Here not even a full day, yet...

We woke last night to the sound of monkeys; not far off and kind of funky (apologies to Bob Seger).

Monkeys? In Philadelphia? For those of you who don't yet know, we just landed in South Africa. After a quick stopover in Johannesburg, we arrived yesterday afternoon in our new digs for the next two months in Hoedspruit, outside of Kruger National Park.

Started the day at Trenton NJ train station to head to Newark Airport and then a direct flight (14.5 hours!) to Johannesburg

The trip across the pond was long but manageable (14.5 hours but at least it was direct!). We ended the night in Johannesburg at the airport hotel bar with our first South African beer (not bad!). Ready for our hop to Hoedspruit the next day.

Premium Economy seats! Nice!

I don't want this blog post to just be a list of the animals we've seen, but not even a full 24 hours here and the list of what we have seen (and seen up close) is very impressive. Giraffes, monkeys, baboons, rhinos, warthogs, bush babies, and at least 5 different types of deer/impala/antelope sort of things (which we now know are mainly nyalas).

How did we end up here? (Those of you who already know the story, feel free to skip ahead.) Last spring, we got a message from our friends, Dalete and Dave, asking if we knew anyone interested in doing a house swap for 2 months in the fall with a friend of theirs in South Africa. Dalete and Dave's daughter, Maya, plays field hockey at Penn and one of her teammates, Elita, is from South Africa. Elita's parents wanted to come watch her play for her senior season.

Since we recently sold our business and consider ourselves "on sabbatical," we said, (to quote a great philosopher) "definitely, maybe." Then Dalete sent us pictures of the beautiful house on a private "Big Game Reserve" just outside of Kruger National Park. Once we saw those, our answer changed to "definitely, definitely!" Our next adventure was calling.

We arrived yesterday and real life did not disappoint. Elita's father, Kobus and brother, Jacobus, graciously picked us up at the Hoedspruit airport and brought us to the house (they have a farm nearby where Jacobus lives and Kobus is staying until he goes to meet Elita's mother, Maleni, who we had settled into our apartment in Philadelphia the day before we left). As we drove into their driveway, a giraffe walked right in front of our car. Further down the driveway, a babboon ran across. An auspicious start!

After settling in, Kobus and Jacobus took us, in their open safari vehicle, through the reserve -- the back way to a local restaurant -- for dinner and to watch the South African national rugby team, the Springboks, play. So yes, we "went on safari" to go to the local sports bar. We ran into four rhinos along the way...

This morning there really were monkeys and baboons in the trees around the house. It seemed like they were just playing and jumping and swinging through the trees. Some of the monkeys scampered across the roof of the guest houses just behind the main house. So we really did wake to the sound of monkeys. If this was just the first day, I can't imagine what the next 2 months will bring...