So many animals! Day 7, 11/3/18

Continuing on with my trip to South Africa....sorry for the long delay! It was a busy few months! We had just arrived at our second lodge, Kapama Karula, and last night we saw that beautiful leopard.  Today we would set out on two game drives and spend a full day here! We were up bright an early for our first drive, ready to go!

First we came across some zebra crossing our road...just had to let them pass!

Then this handsome kudu posing for us! 

From there, our first mission was to find where the leopard hid his kill. Our guides told us that he would never have left it lying on the ground where other animals could get to it.  He would place it somewhere out of reach.  We drove around a bit until we spotted it.

Not the prettiest sight!  But fascinating!  Fascinating that this leopard carried this impala up a tree and left it there out of reach from the other animals! It was amazing.

Moving on, we came to a herd of African buffalo. 

These are apparently one of the more dangerous animals as they are quick tempered and are known to become aggressive even when unprovoked. To look at them though, they seemed to be just hanging out grazing....  They were all around us, on both sides of the road. 

From here we had our morning coffee and hot chocolate stop. We stopped at an overlook where we could see giraffes and other animals wandering all around us.  

Our morning set up!

Giraffes running.... so majestic! 

After watching the giraffes, having something to drink and taking it all in, we made our way back to the lodge, stopping along the way to see quite a few more animals!  

And who wouldn't love these jackal pups?  We stopped and watched them play for quite some time!

We also saw this pair of eagles.  I think they are tawny eagles, if I remember correctly, but I may be wrong.

We came back for breakfast. It's hard to believe all of that took place and it wasn't even 10 am!  The lodge has a beautiful spread of fresh fruits and cereals, and then you also can order your meal off of the menu.  The food here is wonderful!

I shared pictures of the inside of our suite before, but this is what each suite looks like on the outside.  Very contemporary!

This is the pool at the lodge. It was too cold to use it when we were here, but it would be great on a hot summer day!

This is the main lounge area where there is a fireplace and the bar area.  It's a great place to relax after dinner at night and share your stories from the day with other guests!

 The spa!  This is the entrance to the spa pool....this afternoon, before our afternoon game drive, we all were treated to a short shoulder and back massage if we liked!  Heavenly!

This is the pool at the spa. You can use this before or after your treatments. 

After relaxing at the spa, a few of us decided we were up for a bush walk! That's right, we were going to hike out into the bush with a guide so that we could learn more about the smaller animals and plant life!  Off we went with our guide Almero!  We drove out to a place he decided would be a good place to start our walk and got out of the vehicle, were given our instructions and off we went!

Almero knows so much! He told us about the footprints we saw and what they may have indicated, about the animal droppings we saw, and about the plants in the area. 

He told us all about these huge termite mounds that are all over the place out here!

We were out there for about 40 minutes or so. We didn't come across any large animals, which was ok! It was interesting and we were all glad we went out!  Now it was time to go back to the lodge for some lunch before out afternoon game drive!

First thing we saw were the zebras.  I really love them! 

And then we saw this vulture guarding the nest!

Then we drove up to fairly close to where we had done our bush walk just about two hours earlier and look what was now lying right there!

Wow - so close to where we were walking! 

 We saw this Lilac Breasted Roller. It was beautiful!  A bit of a challenge to photograph though! 

The sun was just starting to get to that perfect spot, the true Golden Hour! The bush looked amazing and being out there, seeing the animals - nothing could have been better right then and there!

And then.... we got a flat tire! Right there, out in the middle of no where!  No worries, they put a call in for a replacement and being such good sports that we are, 

Knowing that we had a full bar set up in the back of the vehicle, when life gives you lemons....make gin and tonics!

We thoroughly enjoyed our "pre" sundowner while we had our tire fixed.  And the view here?  It was absolutely amazing!

We had to go though!  Apparently we had to get somewhere before the sun set!  Onward!!

But just look who we bumped into again!  We just had to stop and take some pictures of these babies before moving on! They are too amazing!

We arrived at our final sundowner and this is what we saw. We were absolutely speechless.  

This was the first sunset we were able to see since we'd been on safari, and boy, did we enjoy it!

Our hosts had heard how we did the Gin tasting earlier on our trip, and they designed a special pink Gin drink for us for this occasion. Very nice!

This was the perfect ending to our last full day on safari!  Yet, our day wasn't over yet!  We spent some time here just enjoying one another's company and taking it all in.  On our way back we got a quick glimpse of a hippo on land! Of course, the 6 of us in our vehicle were not the quietest after the amazing time we just had and we spooked the hippo!  But here's the glimpse we got!  

Yes, it's blurry, but we saw her!  Our guide just shook his head and told us that we were definitely too loud for this! 

But we were able to see some hyenas on the way back!

When we got back to the lodge we had dinner outside with a roaring fire. It was so much fun!

We had another amazing day out here! What more was there to say!  Tomorrow is our last day, we are heading to the airport for our long, long journey home.  But we still have a few adventures left before we leave!