My mind is still blown here...but we actually got to go on a safari! A real, live, African safari!! Our safari vehicles had roofs that raised up so we could stand and peek out.
As we started our safari, the sun was rising. It was absolutely breathtaking.
At first, we saw some - sorry, not sure how else to put this - less interesting animals, like deer, gazelles, and warthogs.
We saw some cattle as well.
And then, the craziest thing! We saw a lioness!! An actual LION!
She was a little ways off, so we looked through binoculars. We stayed stopped for a while because this wasn't an every day.
Although we could see her pretty well (and the little skirmish she had with a wildebeest), but for photos, I took some through the binoculars.
After the lion, we continued on our way. We could easily sit on the roof of the car as we rode along.
Another amazing thing we got to see was a jaguar, but unfortunately, I did not get any photos of him. We watched him climb up into a tree and then dart back down again. Our guide told us it was super rare to see a jaguar.
We stopped at one point to see a turtle. Yes, I know...a turtle. But how fun is that?
And then the giraffes. It was so awesome to watch them walk across the savannah.
We stopped a took a little break next to the Nile, and saw some hippos.
(I can't even tell you how badly David wants to own this vehicle.)
As we were starting to make our way back out of the reserve - I kid you not - a dung beetle made its way across the road in front of us. It was super cool. We got videos and David got out and took some super close ups of it. Here they are, just going about their lives, pushing the dung across the road.
At this point, it was a little disappointing that we didn't see any elephants, but then suddenly, there were tons of them.
I tried to get as many photos as I could as we drove along. As we were running out of time and had stopped for other animals, we didn't have as much time to stop for the elephants.
Meanwhile, the girls were loving every minute of the safari. I'm so glad we got this opportunity to do this as a family. I know I certainly never had these experiences growing up.
After some more giraffes and a monkey or two, we finished up our safari with Rebekah attracting her very own grasshopper.
Ha ha! It was like a full-on episode of Lion King: Safari Edition.
