Off To Safari Land

We had a very early wakeup call today to catch a 2 hour charter flight from George to Hoedspruit for the third part of our South African adventure. We would have loved to spend a little more time at the beautiful Pezula resort in Knysa but are excited for the safari portion of our trip.

Our trip to the George airport took about 90 minutes and there we said good-bye to our wonderful bus driver Navine who had been with us since day 1. Our charter flight held 30 people but there were only 17 of us including our two guides so there was room to spread out.

The 90 minute flight north to Hoedspruit saw the terrain change considerably. It was a clear day and the temperatures changed form the low 60s in George to high 80s in Hoesdpruit. As we neared our destination, the ground became hilly and pretty barren looking for as far as we could see, but it will green up later in the spring. Some people saw a heard of elephants on the ground as we approached the airport.

Hoesdspriuit is a tiny airport so we were able to get out of the airport quickly. Just outside the building our driver Azaria and game spotter Bright were waiting for us with our safari game drive vehicle. Our group of 15 was split into 3 vehicles, each capable of holding 10 passengers so our group of 5 had 1 safari vehicle to ourselves. Our Disney Adventure guide, Tina accompanied us in our vehicle as we traveled to the Kapama Game Reserve resort. As we started out of the parking lot Tina mentioned we had a bit of a drive on the highway to get to the resort and Charlie asked her to play the song Life is a Highway from the Disney movie Cars as we drove on the highway. She gladly obliged. As we left the airport and entered the highway we drove across the highway and onto the Kapama Game Reserve, about 15 seconds on the highway. It was funny and quite a relief after the long travel.

The amazing Kapama resort is inside the private 32,000 acre Kapama Game Reserve. As we drove along the dirt road to the resort we had our first taste of a safari game drive.

Once at the resort we were greated by a number of staff in the beautiful open air reception area, given a welcome gingery ice tea and an orientation of the property before heading to lunch at the report’s dining room. The property is very spread out with brick pathways lined with local vegetation connecting the different areas. After lunch we had a little time to unpack before meeting our group for tea just before our evening game drive. We quickly found out that the resort provides food 7 times a day. so nobody ever goes hungry.

Our 2 hour game drive was beyond anything we could imagine. We even saw a leopard sleeping in the grass. Azaria told us that leopards are the hardest animal to spot. so we were very fortunate to see the first of the Big Five animals on our first evening.

Part way though the drive we stopped for what the guides called a sundowner - drinks and snacks. We watched the sun set and the moon rise as we sipped our drinks. After the sun set Azaria talked about the constellations we could see and pointed out a number of constellations including the Southern Cross, Scorpious, and the Milky Way Galaxy.

The last part of the game drive was in the dark. Our spotter, Bright used a large flashlight to continue searching for animals as we headed back tot he resort. Along the way we saw an African hare and 2 hyenas.

At the end of our game drive we stopped at a spot out in the bush where a beautiful dinner was preparted for us. We ate under the stars with a fire in the center of the area and tables lit by lantern .