Looking forward to sharing this magical place…Four days and counting…

Most likely, Mom, Dad, and youngster were heading down the dirt road.

“Sighting of the Day in the Bush”

According to our friend Uschi, when we walk through the bush to get close to the fence between Marloth and Kruger Parks, we often encounter these spiky bushes, which is buffalo thorn. I got scratched by one of these a while ago, and it itched for days. Some plants can cause life-threatening responses if scratched.

The concept of sharing this magical place with friends is indescribably exciting. Isn’t that always the case when you love something special and want to share it with special people?

On our “daily drive,” we spotted these giraffes on their “daily walk.”

People all over the world see our photos and read our stories. But, nothing is more impactful than seeing this magical place in person. To be face to face with this abundance of wildlife is an animal-lovers dream come true.

Giraffes don’t stay in one location long. They continually are on the move to the next best feeding spot.

For those with little interest in wildlife, this surely would be one long boring time away. There are no beaches, no nightclubs, no fancy restaurants, and lush botanical gardens to visit. There isn’t a movie theatre within a reasonable enough distance to make it a worthwhile evening event.

Noise, including loud talking and music, must be kept to a minimum at all times. There are no fast-food restaurants in Marloth Park, but a few, including Wimpy’s and KFC in Komatipoort, are less than a half-hour away.

The Crocodile River was aptly named with many crocs in residence.

Typical tourist-type shopping is limited to commonly seen Africa trinkets. Although there’s a big mall in Nelspruit (90-minute drive), its products are limited to those that appeal to locals with few easily identifiable brand name shops tourists tend to like to visit.

Mom (on the right), Dad, and chicks. How they’ve grown!

For those not interested in wildlife, this is hardly the best place to visit. On top of it all, if you’re terrified of insects, snakes, and rodents, this would be the last place you’d want to visit. At times, we’ve encountered folks who are terrified of birds. The bush is a bird-lovers paradise but hardly suitable for those who take cover when a bird flies in their range of vision.

But, for those who’ve spent a lifetime revels in the wonders of the wildlife kingdom, nowhere in the world can match visiting areas of Africa, especially Marloth Park, which provides an up-close-and-personal experience like none other anywhere else in the world.

We were excited to see this massive “obstinacy” of cape buffalos.

When we originally booked our first house in 2012 with Louise in Marloth Park for our three-month visit in 2013/2014, I’d scoured the world searching for a place where animals roam free around a long-term rental property.

Sure, there are resorts inside many national parks, animals reserves, and conservancies. But nothing we found could accommodate our desire to stay three months and be reasonably self-sufficient.

There must have been over 100 of the massive beasts lounging in one big pile!

Also, we preferred to be in an environment where we’d have an opportunity to make friends further and enhance our experience. Staying in a resort is an improbable scenario for making new friends, although it may happen occasionally.

Most tourists on holiday tend to stay close to their friends and family members, not mingling much with others. We’ve seen this over and over again in our past six years of world travel.

We tried to do a video and zoom in, but the wind was blowing so hard, I couldn’t hold the camera still.

Without a doubt, Marloth Park has provided us with the most social interaction we’ve had anywhere in the world. Princeville, Kauai, Hawaii was a close second. We’re looking forward to introducing our visitors to some of the friends we’ve made here, let alone the animal friends we’ve also made along the way.

We have been busy setting up activities and planning for our friends the first week they are here. This way, they’ll have a sample of exciting and enticing “things to do” while here. From there, they can decide what appeals to them the most and include us or go on their own, whichever they prefer.

This is an example of the bush we often walk through to get to the fence between Marloth Park and Kruger National Park.

We have a lovely weekend ahead, including Friday night on the veranda, Saturday night out with friends, and Sunday afternoon was stopping by for sundowners (happy hour) with more friends.

We’ll wrap up a bit of shopping on Monday and Tuesday morning. Tom and Lois will arrive well before noon. Fun…

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Photo from one year ago today, October 5, 2017:

Generally, pools have a system to avoid overflow due to heavy rains, which appeared to be the case of the pool in the villa in Atenas, Costa Rica. It had been raining non-stop for days! For more details, please click here.

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