Although we had already seen the Big Five, days 3 and 4 of our African safari were not short on excitement. Our third day started with a cheetah sighting, which is a quite rare occurrence in the area. I swear he was modeling for us. These are some of my favorite pictures…
Lunch time
During every game drive, we stop for a break with snacks and drinks… Amarula in our coffee at 7am!
Our guide was also a great photographer!
After our morning drive, we headed back to our lodge for the mid-day break. First we stopped at the restaurant for brunch. The cutest little monkey was entertaining us while playing in the trees… little did we know that he was manipulating us. So the little monkey would play right by us to get our attention, meanwhile his mom was behind us on our table stealing our lunch. Well it worked… check out mommy monkey with our bread.
Then we headed back to our room to relax. We had several visitors that afternoon. The same elephant as the day before came by while we were laying in bed… Later on a family of warthogs passed by while we were outside. Watching the animals stroll by in the afternoon was the best.
Our afternoon game drive was filled with more sighting, starting off with the beautiful leopard from the day before. He is so used to the cars that he walks right up to them. Our guide even got a great video on our phone of him walking past us.
Look at how well the leopards blend in…
Our game drive continued with several sightings. We saw a rhino, some hippos, baboons, and so much more.
Our evening game drive ended with the most beautiful sunset. There is nothing like a sunset while on safari in South Africa.
We got back to room to the best surprise from our lodge… a bubble bath, a bottle of champagne, plush robes and even a gift from them. They left us luggage tags and a photo of us from our adventure. It was the perfect last night at the lodge.
We had to leave the lodge by 9 am the following morning to make it to our flight. The staff at Leopard Hills was so amazing that they agreed to send a second car out to find us mid-safari so that we wouldn’t have to miss the drive completely. We are so glad that we didn’t miss the game drive.
At 8am another car found us mid-safari to take us back to the lodge to change and grab our bags. We were able to really enjoy the drive, since it had begun at 5:45am. The kitchen staff was the best. They had even packed us breakfast to go so that we could eat on the way to the airport.
A cheetah at the airport when we arrived
And just like that our safari was over. We can’t wait to go back!
If you never saw the first 2 posts about our safari… check them out: Big Five and Safari Part 1.