Two or more of an animal will constitute: a pride of lions… a parade of elephants… a crash of rhinoceros… a journey of giraffe… a dazzle of zebra… a venue of vultures… a bloat of hippopotamus… a troop of baboon… a business of mongoose… a clan of hyena… an implausibility of wildebeest… and so on. The language of safari is nearly as wondrous, surprising, and extraordinary as the actual experience. We were fortunate enough to see all of the above, and more.
Ngala was the first African safari for either of us. We spent five awe-filled days and nights there. Even the most common animals elicited a wildly enthusiastic response from us; we were wide-eyed and giddy as kids: “That’s a giraffe, right there, no fences, eating leaves off that tree!” “Impala! Running across the road, right in front of our jeep!” “Look at all those zebra!” “Elephant! Baby elephant!”
After a couple days, we learned to contain ourselves and save the unbridled, overly abundant exclamations for the more rare sightings… but honestly, the thrill of seeing any of these animals in the wild will never wear off. We have fallen in love with the African bush.
Ngala is a private game reserve that shares a border with the famous Kruger National Park, and the animals roam freely (there are fences along roads to deter them from danger, but they are not enclosed). Our days followed a consistent pattern, bookended with an early morning game drive (5:30 to 9:30) and an afternoon/evening game drive (3:30 to 8:00), with a rest in the middle – basically, we adapted our day to mimic that of the safari wildlife. Being on a private reserve afforded us a couple advantages: we rode in an open-topped jeep and our Ranger could drive off-road for closer viewing of any of the big 5 or if there was a kill. It wasn’t until we were actually on the game drives that we fully appreciated the benefits to these advantages.
We were paired with the same Ranger and Tracker team (Ross and Tom) for the duration of our time at Ngala, and we credit them in large part with the amazing experience we had. Ross expertly narrated the animal scenes in front of us, his observations providing the very best “voice-over” and brought insight, understanding and frequent doses of humor to the wildlife we were seeing. Watching an experienced tracker, like Tom, in action is impressive – interpreting the barest traces of animals, telling the story of their recent movements, and ultimately leading us directly to them. Even on the drives where we didn’t find the animals, we thoroughly enjoyed watching the art and science of tracking transpire.
Continue on to part 2 to see some of our favorite encounters with Ngala wildlife…
A Forever of Nows 
As always, a great post! All along your adventures, it seems you all have met some wonderful, kind and engaging people! Reinforcing there are so very many good people in our world.
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We also spent 5 wondrous days at Ngala. In fact, your parents made me homesick for the beauty of the reserve and the kindness of Mamma Connie and the others. Take a look at my posts on Ngala if you are interested. It’s Travels with Paul at lesleydklenk.wordpress.com . Thanks for the lovely read.
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Sorry. The madness of auto correct. Your posts not your parents!
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