After the excitement of yesterday’s game drive, we were eagerly anticipating the rest of the trip. It felt like yesterday was when the trip really “started” and we were hungry for more. Sadly we only had one full day to spend at Kruger and would be departing for a private game reserve called Karongwe today. I didn’t know why G Adventures would do this, but once we arrived, it made more sense (more later)
We got to “sleep in” today with breakfast at seven with an aim to depart Kruger at 8. We packed our bags into the back of the Quantum and got on the road again. Before getting to Karongwe, we would be visiting a children’s school that G Adventures supports through the Planteterra Foundation. The school we would be visiting would be the Hope Africa Children’s Day School where the children would present what they’ve learned to us, and we would get some time to play with them as well. We arrived a few hours after leaving Kruger.
I want to preface this part by mentioning that I was conflicted about this portion of the itinerary. I am under no illusion that a short visit by a group of tourists is more for the tourists benefit than anything else. So I was conflicted with how to approach this portion of our trip.
Arriving in the middle of the Shalti Village where the school is located, we were greeted with a small two room building and we could hear the kids chanting from inside the classroom. As we approached the school, we could see kids at the window waving at us and as we neared one ran out and grabbed onto one of our groups legs. At this point we knew we were in for an amazing time! We were greeted with the loudest bunch of preschoolers I’ve ever seen. They recited months, numbers, seasons and sang songs to us to show us what they’ve learned. Afterwards we all got to go outside and play with all the kids. This was amazingly fun because they all wanted to play every thing with you. I ended up kicking a soccer ball around with a few, rolling a tire between myself and two others, playing on the swings and helping a few hop across a set of tires mounted in the ground.
Sadly, the headmistress called all the kids back into the classroom and as soon as we were there it was time for us to go. Kids kept going for high fives, fist bumps, thumbs ups and didn’t want to let go and a lot of us didn’t want to either, but we needed to go and we all treasured the time that we got to spend there. Again, I know this was for us, but I’d like to think that the kids also enjoyed our brief visit as well!
Back on the road again we had another few hours to drive before we arrived at Karongwe River Lodge. After arriving we all realized why G Adventures made this the last stop of our tour. We were greeted with fresh warm towels and a lychee soda drink to refresh us from our drive.
Clearly this was the grand finale accommodation. We got settled and started with a bit of lunch. I had the Smoked Salmon on Potato Rosti with balsamic Reduction to start and the Creamy basil Beef strips with Pasta for an entree. (I have a feeling we’ll be eating pretty well for the next little while)
After lunch we were scheduled to go on a game drive, so we all hopped on board our new vehicle. This would was a bit different than Clayton’s where we had someone sitting at the front of the vehicle to spot for animals, and a driver. Our spotter’s name was Raymond and our driver was Matthews.
We departed the lodge in search of more game. We still hadn’t seen a leopard to complete the big 5 and we were curious to see what this reserve had for us. We were greeted with some closer encounters with many of the ones we saw at Kruger. We ran into some Giraffes, Rhinos and crossed paths with a pack of elephants as well.
What we didn’t expect was that half way through the drive, we stopped for a “break” and Matthews and Raymond setup a mini picnic for us to enjoy mid drive. Again we know why this lodge was saved for last now.
With the sunset, Raymond broke out the spotlight and we went leopard hunting. It was pretty thrilling because there were several cars trying to “hunt” a leopard to spot it. We managed to find him but given the darkness, I’m going to apologize for the blurry pic. I included the one I thought was best. I suspect even by seeing what you can the leopard is such a beautiful animal and so distinct with its spots!
We returned back to the lodge only to be greeted with hot coco and just in time for dinner, we were treated with some amazing dishes!
We all turned in early because we had two game drives scheduled for tomorrow with one starting early at 6AM the next day! With such an animal filled evening drive we were excited to see what tomorrow had in store!
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The kids were SO cute! Haha you rolled tires…And you guys ate Impala?! You were so excited to see them live just a few days ago!
Ha Ha Things change to quickly while on Safari!