South Africa Photo Safari Recap
My wife and finally got back from South Africa Tuesday night at 11 pm after 45 hours of travel including 31 hours on six different planes. It was nice to have a son who got us Business Class on the flights from Johannesburg to Los Angeles. I had skipped doing a couple of posts for days 4-6 due to not too much extra going on (went on a fishing trip for Tiger Fish and toured our game preserve a few more times).
However, on day 5 while we were on a tour we met up with a herd of 8 elephants. There were a couple of moms plus their offspring. The fun part was one of the moms decided to “charge” our Land Cruiser and our guide was able to slap the side of the vehicle and get her to turn aside. She did get to within 10 feet of the Land Cruiser so the person of front of me was getting a little nervous.
On the last morning at breakfast (at 5:15 am), we heard a lion roar and our guide got excited. There were two older male lions that are in the park and he was pretty sure these were the pair. Off we went to find them which took over an hour, but we did it. It was great to see two large male lions up close and personal (who were not interested in eating us).
Here are few of the safari photos. I will likely add many of these over the next few weeks as the opening photo to the blog post. Now that I am home, I will be getting back to exciting tax matters since I know that is why most read the blog (not for a safari).
First photo is my wife and I feeding an elephant. My wife is in the green shirt and even though she does not look too happy in this photo, she had a great time with the three elephants. To feed them, you put the pellets into their trunk and they then put into their mouth. However, the male elephant had lost his trunk tip (due to getting plastic wrapped around it), so you actually put his food onto the curve of his trunk and he then flings it into his mouth. There is another picture of me placing the food directly onto his tongue (it was not that gross). If you click on the photos they will enlarge to normal size to give you a better perspective.
The next photo is of two impalas fighting each other during rut. These animals are like our deer. They are everywhere. During rutting season, the males have to prove to the females and other males who the dominant one is. The one on the left ended up winning (if I remember right).
The next photo is of the elephant going to the waterhole just before he “kicked” the cape buffalo out of his spot. I had recapped that on the second day blog post.
I will post a few more over the next few weeks. My wife and I agree that this was likely our best vacation ever and would highly recommend it to anyone. Our guides and accommodations were excellent and if you would like more information you can send them an email at info@africanspiritphotosafaris.co.za.
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
Your pictures were great – brought back fond memories for us – when we went on Safari in Africa it was truly the best trip we were ever on!