Crazy stuff happened...but we won't tell you here!

After the wild drive, beautiful beaches, and delicious Indian food along South Africa's Wild Coast, Joe and I started our journey inland toward Nelspruit and Kruger National Park. Exhausted already from the extensive drive, Joe and I found comfort in knowing that this leg of our journey was going to be the last, long drive! At last, we arrived at our tented safari camp in Mthethomusha at 1:30 in the morning, and promptly crashed. We would call this luxury safari tent home for the next five nights.

On game day in Nelspruit, Joe and I decided to take it easy, update our blog, and attend the Italy vs. New Zealand match. We are rapidly becoming experts in "game attendance" - waiting patiently to find parking at the park & ride, yet cleverly managing to skirt to the front of the masses to ride the bus and get into the stadium. What was once at least a 2-hour process in Cape Town, we quickly whittled it down to 45-minutes. The Nelspruit game day presented itself as quite the dilemma for Joe as he was uncertain about his allegiance - Italy or New Zealand. Having lived in Christ Church, New Zealand for 6 months during his college years, Joe was ecstatic to experience the Kiwis' only second appearance in the World Cup, but his Italian heritage equally pulled at his heartstrings. Eventually, luckily for Joe, he didn't need to make a decision as the match ended in a draw. Italy's yet again lackluster performance against this underdog, foreshadowed their subsequent destiny in World Cup 2010. Despite the mediocrity of the game, we enjoyed the quaint feel and beautiful sunset at Mbombela Stadium.

Italy vs. New Zealand

Italy's equalizer goal off a penalty kick

New Zealand playing well against the defending champs

Joe, a proud Italy supporter!

The beautiful sunset behind Mbombela Stadium

Our remaining days in Nelspruit were reserved for self-drive safaris in the world-renowned Kruger National Park - an impressive 2 million hectares, three times the size of Yellowstone, of diverse African life forms. We drove around the southern most area of the park, merely scratching the surface. A discussion with an honorary park ranger informed us that most of the game had migrated to this southern region. Unusually dry weather in the north had forced the game to migrate to the wetter south, which contained lush vegetation and better opportunities for food and prey.

Springbok at Kruger National Park

Excited to take Joe on his first ever safari, we were pleasantly greeted by Lady Luck. During our two, full days at Kruger National Park, we were some of the few lucky people this season to have seen the Big 5 - Cape Buffalo, Elephant, Leopard, Lion and Rhino. Whether driving along paths less traveled or staying on the main paved roads, we were indeed fortunate to have our own "private" moments of game viewing, with no one else around to experience the uniqueness of those awe-inspiring, individual moments. As we drove around Kruger, Joe and I started to categorize groups of safari people - crowd seekers and lone spotters; crowd seekers were those people who wanted to see game by finding the biggest group of people parked on the side of the road, and lone spotters were people like us, who found excitement in trying to find the game on our own! Although, at points, we too played the role of crowd seekers in our quest to locate the more hard-to-see lions, especially from the low profile of our Kia Picanto.

Our first giraffe encounter, right on the road!

A similar awesome encounter with elephant population

Our second attempt at seeing a lion...success!

The white rhino is an endangered species

It was so hot the hippos never left their watery haven

Needless to say we had quite the adventure in Kruger! While we attempted to maintain a good schedule for our safari drive, somehow we managed to exit the park after the gates closed, on both nights. As fate would have it though, as we rushed to leave the park in dusk, we had two very thrilling encounters - seeing the stealthy, elusive leopard cross our path on its way to hunt prey, and catching a glimpse of a new nocturnal mammal, the African civet! What a great way to end our safari! We ended our stay in Nelspruit by taking a short day visit to Swaziland and appreciating their local arts and crafts. Along the way, we stopped at one of the most lush forests of Southern Africa, tucked in the high hills of Swaziland.