Days 100 thru 103

(Dan’s comments are italicized)

As our (what feels like) mini vacation hurdles toward its close, there seem to be many quiet, personal goodbyes we have to make. For me, one of the hardest is saying goodbye to these fantastic African animals. But, at this point, we still had two days left in Pilanesberg and we made the most of it! And, once more, the animals were kind to us.

I was complaining about the grass being in the way (remember that we’re not in a high, safari vehicle but a small VW) so Dan said his view was clear so he’d take the photo I wanted. This is what he took…

But I did manage to get a couple of nice head shots.

The rhinos in this park don’t seem to realize they’re endangered…we were seeing around 12-15 per day. Granted, they could have been the same ones over and over…but this is a huge park and we were driving all over it so it’s highly unlikely! One of Dan’s high-points was seeing a black rhino (the most endangered type)… They do have a special reserve just for them in a remote corner of the park that is inaccessible. This one must have escaped.

Black rhinos’ are solitary animals and are aggressive because of their poor eyesight and hearing. White rhinos, on the other hand, are far more social so we often saw groups of three or four. I was excited to be able to take relatively clear photos of four rhinos from close quarters…

Little did I realize that things were about to get so much better when they decided to cross the road right in front of our (strategically -placed) car! By strategic, she means by waiting for over 45 minutes on a hunch that they MIGHT get closer. I had also recently upgraded our Google One plan to include 2 TBs of storage for each of us, so I could start taking lots of videos. Unfortunately, our blog will not display those. I’ll work on that problem for our next trip.

Thank you, rhinos!! Fittingly, a rhino was the first animal we saw in this park, the first we saw each of the four days, and the last we saw as we exited for the last time!

As if accepting a challenge, the other animals stepped up. Monkeys, zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, warthogs, and elephants crossed right in front of us. Sometimes it was because we were learning to read animal behaviors, so parked our car strategically…and waited! Other times, it was just a coincidence.

Seeing any animal excites me…

…but what has gladdened my heart the most in Pilanesberg is to have found ourselves (or placed ourselves) in the middle of towers of giraffes and parades of elephants.

I’ve been lucky to get some very close shots!

And I must give a special thank you to baby elephants who have kept us well entertained on this trip.

On a not-so-exciting note, we even found ourselves stuck in the middle of a fleet of safari vehicles once. They weren’t moving at all as they had spotted lions! That was a bit frustrating as we were too low to see the lions but couldn’t go through.

This is such a beautiful place; we shall certainly miss it!

As our time here comes to an end, I want to quickly revisit the warnings about leaving your car…even in designated, protected areas.

And so we were off once again; this time to the Cradle of Humanity. This is the area of the world where the first homo sapiens are thought to have lived, and from whom all humanity is descended. It’s full of impressive archaeological sites; we think the museum in Johannesburg may give more information on this. The Cradle of Humankind is a bit like the Panorama Route and Garden Route. It is a large area that has disparate attractions that try to fit the theme. The actual archeological digs are inaccessible because they exist on private property, but everyone wants to capitalize on their proximity to what is accepted as the birthplace of humans. A cave where many of the important human fossils were found has been closed for over 2 years. I thought that the Cradle of Humankind Visitor Center would be a jumping off point for exploring the area. But it was more of a museum that catered more to children. They had an experiential boat ride as an exhibit that shuttled you from one side of the exhibit to the other. It was nice, but I expected more information about other places to visit to expand the importance of this place.

We stayed at a lovely log cabin in the middle of nowhere and next to a lion sanctuary; we could hear the lions roaring in the evening and the jackals howling all night! But we are safe in our little home…

We had a rare day of doing nothing; I think we both needed the time to accept that this chapter is coming to a close ☹️