Another early rise as always in Africa. Up at 5:00am, another splendid meal provided and off to the Johannesburg airport for our flight to Durban. I called Dr. Hym Ebedes (Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute), hoping to meet up with him, but not sure how. He recommended that when we fly back from the Natal Parks we leave from the small Richards Bay airport instead of spending half a day driving back to Durban. That way we'll have another half day in Johannesburg to visit with him. We were able to get the tickets changed for everyone and this will work well. I called Ian and he's agreed to give the group a behind the scenes tour of the Pretoria Zoo that day. I've left a couple of messages for Luke (Dr. Luke Hunter, Carnivore Research Institute). He's just moved to Durban to do his postdoc work and is in transition so it may be tough to hook up.
We arrived in Durban and Jeremy (Jeremy Williamson, Far & Wild Safaris) picked us up. We had a quick run through the city of Durban and the waterfront and then headed north to the Natal Parks. The Indian Ocean here is beautiful, similar to our waters in Florida. We stopped at St. Lucia first for a boat ride on the lake. We spotted a large group of hippo and drifted right next to them for quite a while, in addition to salt water crocodile. Then on to Umfolozi/Hluhluwe Game Reserve to our private bush camp, Nselweni. Upon arriving at the camp, we were greeted with our cook and game ranger, a very happy pair eager to please us. We are staying in four thatched huts on stilts, each with two beds. There is one communal "loo" and shower, kitchen, and open dining area with a deck viewing out over the Black Umfolozi River. There is no power at this camp, we must carry torches (flashlights), and the buildings have kerosene lamps. We got settled in, had an excellent dinner, and spent our first evening in the bush gathered around the campfire. Staring into the red embers glowing was mesmerizing. It blinded my eyesight beyond the fire ring and I would spook myself, imagining wait lurked behind our backs in the black night. Jeremy told us the story of a fantastic photograph a fellow took around a similar scene in Africa. Just beyond the unknowing people, faintly illuminated by the distant firelight, the camera picked up a lioness on the fringes, just waiting and watching them. Of course, as usual, the rains and thunder moved in and we even got rained on while chatting around the fire. But I think we were all so "chuffed" at being in Africa that we didn't mind getting wet. It was the idea that lions were around that was quite unnerving. When we finally retired, I slept unsoundly, kept up not only by very close and impressive thunder claps, but very close and impressive lions' roars. Our huts have two open windows each and dutch doors, which we also left open (it's warm and there's no sense in closing the door when the windows don't have glass in them). A leopard could easily waltz right in, but I suppose he would have no reason to. And the huts are on stilts about 10-15 feet up, with a steep flight of stairs, so that's probably also a deterrent. Although we were concerned about monkeys rifling through our things while we are out, so must be sure to put everything away each day.