The Big 5

After a short scare that the project schedule and site visits might be compromised, Roger and I were asked to book travel to Maputo Mozambique on the same day we were expected to leave. Following the administrative nightmare it was to book same day travel across the globe, we haphazardly packed our stuff and headed for Heathrow. We arrived in Maputo 24 hours later and immediately started searching for trips to Kruger National Park in South Africa.
So, Maputo doesn’t exactly foster a services oriented culture. Our hotel was supposed to be one of the best, and lets just say they were not exactly making it easy to check into the room, let alone plan any trip to a game park in a neighboring country. Several hours were spent negotiating with a friend of the front desk attendant. Frustrated with my relentless persistence, he suggested we take his car and navigate ourselves. Hmm, why not, that could be an adventure. Just then, a lady in the lobby suggested we call her friend if we were interested in going to Kruger. With extremely low expectations, I apprehensively gave him a call. 5 minutes later Loko Roger showed up, and, in short, Loko was the man. He drove us there, picked us up, escorted us through customs (which would have certainly been a disaster if we went by ourselves), and booked our first night stay. If Loko didn’t show up, our weekend in Kruger would not have been the same.

Kruger was a blast. We spent the weekend in great weather viewing all sorts of animals – namely the Big 5 (Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Water Buffalo and Rhino) of which the Lion we did not see until we were about 1 mile from the park exit.