After Indaba, I met my mom in Johannesburg and off we went on the next part of my adventure!  Safari!!  We flew federal air (small 20 passenger plane) from Johannesburg to the bush.  First stop – Singita, Sabi Sands – Ebony Lodge (although we were actually the second stop on the flight)  We stayed in two Singita properties and visited two more.  Really – there is nothing to say but WOW!  These properties absolutely deserve their number one hotel in the world rating by Travel and Leisure Magazine! (http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/top-25-tl500-2009) 

Let me start by saying how much I love the Sabi Sands.  I think it could arguably have the best game viewing in the world – so I would pretty much stay anywhere to be there, but to add such a fantastic lodge was icing on the cake.  We stayed at Ebony lodge, but visited Boulders lodge as well.   We were met at the airstrip and taken to the lodge by Brett, who would be our ranger for the next few days.  Check in was handled in the main lobby which is a lovely open air area with lots of big comfy furniture.  The common areas are all extremely inviting and warm.  We were welcomed and shown to our suite.

We stayed in the family suite.  This is a two bedroom suite with another two bedroom suite next door.  The two suites are connected by a dining room, but not just any dining room.  This one has glass doors for walls that can be retracted for a completely open dining area.  You can take these two suites together and have your own chef and ranger and tracker!  It would be great for a family.  These suites are amazing inside as well.  Each one is two bedrooms with 2 ½ baths.  The master is a large king size four post bed with a large dressing area and his and her closets.  All of the linens are exceptional.  The bathroom is all glass across the front overlooking the porch and private plunge pool as well as the wilderness.  We had some baboons that truly enjoyed our deck as well as watching us shower!!  The den was filled with comfortable chairs and sofas, with lots of books and journals around.  There was also a large fireplace in the center of the room.  It was extremely cozy and inviting!  The decorations were very tasteful and fit in well with the surroundings.  The en suite bar was kept stocked with drinks and snacks. 

Breakfast and lunch are served open air on a patio overlooking the river.  Dinner is served in a small cozy dining room.  One night we went to Boulders lodge for a wine tasting.  There are about a gazillion bottles of wine there and a very knowledgeable wine sommelier.  We sipped and sipped (and swallowed our wine – no buckets needed) and afterwards went back for dinner and enjoyed more wine there!

Prior to arriving, I was a little bit concerned that game drives might take a back seat to other activities since they were so well known for their food, wine and over the top luxury!  I will honestly say I worried for no reason.  There is no shortage of “game enthusiasm” here.  The game drives weren’t shortened because of wine tastings.  It was all up to each individual vehicle as well as what was found while out on game drive as to what time we returned each evening.  Our ranger Brett even gave us an astrology lesson, which was the best one I ever had.  Truthfully, the sky is so black there, that it makes the constellations stand out more.  It also helped that he had a laser pointer and could be very specific instead of a vague general pointing that you have to guess where things are!!

We spent quite a bit of time on a morning game drive with a mother leopard and her cub.  She was teaching him to balance well on small branches.  She would lead him up a tree to the lower smaller branches and then jump down to the ground.  She then turned around and tried to knock him out of the tree while he tried to stay balanced on the limb.  It wasa fantastic opportunity to see a mother teach her cub valuable lessons!! They did this over and over for quite awhile.  We ran into our old friends the Eyrefield Pride of lions.  This pride is about 14 strong plus the Rollercoaster Male.  Here at Singita they are referred to as the Sparta pride, but it is the same pride of lions.  They have a large territory that crosses several private concessions so they are known by different names in each.  It was good to see the Rollercoaster Male doing well as we saw him in December not doing so well.  There is a local coalition of 6 male lions called the Eyrefield Males that are intent on taking over this pride and we saw quite a fight between them all in December.  We weren’t sure how much longer this male would last, but here he was looking quite well!!!

Later that evening, after sundowners, we stopped for a quick moment to look at something.  With the motor turned off, we heard in the distance the barking of a zebra in distress.  We took off in pursuit of the sound!!  We quickly came upon the Eyrefield pride devouring what was one minute ago a living zebra.  It does not take very long for a pride of about 15 lions to consume a zebra!  We really enjoyed watching the action.  The male always takes the biggest share, but the females don’t always give it up without a bit of a battle over the meat!  It is impressive to watch.

We next flew from the Singita private airstrip to Kruger National Park.  We were picked up and driven to Sweni Camp.  This is the smaller of the two camps in the Singita Private Concession inside Kruger National Park.  The advantage to the private concessions is off-roading.  If you can’t drive off road, you miss an awful lot of the wildlife!  The other camp is Lebombo.  Sweni has 6 suites.  Both Sweni and Lebombo Camps are truly amazing.  Sweni has very modern architecture, but not in an intrusive way.  I would never think that modern would mix in the bush as it is so rustic, but they have taken care to make sure it all blends in well with the surroundings.   We had 2 ½ bathrooms in our room.  Singita really believes in lots of bathrooms at all of their camps!  In each suite there always seems to be at least a bathtub and a shower and an indoor/outdoor shower.  It is quite spectacular.  We had a huge bed with a very modern square mosquito net and to my complete surprise outside on the balcony was a double bed.  I immediately gravitated to that.  I found out they would be happy to make it up for me.  This bed was on the open air balcony about 100 feet over the river with just a mosquito net!  I was so excited, but also wasn’t sure I could make it through the night without getting scared or too cold and having to come inside.  After dinner, I got back to see the bed had been made up for me and in the bed was a lantern, flashlight and cordless phone. (just in case)  I actually fell asleep quickly and slept through the night only to be woken up by a very faint ring on my cordless phone for my wake up call.  This was truly one of the neatest experiences I have ever had.  I slept out there both nights and will never forget it.  It was a little chilly, but my big down comforter was plenty warm.  Mom slept inside and much to my surprise was not one bit jealous of my outdoor experience, as she was convinced a snake was going to fall out of a tree on top of me! 

Our ranger was Marlon.  He was cute as can be and one that could certainly inspire a little khaki fever!!  After quickly settling in we were off on a game drive where we were hunting lions!  The family sharing our vehicle had been with us in the Sabi Sands on safari and in Africa for about a week and hadn’t yet seen lions!  This is unheard of!  Of course they left Ebony lodge a few hours before we saw the Eyrefield pride with a kill.  After much searching and tracking, we found lions!  We found lots of lions and watched them for quite awhile that evening!  I was glad our vehicle mates did not go home without seeing lions!

The next day we were by ourselves and Marlon took us to the most fantastic overlook on the Mozambique border.  We had sundowners overlooking Kruger, with the border right at our backs!  Of course we had to put our hands over just to say we had been there.  But hopefully our full bodies will go there before too long as Mozambique is gaining ground as a safari destination.

The next day we flew back to Johannesburg and spent the night before our safari to Botswana!