Hluhluwe-Imfolozi National Parks

Today our first safari was on the program.

The alarm clock went off at 4:30 am! By 5:10 am, we were in the car and driving towards Hluhluwe! The national park opens its three gates at 5:00 am! We arrived at 6:00 am and had the rules explained to us! I asked the staff if we could drive off the paved roads with our car! Yeah, no problem 👍!

Then we started, we went through the gate and there were 96,000 hectares of national park in front of us. We quickly spotted the first warthogs. They look really cute. Then we saw nyala antelopes and a mother monkey nursing her baby. But otherwise, it was quiet. There was a lot of 'kaka' on the road, but the elephants that we attributed these piles to were not visible, of course.

After about 1 hour, we both whispered almost at the same time, 'maybe it wasn't such a good idea to do the safari on our own' 🥴! I said to Daniela, 'let's drive on the unpaved roads, maybe we'll see more animals there'.

As soon as I said that, a group of zebras suddenly appeared in front of us. There were five animals calmly walking along the road. They came in our direction but went into the bush just before our car and came out directly behind us. We watched the group for a while and grinned. We were in good spirits again.

Finally, there was a turn-off onto an unpaved road. It was challenging. I had to be very careful at some passages to avoid getting stuck in the sand.

It felt like we were almost alone on the road! I was driving in first gear on the trails! Both of us looked out the side windows for animals! Then we simultaneously saw many black animals in front of us on the road as well as on the right and left. It was a large herd of buffalos. They blocked our way and scrutinized us (the foreigners). We were thrilled and took dozens of photos. I drove past the herd very slowly, and we were both happy. After a while, I said to Daniela, 'there could also be giraffes in this area, right?' Not 100 meters further, a huge giraffe suddenly stood next to me. I almost bit into the steering wheel out of joy. We were over the moon. It's an indescribable feeling to see animals in the wild that you usually only know from the zoo. We watched the giraffe eat for a long time and then it walked gracefully in front of us. An amazing sight!!!

The atmosphere was fantastic. Then Daniela said to me, 'drive back a bit, I saw something gray.' I grinned internally because I thought, oh, something gray again, probably just another rock! Daniela zoomed in on the gray object with her camera, and what can I say, our 'eagle eye' struck again. It actually was a rhinoceros. We were both naturally excited.

Now zebras, nyala antelopes, antelopes, buffalos, giraffes, and rhinoceroses kept appearing, and we could watch them closely. Unfortunately, we didn't see any elephants. Daniela, our big 'Benjamin the Elephant' fan from back in the day, was sad, and I was a little disappointed too because I was expecting to see elephants...

We were on our last 12 km, and I wanted to stop at a viewpoint. Daniela and I got out of the car and took a close look at the landscape one last time. This time I saw something gray. Yes, it also had a trunk!!!! I hopped around like a madman. I called Daniela over to me and said, 'down there is your Benjamin.' What can I say, it wasn't just Benjamin, it was a whole herd with two babies. Tears welled up in our eyes. What a dreamlike sight.

With great enthusiasm, we drove the last few kilometers to the gate and celebrated in the parking lot. We really did everything right and from today on, we call ourselves 'The Lucky Ones'. The boss of our lodge called us that because we saw so many different animals.

Now we are exhausted but extremely happy and are falling into bed! Greetings from 'The Lucky Ones' 😉🍄

Some pictures were taken with the mobile phone from the camera!