Day 100: Travel Day — Fly Back to South Africa for More Safari

We left Royal Chundu with a traditional wooden Zambian massage stick souvenir and dreams of returning one day with friends and family.

A small jet from Livingstone flew us to Kruger National Airport, where we caught a small 12-seater out to our lodge in Timbavarti, a private game reserve adjacent to Kruger.

More Queer Eye for me to get through it.

As we descended toward the small airstrip, Teddy tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a watering hole — “Are those rhino?” he asked.

I was sure I saw a big gray rhino butt, but since they’re so endangered I thought it was wishful thinking.

Yet, lo and behold, as we drove from the airstrip to the lodge in our safari Land Rover with guides Almero and Sydney, we came upon a mama and two son rhinos! The very same Teddy saw from the air!

“Well-SPOTTED!” as they say here.

Our first rhino sighting this trip. What amazing creatures.

Our lodge is RockFig. It was a rich guy’s private family holiday home — complete with private game reserve, individual free-standing suite/rooms, huge communal areas with firepits, giant open grill, pool, etc. Like Mes Amis in St. Martin but in the bush.

Then he decided to commercialize it for a few years. That’s where people like us come in.

The chef and host are a husband/wife team, there’s a small staff and only three guides with three trackers.

It’s not ultra luxury, but it’s totally lovely and all very new, more so than the Zim spots (even though we loved those).

We settled in to our room and then headed back out for an evening game drive with guide Al — aka Big Al — and tracker Sydney.

That evening we saw a number of animals, but the most exciting for us was….a leopard! Marula is the residential female leopard who’s a new mama to two 7-month cubs in the area. We didn’t see them but did get to admire her from a very near distance.

Day 100 thoughts:

• Willa and James have come leaps and bounds. They are more mature, more polite, more chill. No other way to describe it.
• We nag less.
• They have accelerated academically.
• They love talking to grownups.
• They have adapted to just about anything we’ve thrown their way.
• Nice to take a step back and see all of the above.