Tag: monkeys

Kruger Park Accommodations: Skukuza Rest Camp

This is the final installment about Kruger Park accommodations with our last night’s camp. So here’s what it’s like staying in Skukuza Rest Camp.

We enjoyed staying in varied camps, trading smaller intimate ones for bigger camps like Skukuza.

Learn about how I booked accommodations in Kruger Park.

Skukuza Rest Camp, Night Five in Kruger Park

On our last night in Kruger Park, we stayed in the biggest camp yet, Skukuza. This camp is so big, it has car rental and conference facilities, two restaurants, and guided tours.

Its size did not make Skukuza any less lovely and our rondovel bungalow was charming.  Our accommodation included self-catering and our own grill.

Advantages of staying in Skukuza Rest Camp

Not all of the camps offer tours, so when we could sign up for one, we did. Because Skukuza is a big camp with all the amenities, we were able to take a guided walk on the afternoon of our arrival, where we saw Rhinos!

Rhino Skukuza Walk
Guided Walk – all looking at a rhino
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Kruger Park Accommodations: Punda Maria Rest Camp

Kruger Park is huge: one of the largest game parks in Africa, it covers over 19,000 sq kilometers, and it has almost 40 different accommodation options. We visited Kruger National Park for 5 days in December, and stayed in a different camp each of 5 nights. Each one was quite different from the previous, and we enjoyed all of them! Here’s where we stayed our first night in the park and what it’s like to stay in Punda Maria Rest Camp.

Getting to Kruger pArk

We made Kruger Park our first stop in South Africa, so flew to Johannesburg Airport where we rented a car for the drive to the park. You can get to the park quite quickly as it is so large. However, we planned our trip from the north to the south of Kruger, so it was supposed to be a 7 hour drive. Factoring in holiday traffic, it’s a slog. But worth it because Kruger Park is a bucket-list destination.

Booking Kruger park Accommodations

We booked our rooms in advance through the Kruger Park website. We booked in August for our Christmas stay, and some of the places were already full, but we still got good rooms for each night.  Christmas is a busy time at Kruger: a lot of South Africans spend their holidays there and plan well in advance. If you can book earlier in the year, do so.

Options range throughout the park – from north to south, you can camp out or stay in fancier places.

This is the first post about our accommodations in Kruger Park.

Punda Maria Rest Camp location

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A Kayak Tour of Ometepe

One day of rest was enough! Yesterday Lyna and I wanted to get out and see more of the wildlife of the Ometepe Islands. We biked our way to the town(?) of Mérida to meet up with the people at Caballito’s Mar Kayaks for a kayak tour of Ometepe.

Overview of the Day

It was not an easy bike ride or kayak but wow was it worth it. Perfect weather – sun and some wind, and tons of wildlife! I am not an experienced kayaker, so it took me a little while to get the hang of it. For most people, including Lyna, it isn’t hard. The bike ride was also mainly difficult because of the potholed roads and worn bicycles. This isn’t the Alps or anything folks!

Here is a partial list of what we saw: a caiman, turtles, blue herons, monkeys, ospreys, sleeping bats, egrets, ibises, tiger herons, magpie jays, and parakeets. There were more but I can’t remember them!

About the Kayak Tour of Ometepe

The kayak tour took about 3 hours and we paddled from the lake into this beautiful river where we were able to get up close with the birds and other creatures. Once we were in the river, which was very calm and fairly narrow, we went really slowly so we could watch the animals and try to get photos. I did my best! Here are the photos of what we saw on our kayaks.

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