25 Mar 2013

Safari in South Africa


   Yes, I remember it was supposed to be a food-blog, but as you noticed I recently started to post all the other stuff... This time I would like to share with you some of my wonderful memories about South Africa. This winter we spent there one month and it was just amazing! It was my first time in Africa at all, Cape Town was always just my dream, and of course - Safari! All my life i wanted to try it and find out why everybody who did got soooo exited about this experience. And as we all now - dreams do come true! Always... ;)

   There are so much I could tell about this trip! But I only probably do just two posts: Safari and Food. It's a lot anyway =)

   Let's start!

   Our plan was the following: Coming to Cape Town (thanks God there is a direct flight and only one hour difference with our home city), couple of days to stay there, then 4-5 days Safari, about a week for Garden Rout and two weeks in Cape Town again. Of course there are plenty of popular National Parks and Game Reserves in SA, but as we were there for the first time, "to be sure and secure" was a number one priority. That's why as a Safari destination we chose a place, where malaria doesn't exist (so that we didn't have to do any vaccination) - Tswalu Kalahari Game Reserve - the biggest  private-owned park. Also as an addition advantage was a direct 2 hours flight from Cape Town. I honestly didn't expect anything That special, just a nice place with a new experience would be good enough for me... Tswalu appeared to be one of the best place I saw in my life! It's absolutely impossible to describe with words - just a dream - the place that change you! I don't want to overload you with all the descriptions of the place - you may find all the info on the web, but one thing, which you don't find in Internet I should say - People who work there are Great and Very-Very Special. It is much more than just a good service level, it's just beyond that...
  
   Well, now i try to spot talking and just show you some of our pictures, we made there...

"Cozy" flight... 



   ...and we are there. 



Birds having fun by the pool...



Some people just cant live without working. Even if they are in Kalahari... Most of them live in Germany ;) But with antilopas in front of working place - already better!


All the Game Drives start with a sunrise. So we had to get up at about 4.00 am everyday. But it was always worth it!

















































    We were also more that lucky with our Ranger Marco - very professional, well-educated, knowledgeable, delicate and just very nice! He contributed a lot in out trip! And we really hope to see him again ;)















After Game-Drive some relaxing breakfast with small antilopas next to me... mimimi

 

Best Eggs-Benedict ever!


Sooooo cute!



 And some more Game-Drive pics:











One of the best moments during this trip was sleep-out night. Just for one night we moved out of our cozy lodge and spent the night outside in a desert. That was just WOW! Best sunset of my life... 







Our favorite animals are meerkats! And there were plenty of them in this reserve...  And because BBC team were working at the movie about them since already 3 month the meerkats got so much used to people that we could get really closed to them... 


Who is there?







BBC girl...





BBC team...




Enjoying sunset ...




Last drink...


                               ...and flying back to Cape Town.



Thank you Marco, thank you Tswalu. Absolutely happy! 

P.S. I hope it wasn't to many pictures and you got a feeling of the place.

2 comments:

Virginia said...

Beautiful pictures! We are going to Tswalu this fall. What camera were you using!

Victoria said...

thank you, Virginia! happy, you liked it ;)
the pics are made with Nikkon D600 with Nikkor 70-200mm 1:2,8G ED VR II and Nikon AF-S Telokonverter TC-20E III - some shots with Nikkor 24-70mm 1:2,8G ED. All the processing done with adobe Lightroom

And i wish great time! And you should try open-air massage there as well - just the best!