Traveling with my duffel bag of drab safari clothes and my one pair of shoes, I had my travel time out at the hotel for a night before the morning drive to Sabi Sands Private Game Park.  With my safari experiences in Botswana completed, I was ready to embark on the traditional South African Safari.  The majority of safari visitors go to Kruger National Park (2 million hectares) but I decided to go to private reserve Sabi Sands within Kruger after much research.  The Sabi Sands Private Game Park shares an unfenced border with Kruger so the animals can roam freely back and forth.  As with any safari, I learned it’s a game of chance whether you see animals or not, there are no guarantees.

My decision to stay in Sabi Sands and spend the extra money was twofold – it was a once in a lifetime visit and I wanted the freedom of off-road access. In Kruger, you will stay on the roads without deviating (similar to my Chobe Park visit in Botswana), whereas in Sabi, nothing stood in our way (ok, elephants were usually in our way “this close”, but they would ignore us and walk around the truck)

On the drive to the Sabi Sands entrance gate, we would leave the lush green agricultural landscape and drive through commercial areas, small towns, past the schoolchildren in uniforms walking along the road.  We would turn off the main paved road toward the reserve entrance.  On the unpaved dirt road, which was full of holes from the previous rains, we slowly moved side to side through the villages to avoid the holes (small ditches).  I had to laugh that the most expensive lodging had this type of “welcome” road (you can pay to fly into Sabi Sands private air strip).  Thankfully, I was wearing a sportsbra (a must for a safari by the way) and figured this was part of  the experience to prepare me for the game drives.

Arriving at the gate, the guard checked the list for my name and we entered the reserve on the one lane dirt road.  I would see animals immediately – a zebra here, an impala over there.  My lodge was 13 km from the entrance gate (about twenty minutes) but it wasn’t so bumpy and provided a different type of “game drive”.  The travel agent suggested Inyati Private Game Reserve – they had a good website, blog and TripAdvisor comments so it seemed a good choice.  The lodges (about fourteen) in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve are expensive but Inyati seemed a perfect entry level posh option for me.  I wanted to experience the South African safari in a small private setting – the safari that I imagined, the one that I see in the movies, the one that dreams are made of…

Inyati works with the surrounding lodges to share information and land access to increase the chances of animal sightings (some of the private game reserves in Sabi stay exclusive to their own lands/animals that wander on their property).  Having a greater area of discovery made for memorable drives that were different each time and felt so private – we rarely saw another vehicle except at a sighting of importance (i.e. – leopard up in a tree or a circle of life feasting) and even then it was limited to three vehicles.

As we approached Inyati, I was excited to finally experience a South African safari, still in awe that I was here, in South Africa, and that it was due to my miles/points “hobby”.