Natasha arranged for her guests to visit Umkumbe Safari Lodge in the Sabi Sand. It is a great, affordable option in one of the Kruger’s best wildlife areas:
“Hi Natasha,
Thank you for being pro-active in checking in with me. I’ve been meaning to get an e-mail off to you right away and am completely overwhelmed at work and too tired when I arrive home and had to get ready for a flea market at the school over the weekend.
Yes, we had a good trip even though I knew it was going to be a lot of driving for me and glad we broke it up both directions. I was a little worried we would not find petreol but we had no problems and filled up whenever we could. The drive from Middleburg to Nelspruit to Kruger was the best drives – I had forgotten how beautiful the Jacaranda trees are in full bloom.
At the safari, one more day or night might have made a difference – hard to say where the animals might have been. We did not see all the BIG 5 (no lions or Cape Buffalo) but my goal was to see leopards and we saw 3 over the two nights – they really are awesome creatures. I just looked at all our photos over the weekend and between two cameras – 1,000 photos taken – many were deleted for one reason (blurry, duplicates) or another – my daughter took almost all the photos as I did the video. The video shows so much more and to have sound – as the elephants were trumpeting, birds chirping, etc. It was well worth the trip. The lodge was nice (not big by any means) and accommodating and we were glad few mosquitos due to no rain. We saw a lot of elephant – both at a distance and up close – great encounter with a spotted hyena and we have great photos of sunrise and sunset. The food was better than average but I’m comparing it to Nambiti and it really is a 5 star lodge. The second day we had to ask for bottled water for our sunrise safari as the day before they only offered coffee which I think they needed to expand their options to tea or hot chocolate for those who do not drink coffee – otherwise the safari and lodge were great. I’ll try to forward some photos later in the week.
Thank you for your service and regards, Betty”
