6/27/2015 - Kruger Day 1

Yesterday was a lot of driving after leaving our beloved Malandela's behind, and the sun was going to start setting by the time we made it to Kruger.  We saw condoms being given out at the Swazi/SA border:

And another cultural oddity for us, a coca-cola giveaway promotion at the supermarket with a generator as the grand prize to keep the lights on during load shedding:

As soon as we entered the park, a large elephant seemed to be waiting to greet us, eating on the side of the road at the end of the narrow bridge we needed to cross.

We saw 4 of the big 5 before reaching Skukuza (camp for the night): elephants, rhino, lions, and lots of water buffalo.  There was a huge herd of buffalo crossing the road, stopping up cars for a long time. We did our best to catch glimpses of the babies, who were kept in the middle row, between two rows of adults protecting them on either side.

A male elephant was in the road some time later, showing all the signs of being in its mating season and dangerous, so we backed away as quickly but carefully as possible.  When the other cars finally caught on to the fact it was angry (he was moving around very quickly, sometimes turning in circles, flapping his ears and going back and forth on the road, trying to fan out territory), they also backed up and eventually the elephant felt less threatened and took off into the bush.  We were relieved and kept on to Skukuza.  We also saw the African fish eagle, many baboons with babies, giraffes, and lots of impala everywhere.  Our huts at camp were pretty awesome, and we made dinner together in the collective kitchen with our guide, Tulani.  We were warned not to leave food out on our porches or even in the fridges on porches or monkeys and baboons would be able to get it.