With this post, I am probably leaving the chronological order. There are two reasons: First, I wanted to get these Safari pictures out. Second, I realized that we didn't take a lot of pictures between Cape Town and Pretoria and none of them are as interesting as African wild life :)
So we went to Pilanesberg National Park, which is about 160 km north-west of Pretoria. It is designed for self-guided tours (which we did) but also offers guided tours with Jeeps (in case you don't want to to take your car through the washed out roads).
We were equipped with a four wheel drive Toyota, which had to go through quite some adventurous roads with us. However, at least for us it was totally worth it!
For one, we saw lots of colourful birds...
... turtles ...
... and various types of deer.
If you looked carefully, you were able to spot many lizards (for those who like them ^^).
Finally, some springboks, the mascots of the South African rugby team.
We also saw many Zebras all around the park. This one was especially brave since it took on with a bunch of gnus and won the claim for the salt. The gnus had to wait for the Zebra to finish...
Two elephants from the distance. We couldn't get closer to them but I think this was the safer distance anyway.
For some reason, Zebras and Giraffes like to stick together. Maybe it is because they do not have to fight each other for food...
Zebras themselves are quite social so they support each other in holding their big heads.
While we only saw elephants from the far distance, we got really close to two rhinos on the way to the exit. They are fascinating and scary at the same time, huge and calm but there is this weird feeling that once they start running after you things will get messy...
Note: I started writing this article many months ago and never managed to get back to it. I might not have a chance to write again about South Africa, there are currently other things that need a lot of attention and interesting stuff will be coming up. However, I still love to think about the great time I had down there...
