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Up close and very personal with giraffes at South Africa's Kruger National Park
January 31, 2005
Hello and a warm welcome to Traveller’s Tales. I’m Yvonne Gomez.
The Yap family from Singapore recently returned from a safari at South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
Entering at the park at Mpumalanga province, the Yaps stayed at Letaba camp on their first night at the Park.
During the trip, they encountered leopards out on a hunt, hyena’s feasting on a zebra’s carcass and even rare, wild dogs.
Zhu Li and Yien Li Yap traveled through the Park for 4 days with their family.
Yien Li started by telling me about how some animals literally crossed their paths.
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| Zebra crossing |
YL: We had a running joke in the family, because on the first day, we saw wild dogs crossing, and we saw a lion crossing on the second day, and elephants crossing. Dad went crazy and said he wanted to see a zebra crossing. So he got out the camera when a zebra crossed the road and we were all like “Woo hoo, there’s a zebra crossing!”
ZL: There was also a car pile-up because of a very angry…well, not “angry”…
YL: Aggressive…
ZL: Yeah, an aggressive elephant, which started walking on the main tar road for all the vehicles.
YL: It left its “presence” all along the road. It was the size of two jeeps!
ZL: And African elephants aren’t like Asian elephants, because they can’t be tamed and can only be used for riding. So you could see about five cars reversing at top speed!
Any other dangerous encounters while you were on the safari?
YL: Our guide always said that you have to watch out if you’re in the middle of a herd of elephants. They’re going to protect their young at all cost. So when we we’re watching a herd of elephants, we have to make sure that none of them came around the car, because if they surrounded us, we’d be goners.
Were you allowed to wander around the grounds of the national park?
YL: No way.
So you were all always sitting in the car then?
YL: Yeah, unless of course you take a bush walk, which is guided. I think they take you out in car first and you don’t wander that far off the road.
You did see some giraffes I understand?
ZL: Yes, they’re very graceful animals, and they have the longest eyelashes.
Their necks are so long, so how did you actually see these eyelashes?
ZL: One bent down near us and started drinking water.
YL: Yeah, it was really weird because our tour guide said that that doesn’t usually happen because they don’t like it when there are other animals around because when they bend down, they’re in a really, how do you say…?
Vulnerable?
YL: Yeah, vulnerable position, and so it spent like three minutes looking around to see if anything or anybody was around. It sort of looked at us…
ZL: Yien Li sort of looks like a giraffe…
YL: I do not – my neck is not that long!
Zhu Li, you have an interesting story to tell about a particular giraffe I believe?
ZL: Actually, this giraffe actually came up right next to the car and started looking around. I suppose we were too short for it to see us in the car, and then it started urinating!
Right in front of the car?
ZL: Yes, just next to it. So I thought, let’s not look. So I turned away, and looked back maybe 3 minutes later and it still peeing! I just thought it took so long and was wondering how big its bladder was!
So just to wrap up, how many days did this safari take?
ZL: We were there for 4 days…
YL: …and we saw less than a quarter of the park, really.
ZL: I would definitely go back again if I had the chance.
YL: Yes. That was the best trip our guide ever had, so that’s really saying something.
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