Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Sabi Sabi


(PICTURE: The front gate of Sabi Sabi)

First off, a HUGE thank you goes out to Devin. Devin treated myself, Chris and Dave to an absolutely amazing four days at Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve. If going on a safari is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I'll never have any doubts that we did it right when we did it. Sabi Sabi was by far the nicest "hotel" I've ever stayed in. From the accommodations to the food to the staff, I've got zero complaints (minus literally gaining six pounds or so).

To get to Sabi Sabi, we took the smallest plane I've ever been on.

(PICTURE: Right after landing on the Sabi Sabi airstrip.)

We were greeted at the airport by our guide, Crimson:

(PICTURE: Crimson...whose name I'm gonna spell wrong but it was pronounced like the color.)

Crimson was basically the fifth amigo for the next four days. He led all of our game drives, ate dinner with us every night and told us everything we needed to know about the animals and the local environment. Crimson couldn't have been a better guide and we could definitely tell he enjoyed having four dudes to drive around for a couple of days rather than his normal guests.

Crimson's side-kick was Million, our tracker:


(PICTURE: Million preparing some hot chocolate in the morning. During the game drives he would sit in that chair in front of the Land Rover.)

After being picked up, we drove about three minutes before we saw our first animal. Immediately I took out my brand new Canon SLR (the same one I had stolen from ninjas when I first moved to Hanoi) and started to shoot away. This was the first picture I took...the first of over 1,600!!!!