Kruger National Park-First Night Game Drive-Thursday, September 11th, 2008

We ran over to the Land Rovers and were quickly split between the two vehicles.

Our driver was Yavolt, a nice young man from Germany. The trucks leave camp at 5:15, and return at 8pm. It's nice to take the game vehicles because the gates to the restcamp close at 6pm, so you must be on a camp drive in order to see the animals at night.

We are excited as we take off.  We saw so many animals on our own during the day, we can't imagine how many we'll see with an experienced safari guide at night.

Uh...pretty much, nothing.  We hardly see any new animals and not much we hadn't seen that afternoon. We did see a few zebras so that was exciting for a moment, but they left quickly. 

Yavolt begins to point out different vegetation.  Now, it's cold on this open vehicle. We've got shirts and sweatshirts on and I have a windbreaker on over that, and I am REALLY cold.

Apparently, they offered blankets the weekend before when it was 108 degrees but they are not on the truck now. I have a head cold and Fred is getting one so we are sniffling and looking out desperately trying to see anything.

And still nothing.

So about two hours in, Yavolt pulls the truck over to point out a Marula tree.  

Yup, some tree in the dark in the cold. 

And then we begin to notice that most of the other passengers in this truck are little old English ladies. They LOVE looking at trees and they love this Marula tree most of all.

"I say, isn't this a Mar-uuu-la tree?"

"I must say, I love the jam from the Mar-uuu-la tree."

"Now, Dottie, you love the liquor from the Mar-uuu-la tree."

"HaHaHaHa."

"HaHaHaHaHa."

Fred and I try to mentally signal the driver to kill us now.  Perhaps it's our head colds that are blocking our determined mental signals but it's no use.  Yavolt is thrilled that there are passengers on board who aren't ticked off at not seeing any animals. He is happy to discuss the Marula tree for as long as these women want to.

"Please," we mentally plead with him.  "Just drop us off anywhere."  "If we get eaten, at least it will be a quick death and we'll finally see an animal."

No luck with Yavolt so we try mentally pleading with the animals. 

"Hey, here we are in this open vehicle." 

"It'd be so easy to eat us." 

"We're not even wearing seatbelts."

 "Here, kitty, kitty."

Yavolt finally feels uncomfortable with the death stares directed at the back of his head and drives back to camp.

In the camp restaurant, we meet up with some passengers from the other truck.  They tell us the sad story of how they only saw cape buffalos, and hippos and hyenas, and about a million other animals.  No wonder we didn't see any.  This other truck was hogging them all.

Then they say, "We laughed when you got on the truck with all the old ladies."

Now, they didn't need to say that.

And I probably didn't need to have a pretend coughing fit all over their dessert.

But they did.

So I did.

All in all, it was still a ridiculous, unbelievable, crazy wonderful day.