Kgalagadi: All Girls Safari, Best of Part II

OK, here is the second part of my best-of-the-All-Girls-Kgalagadi-Safari pictures!

My first decent picture of a Cape Fox (these guys are nocturnal):

Doves sunning:

African Wild Cats, nocturnal and it is VERY rare to see them during the day: 

More adorable meerkats:

Momma lion and cub:

A warthog (extremely rare to see in the Kgalagadi as they like water, which is not abundant here):

A bat eared fox (another hard-to-photograph, nocturnal animal):

Rocks:

No, I'm kidding, they're lions!  Can you tell now?:

A ruffled up Marshall Eagle trying to escape the heat of the day:

Momma and Poppa ostrich and their clumsy, adorable brood:

A springbok eating the vines of a tsamma melon:

A very odd little springbok: 

He's odd simply because it wasn't the time of year for springboks to have their babies.  In Afrikaans, there is a great term for this, laatlammetjie (prounced LAHT-LAMEEKEE) which can apply to animals & humans.  As in, I, Lorena, eight years from my next sibling, am a laatlammetjie.  Anyhoo.

We saw 25 giraffes on one day!  That's almost half the population of the whole park:

A true, black-maned Kgalagadi lion.  He was gorgeous:

But he and his friends were very lazy & sleepy:

Another gorgeous secretary bird:

A pygmy falcon:

Tree & its shadow:

Psych!  It's a frigging leopard under there!!!!  Behold, the powers of Photoshop:

My first leopard!  At that moment, I SO, SO wished Aaron could have come with us.  He's been wanting to see a leopard since we got to SA.  Ah well ... next time.  Cuz, yeah, there's gonna be a next time ... Soon!

Kgalagadi: Sunsets

It is a magical place, this Kgalagadi.  And as such, you'd expect nothing but the most spectacular sunsets on earth.  All gold and fairy dust and Turner-painting light. 

I can't decide which of the following is my favorite -- they are each subtly different -- and all look like the angels are about to burst out singing Hallelujah.  (Or, even better, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," Aretha-style.)  I even like the one taken while the car was moving and all swooshed.  Looks like a painting I wish I had the skills to paint:

Taken at almost the same time as the ones above, just on the other side of the horizon:

Talk about Turner:

And these were taken at the farm where we stayed on our back from the Kgalagadi.  Some of my favorite pics I've ever taken:

7 Years Together

Kgalagadi: A Morning with Cheetahs

I was gonna cut these pictures down to like, top 2 or 3.  Really, I tried.  But, you know what?  F that.  I spent a whole morning with 4 cheetahs.  Momma and her 3 big, beautiful cubs.  I watched them play in trees, drink at the waterhole, chase each other around on the red dunes.  I've cut it down to my favorite pics and I wanna share them all with you.  I hope, wherever you are in the world, that you can be transported for a few minutes and imagine yourself with these incredible animals.  Stunning one minute, adorably cute the next minute.  Add some golden light, a cup of coffee in your hands.  Enjoy my friends.