Olifants/Letaba

After our morning game drive we packed up the car and headed north. It took us 6 hours to drive from Lower Sabie in the southern part of Kruger to Olifants in the north. The park speed limit is 50 KPH which is about 30 miles per hour so it was slow but beautiful. The landscape is amazing how it changes, from savanna, to forest, to highlands.

On the way we saw a lot of giraffe and at one point we saw a family of over 100 elephants. There were a couple of fights going on within the herd. I never get tired of watching wildlife. These elephants would go tusk to tusk, trunk to trunk for a while, then break for a snack, then back at it again. You could hear the crashing of the tusks together as they rammed each other, Tyson Hollifield on the African savanna.

The view from our bungalow at Olifants is incredible. We have an overlooking deck about 100 feet above the Olifant River. The river winds like a snake through the African forest, you can see for 20 miles. Over the roar of the rapids you can hear the grunts of hippos and we can see a giraffe chomping it’s leaves along the river bank. Wow! We took in the African sunset and then sat back as John cooked a wonderful dinner.

The next morning we headed north again to the Letaba camp. This is the first camp that had waterbuck and Vervett monkeys roaming around the camp. The waterbuck were really cute, there were probably about a 100, all very small. It was like having Bambi around every corner. Lou went one morning to read while overlooking the Letaba River and a monkey came up and sat beside her. I think she is trading up on her companions.

Letaba has Elephant Hall, a tribute to the Magnificent Seven, the seven largest elephants in Kruger Park. Some of these elephants had tusks that were eight feet long. They are all dead not, some shot by poachers, some died of old age and one was skewered through the head by another elephant. These were truly magnificent animals.

God must have had a lot of fun creating the animals here, the giraffe are like floating flowers, the lions hold a majestic power, the elephants are graceful giants, and the zebra are just thrown in to change up the game. Africa gives you the opportunity to experience nature like no other place that I have ever been, up close and personal. This is a great time of year to see baby or juvenile animals, the young are so full of spirit and playful.