if he had continued driving, the elephant would have chased us. After a minute of glaring at us, he walked off.
I was in love with the rhinos. The one on the left is the mom and the one on the right is the baby. We heard a lot about rhino poaching from another couple that was with us who work in the field. The reserve we stayed at had 1 female rhino poached. They said it was devastating to find her body later. I can't even imagine. People suck so bad.
Baby Cape Buffalo!
The leopard is the hardest to find. They hadn't seen any for 3 days when finally our tracker found him! Our ranger flew off the dirt road and into the bush and we had to hold on the bar in front of us and duck and sway to avoid the pricker bushes. It was SO worth it when we came across this guy. He was walking around marking his territory. Definitely one of the most beautiful animals I've ever seen in my life.
After our morning game drive one day, we went to do an 'elephant exploration'. We hung out with this guy (I forget his name!) and he was awesome! Elephants are REALLY smart. We tossed a baton on the ground and he would pick it up and hand it back to the person who tossed it. He took H's hat off his head and then handed it to him. We got to put our hands in his mouth and feel his tongue (which is SO soft and mushy, not hard and rough like most people think). We got to feel his foot which is like a sponge which is why you don't actually hear elephants walking, you just hear them breaking through everything in their path!
Baby elephant!
This is the Son again with one of his cubs who was about 10 months old.
This is all the hippos do.
On our very last game drive, we came across a baby wildebeest running around aimlessly. Our ranger told us that his mother had been killed nearby and that he'd keep wandering back to the area looking for her until the lions eventually killed him too. Right down the road, we found these lion cubs feasting on the mother wildebeest.
H and I with our ranger and tracker after our last game drive. I was so sad to be leaving!