As a retirement gift from my family, I traveled to South Africa and Namibia Feb. 12-28, 2023. One of highlights of the trip was visiting Kruger National Park with my son Dominic, who lives in Johannesburg and works as an epidemiologist battling malaria for Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI).

During our visit to Kruger (about a four-hour drive from Joberg), we spent three nights at the Nkambeni Safari Camp, located near the Numbi Gate to Kruger. The camp offered great service, with comfortable rooms, lounge and excellent dining. It even has a swimming pool overlooking a small watering hole that is home to a family of hippos.

The highlight of our trip was experiencing three game drives (safaris) in open-sided 4X4 game viewing vehicles. We participated in a morning and afternoon drive our first full day, plus an afternoon drive the following day. While we were able to view a variety of wildlife and experience a close encounter with a “raging bull” elephant, Kruger was in the middle of an unusual torrential rainstorm, which flooded out many of the dirt roads around the national park.

Our trip to Kruger ended with a visit to God’s Window, a scenic park with views of high cliffs and waterfalls. However, the heavy fog in the high mountains prohibited our viewing of the lush scenery from God’s Window. We also visited two waterfalls known as Berlyn and Lisbon.

Below is a slideshow of photos taken during our game drive (as well as a few from God’s Window and the waterfalls) and a video illustrating a close encounter with an elephant.