Kruger National Park

“There’s nowhere like Kruger!” affirmed the owners of our hostel, just outside the gates, and to be honest it’s hard to argue. We say this not just because of our African game reserve novice status, but because the scope of the park and the fact that you can explore it on your own are truly remarkable. Whether it’s the immaculate roads, of which they have a purported 6000kms, or the fact you can get a reasonable priced cafe breakfast whilst overlooking Sabie river. While you’re sipping your flat white, elephants sip water at the banks, all at the same price as you’d pay anywhere else in South Africa, they even offer craft beer in the park!

Rwanda & Some Gorillas

Rwanda, it conjures memories of one of the darkest chapters in recent history, when the world forgot, or worse, ignored, the absolute horror that was taking place in the heart of central Africa. While the UN condemned what was going on, in the same breath they pulled back. The maundering Interahamwe went on a 100 day reign of terror, killing an estimated 1’000’000, mainly Tutsi, but also moderate Hutu civilians. After the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front), led by current president Paul Kagame, moved in and took control in 1994, modern Rwanda has emerged from its tumultuous past as a beacon of how to pull a country back from the brink.

Uganda: Pearl Of Africa

A chimp gets stuck into some figs in Kibale National Park

Winston Churchill probably summed it up best in his book “My African Journey” when he said of Uganda “For magnificence, for variety of form and color, for profusion of brilliant life — bird, insect, reptile, beast — for vast scale — Uganda is truly “the Pearl of Africa.”

Kenya: Wildlife Paradise

A zebra stares across the plains of the Mara

Suffice to say that as the plane banked over the Nairobi national park just outside the aforementioned capital of Kenya, we had mixed feelings, well, we would have if we weren’t sleeping on account of the 0320 departure. Everything we’d heard or read replaced Nairobi with “Nairobbery” and Mombasa with “Mug-basa” and made it seem like a formality we’d be robbed in broad daylight by a glue sniffing youngster. Couple the recent terror attacks and the fact we’d already had to fly to avoid the border tensions so we were unsure what to expect.