[I] didn’t know what to expect when we set out for South Africa. To be honest, I was quite nervous and very skeptical of the romantic aspect that had been advertised; this was our honeymoon after all. I’ve never been that far from home and although I had been to northern Africa and the Middle East, this was a whole new world… the animal kingdom. My most recent experience with animals had been a trip to the Natural History Museum and zoos growing up. I didn’t realize how much I was missing when I let this be my only relationship to wildlife. What I had yet to learn was that safari and ultimately Africa would change my life.

The conversation about safari started a few months before our wedding. We didn’t know where to go and on one fateful night over dinner with friends, I asked what their best trips had been. One couple answered with all their passion and excitement “SAFARI“. I wanted to do something extraordinary, I wanted to go someplace far so that when we tell our kids, they will be inspired to discover the world too. We flew into Johannesburg and connected onto what was at the time the smallest plane I had ever experienced (until this harrowing flight), landing on a tiny strip in the middle of the African bush at Londolozi Game Reserve.  I was more nervous than excited (you might be too after the three shots and two medications you have to have before arriving) until I walked into the lodge, was handed a glass of champagne and looked out at the view in awe. I couldn’t guess what the next day, our first drive into the wild, would hold, but I knew at that moment I was living in a dream…