Less than four hours away by plane, Johannisburg could qualify as a "long weekend escape" from Madagascar. But it's actually kind of a different world compared to Antananarivo, at least the super modern and slick Districts like Sandton, Houghton, Sandhurst etc.
Not all is good though, we also had a very unpleasant experience after we picked up the rental car from the Airport. At a traffic light, someone smashed the window and grabbed my cell phone. Lucky enough nobody got really injured and apart from the administrative stress, the loss of the phone and a short night, all was good.
Kruger National Park is around 5-7 hours drive from Johannisburg, depending on which entrance gate you go. We headed first to Orpen and on to Tamboti Tented Camp, basically because it was basically the only available Camp for our dates... So book as far in advance as possible!
All in all we stayed there for eight nights in three camps and usually did Safari drives during the day. At the beginning you would stop and take pictures of all animals, but after some days we would only stop and take pictures of "special" animals. It is just amazing what you can see, with a bit luck of course. But you are sure to see Zebras, Elephants, Giraffes, Hippos and many, many beautiful birds!
Be aware of the Baboons... one morning we left our breakfast unattended because of a Toilet emergency (blame on our son :-) ) and when we came back, the Baboons had eaten all of our breakfast; even the much loved Pandoro I got in Switzerland....
Even if they are not the "big five", the animals you can see at Kruger Park are just amazing, as are the endless photo opportunities.
But if you stay for several days you most likely will see the "big five" anyway. It's usually quite easy to spot them: just drive around and if there are 10-20 cars parking in a weird way its almost always something very special :-)
But there are many roads were you have the wildlife almost only for yourself - the choice is yours!
If you want to know more about Kruger Park, or if you want to go on a Photo Safari and learn how to take pictures like the ones below, just let me know :-)
