Seeking the Leopard in Sabi Sabi

Traveling to Johannesburg was no big deal.  We have avoided an Africa trip for 20 years due to flight time fears but having the Leopard launching in Cape Town gave us a compelling reason to go. A couple of movies and some sleep and we were there. Really. Not a big deal. We planned a safari in conjunction with the launch and we decided to start there, as I knew when we saw the new boat we wouldn’t want to leave it.  Now the thing about safaris is everyone I saw on YouTube were wearing safari clothes. Lennie and I are sort of “clothes horses”, so this sounded fun. We even read that you HAVE to have safari gear because blue, yellow and red disturb the animals and may cause them to attack. You didn’t have to tell us twice. We shopped online and at outdoor outfitters and had some awesome gear. We spent the night in Johannesburg and took an early flight up to Skukuza airport right in the heart of the Kruger National Park. Right from the start the “bush” was delivering amazing scenery and we saw plenty of animals along the way.

Earth lodge and M.V.H.S.

I wasn’t sure what the definition of a lodge was but now I do. They are smallish places with 10-12 rooms and everyone eats together in the dining room at the same time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This was fun because you get to know your lodge mates and we surprisingly had a lot in common. In fact, at dinner the first night we learned that out of the three groups at the lodge each group had at least one person that graduated from my high school in California called Monte Vista. That was pretty strange for halfway around the world ……in the bush.

Darn Germans

On our first safari (safaris are described as the 3-hour tours you take with a guide in the open vehicles) we met our guide and jumped in the truck. Here came our German friends that were on the plane with us. They would be riding with us each day on our safaris. Wait…..she’s in bright yellow and he’s in bright blue!!! I immediately warned our guide Joe that this might cause an unsafe condition and Lennie and I didn’t want their outifts to cause the animals to attack us. Joe calmed me down and said don’t worry at all. You and Lennie will look better in pictures.

Please enjoy this first video in season six. Warning…..not a sailing video!