Kruger National Park!

When we arrived at Krugar National Park, we were excited to learn that we would be staying in tradional, grass roofed huts. We cooked our meals together outside, and the biggest problem with that was that the monkeys would come and steal our food if we didn't watch it. South Africa's racoon.
When people think of South Africa, they think of long grass, rolling hills, and of course the elephants, giraffes, zebras, and lions. This is the perfect description of Krugar National Park. Our site got split up into two groups, and each group went on two 3-hour safaris, one at 5 a.m. and one at 5 p.m.. My group went on the evening safari first. We mostly just saw owls, but near the end, we were lucky enough to see a pride of 5 lions, which was amazing, considering they sometimes go weeks without seeing on lion. Seeing a pride was a real gift.
For our morning safari, we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to the truck. We got to watch an amazing sunrise. We saw water buffalo, wildebeests, rhinos, vultures, warthogs, giraffes, zebras, and other African animals. The most exciting site by far though, was the elephants. At first we only saw five, far away in the trees. But as we started to drive away, a huge herd of them appeared close to our truck. There was about 20 of them, ranging from newborn babies to fully grown elephants. For most people, it was our first elephant siting, which completed the big 5.
Seeing all these animals was a huge privilege for me, and I'll never forget it.
- Emily Loeppky