To South Africa! Kruger National Park

After leaving Zimbabwe, we spent a week in South Africa. This was our time for beauties of creation!

We flew to South Africa on Air Botswana on a small plane with a connection in Botswana (and thus we got an extra stamp on our passports!)

Since we got into Johannesburg late, we stayed in a small 'boutique' hotel in a residential neighborhood. At the airport, we rented a mini-van ... with the steering wheel on the right, and manual transmission from the driver's left hand! I was grateful that Mark Richardson and Dan Bell agreed to do the driving!

Driving on the left!

Hotel, view from window

Charming little table

Bird nests. The hotel owner said the male birds
make nests for approval by a prospective mate.
If she doesn't like it, he builds another, then
another... til she's satisfied!

A bird on the branch on the left of the tree

The next morning, we drove from Johannesburg to Nelspruit, where we were to meet a brother serving as a special pioneer, Francois. He had served at South Africa Bethel for 30 years, and a few years ago went out to the field. Some shots of the countryside:

After picking up Francois, we continued up to Kruger National Park where we were to spend 3 nights in a 'hut' cabin. It was wonderful.

The next morning, we did a drive around the park looking for animals. Here's what we found!

This is a termite mound - there were many of them, often
just below branches of a tree. There was an article about these
mounds. 

We drove some more, and met some friends of Francois' for an early dinner, Karl & Nicole Offermann. They are missionaries in South Africa in Zulu, and were spending a weekend at this home. While we were eating, a couple of warthogs approached, looking for a handout! They said the day prior, there was a mooching zebra who came up right to the table!

As we were driving home that evening, though we had not yet seen a lion, we rushed because had a deadline to get back into the camp before they close the gates. But we saw a gaggle of cars roadside. So we paused, and we saw a handful of young lions sauntering toward the road - exactly where we had stopped! They were just maybe five or ten feet from our car. It was such a gift from Jehovah!

And a giraffe

A peaceful sunset

What a great day!