South African Safari 2013: Driving on the Wrong Side

Well, today was another day of adventure; driving to Kruger National Park.

We got up this morning, packed our bags and were out the door at 9:00am. We're heading for the Budget Car rental center in Pretoria. Alex was kind enough to drop us off on her way to class at the University of Pretoria.

Ok. We're there. We got the car. It's a manual... Ok, not a problem, we both know how to drive a stick... but on the other side? Hey... it's an adventure.

We got things together and made it out of Pretoria and headed out to Kruger. The drive is estimated at 3 hours. We think we'll make it in 4. Nice and lazy... getting used to driving on the wrong side.

On the way we saw many orange groves. It is harvest time...harvest workers with large baskets filled with oranges...half the trees just verdant green, the next row over, trees ladened with with bright orange fruit. Then farther down the road, we see fruit stands with bags of oranges for sale.

The closer we got to our destination, we started seeing fields of what we guessed to be sugar cane. It reminded Sarah of the handbell cruise she and her daughters took to Jamaica many years ago. Then we see a sugar processing plant, we knew we guessed correctly. The name of the plant was Selati Sugar. We laugh as the name of the leopard at Glen Afric is Selati...Vicki kept saying what a sweetheart she is!

After 3 and 1/2 hours, we made it. We're staying at the Pestana Kruger Lodge. It's absolutely wonderful, amazing and all of the other words than can describe such a great place. Check out the hotel's website for better pictures on the itinerary posting that we previously posted.

Tomorrow we'll see the big five... lion, water buffalo, elephant, leopard, rhino.