I have to start this post out by thanking Phil and Joanna, without whom we never would have been at the Little Bush Camp in the Sabi Sabi private game reserve.  This is absolutely the most luxurious, incredible place I can imagine for seeing these animals and I feel beyond lucky to have spent three nights there.  My photos definitely do not do this place justice.  It was perfect.

Our swank room!

The food was amazing (and endless) with lots of delicious choices for each meal.  I was stuffed constantly!

Dessert!

African Sunrise

Each day we had pretty much the same schedule.  We had a guide and a tracker and a very fancy safari vehicle and for all but one day there wasn’t anyone else in our group.  Our guide would wake us up at 5:30 a.m. and we’d be off looking for animals by 6.  They would have blankets and hot water bottles all ready for us and we’d be out and about to see the sun rising.  We’d drive around for 3 hours or so and see SO MANY animals.  It was unreal.  Then we would be back to the lodge at 9 for breakfast which was a buffet AND whatever you wanted cooked for you.  Like I said, we ate a lot.

Sweet game drive vehicle with Neil and tracker Creamson

After breakfast we would go for a game walk.  We didn’t really see so much on these, but it was nice to get a little exercise and our guide would tell us a lot about the habits of the animals and how they track them.  Then it was back to the lodge for lunch and some free time until the evening game drive.  My mom was brave enough to go in the very cold swimming pool.

Off-roading, looking for leopards

We would head out again around 4 p.m. and spend another 3 hours looking at whatever animals we could find.  Usually around 5:30 p.m. we’d stop for a sundowner drink and snack and watch the sunset.  Then we were off in the dark with a big spotlight and back to the lodge around 7 for dinner.  Our guide and tracker knew so much about the animals and their habits and had this crazy ability to be able to find them by their tracks, dung, compressed grass and all kinds of signs that I would have missed!  They were right on too, when they said something had gone a certain way we were sure to see it shortly after!

Creamson can find leopards by their tracks!

Stopping for a sundowner

Justin tries biltong for the first time during the sundowner

We saw so many incredible animals and got so much information about them that we wanted to break down the blog posts a little.  So this one fills you in on the place and what we were up to and we’ll have a few posts coming up about the animals.  Also have to show off the amazing photos!

Out looking for animals