Even though I took my trip to Africa in 2012, I still enjoying reminiscing about what an amazing experience it was. I saw so many exotic and unique locations and met amazing people.
One of the highlights though, has to be the wildlife we encountered. This does sound like a bit of cliché, but for someone from North America, to see the amazing variety of animals that we can only ever encounter in a zoo, in their actual native environment, is truly an awe-inspiring experience.
In the first part of our journey in South Africa we got to see baboons, in this case a mother and baby.
For a kid from the frozen north (Canada) riding an elephant was a truly once-in-a-lifetime adventure. The size and power, and yet good nature of these mammals was a joy to be around. You learn so much about animals when you spend time up close and personal to them, along with people who spend their lives with. Elephants for instance, can communicate with each other, up to a mile away.
This photo has Janet along with the guide during our tour.
We had the opportunity to take a safari into a game reserve that was alive with wonderful African mammals.
When the rhinoceros approached our large tour vehicle, somehow you had the feeling that if it wasn’t happy with you, it would be happy to try and overturn it with that massive horn.
Having grown up on cartoons and Disney animated movies, sometimes you start to wonder if some creatures like giraffes, only exist in a mythical world, like unicorns. Our safari dispelled this notion and they were a joy to watch.
Zebras were also pretty standard in my Saturday morning cartoons, and in my youth an “Impala” was a very large General Motors cars from the 1970s. On the safari I finally got to see the real deal.
This is a chameleon shown to us one evening at the Kapama Game Reserve.
While most of the wildlife we saw was in its natural environment, I’ll admit I was not disappointed this python was behind glass. It looked big enough to do some real damage if it got itself wrapped around you.
I was also fortunate enough to be on Game Reserve with a variety of big cats.
The Cheetahs are a beautiful creature, and it was great to see that they had enough room to get in a good run. As the world’s fastest land creature one can imagine their frustration with being kept in an enclosure at a zoo.
Probably one of the biggest thrills of the trip was spending time at Lion Encounter. In my time there I got to spend hours with lions, young and old, male and female. We walked with them and they were comfortable enough with humans to allow us to pet them. I’m assuming a lot of this was the result of them being well fed, but regardless of the reason, they are awesome creatures to be around. There was a genuine ‘regal’ sense of their majesty, and you can see how they became known as the “King of the Jungle.”
A camera can never capture the true magnificence of Africa’s amazing wildlife. I am grateful to have been fortunate enough to have been able to live out a life-long dream and experience these creatures up close and in person. It was truly the trip of a lifetime.
Recent Comments