A once-in-a-lifetime experience I’ll brag about forever

🐆 Before I went to South Africa, a safari had always been on my bucket list. I’d always wanted to see animals roaming freely in the wild. Coincidentally, a friend of mine is South African, and he invited us to visit South Africa – so a national park trip was definitely on our itinerary. 🔅 We went to Pilanesberg National Park. As South Africa’s fourth-largest national park, it’s much more convenient than Kruger. It’s about a 3-hour drive from Johannesburg, and we stayed inside the park at Bakubung Bush Lodge – a place my friend used to visit with his family for vacations when he was a kid. 💙 Highly recommend this lodge! It offers safari tours and hot air balloon tours on its own. The dining area is right in the national park, surrounded by wire fences – often, we’d be eating and suddenly see elephants or giraffes strolling by slowly 🦒. The lodge has its own spa, which is affordable and has a fantastic setting. There are also evening barbecues and unique local performances ~ 🐘 We stayed for four days – two days on lodge-organized tours, and two days self-driving in the park. Overall, I’d definitely recommend self-driving. The tour vehicles are big and noisy, so some animals won’t get close easily. But with self-driving, you can explore freely, and we pretty much saw all the animals. Besides elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, antelopes, etc., we even witnessed the rare sight of hyenas and leopards hunting antelopes 🦌. If you go to the park, try different times of day – dusk and dawn often let you see more animals ~ 🦁 The most thrilling moment was one dusk. We were about to drive out of the park when we came face-to-face with a lion family. First, two lionesses with three cubs – we instantly turned off the engine and froze. The two lionesses walked over to our car and looked into the windows. When our eyes met, I truly felt awe for nature. That wild, predatory gaze instantly shattered any idea of being at the top of the food chain. We stayed like that for about 5 minutes; night had fully fallen, and from the darkness emerged a male lion. His majesty made me completely understand why they’re called the kings of the jungle 👑. We wanted to take photos with our phones but didn’t dare make any big moves. There was no light around except our car’s headlights. The male lion walked around our car twice, almost putting a paw on the door, then finally strolled past us, leading his family away. It’s really a memory I’ll keep for life. Some tips: Bring binoculars. A lot of the time, you can’t get close to hunting scenes, and binoculars let you see the whole process clearly 🔭. When self-driving, you can roll down the windows but keep the doors locked. There have been news stories of lions opening car doors before! If a predator gets close, roll up the windows quickly and turn off the engine. If you see several cars stopped in the park, don’t ask – stop too, and look around. There’s definitely something exciting to watch! #Travel #WildestOutdoorPhotos #Nature #SouthAfrica #SouthAfricaTravel #Safari #MagicalMomentsWithWildlife