Submitted by SafariADV on Mon, 2017-10-16
We arrived at the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, skidded customs formalities for leaving Namibia and paid the park entrance fee at Mata-Mata Gate.
We are looking forward to exploring the park, and two South Africans who are coming out of the gate tell us that they have seen lions about twenty kilometers from here.
However, before driving on the park's roads, it is necessary to deflate the car's tires, here sandy trails are present virtually everywhere; while deflating tires we constantly think about the lions, we absolutely want to see them.
Finally we leave, the road that goes into the park runs to the bottom of what looks like a valley between two dunes of sand covered with vegetation.
The first animals we see are ostriches, springboks, jackals and many oryxes, that are also the symbol of the park; among these we notice a specimen with bizarre horns, instead of being raised upward and straight like swords, they have grown laterally and with a strange curvature, they seem to have been loosened with the heat.
After about twenty miles as the two South Africa showed us, we finally see the lions, lying in the shade of a tree after eating much of their prey.
The carcass is the favorite attraction of their puppies who eat and play while the four adult specimens sleep blissfully; they will surely stay in the same position throughout the day.
After countless photo shoots we greet the cat family and continue, the park's habitat is semi-desert and at this time, we are in the dry season, water is virtually absent everywhere and animals can only drink at artificial ponds.
Along the way we meet some waterholes, sometimes directly on the main road sometimes we have to make a small deviation.
We are lucky to spot some giraffes as they drink at a puddle, a rare sight for this park.
Our path to Twee Rivieren continues and we see the ubiquitous gemsboks, ostriches, wildebeests, jackals, the numerous springboks, the cute and merry merkaats, the Kori bustards, some eagles, a beautiful bateleur and many hornbills from the long yellow beak, explaining their nickname "flying banana".
We stop in a very nice picnic area, some springboks observe us curious as we park, as soon as we get off the car we realize how hot the sun is.
In this area, the thermal excursion between day and night is remarkable, but of the cold we will think tonight, for now we enjoy the sun.
In the afternoon we see many gemboks, they are beautiful animals, their saber horns are long while the white, gray and black mantle gives them an elegant look.
We see some of them struggling, crossing the long horns kneeling on their front paws, they seem to fence; while struggling they raise a great deal of dust but they do not seem particularly aggressive.
There are many gembok puppies in the herd, they are beautiful, like all puppies, and have a completely different color from the adults, the coiled hair is in fact a light brown.
In the middle of the afternoon we arrive at the campground at the Southern entrance to the park, the gate of Twee Rivieren, or Two Rivers, takes its name from the confluence of two rivers, that at this time of the year are completely dry and are the favorite place for meerkats and mongooses.
The sun is setting and we just have to relax with an aperitif and enjoy the warm sun colors that falls behind the dunes.
