My safari to South Africa was a disaster...

katastrofa wrote:

Bear in mind you're not visiting a zoo.

Really...

You're coming there to interact with wild animals in their natural environment.

No you don't. You go on an African safari to watch animals behave in their natural environments. You don't interact with them especially there are signs and strict guidelines telling you not to.

I went to Kruger to see Rhinos in their natural environment and get good pictures of them which I did.

They don't have to follow your trip schedule, they don't owe you anything, etc.

Sorry what does this mean? It doesn't make sense!

I been on an African safari before and I know how it works. It come down to being at the right place at the right time to witness the rare sightings. However, if you were referring to a lack of lion sightings in the Southern Kruger. It was odd but was I complaining? No I wasn't. I just pointed out I was very unlucky especially I don't consider doing another safari for a long time.

Re birders: the trip organizer should make sure everyone gets an equal chance to see what they want to see.

Again, you're making things up as you go along. This trip was a traditional African safari in Kruger National Park. The travel company also does a separate bird holiday in the Kruger for those who want to focus on birds. I went on the mammal trip which said it was dedicated to mammals and to top it off I got paper work saying it's a mammal trip. To top it off even further on their website it has pictures of mammals including rhinos, lions, elephants etc.

Maybe seeing that the mammals didn't show up,

Again you're making stuff up just to be difficult! The mammals were showing up but the birders were stopping not for the mammals but birds far off in the distance.

they decided to focus on the birds.

Birders focusing on birds, who would of thought?

If I were you, I would join the birding crowd (seeing that there were no lions anyway)

If I wanted to see just birds then I would go on a birding holiday. I went on an African safari and I'm not going to be dictated by you or people who went on the wrong trip. What I done was very sensible and avoid being in the same vehicle as the birders. I didn't moan at them or moan at the safari drivers for not finding enough lions.

The other point I like to point out there was a whole chapter dedicated to an extreme birder hijacking other people African Safari in the book called Don't Run Whatever You Do. There are other pieces similar to this on the internet where people got upset because they want to experience Africa and there were a few in the group stopping for small birds all the time

and enjoy this, instead of complaining.

Before I started complaining about your post, where was I complaining?

I did this post because my African safari went terribly wrong because of the following

• I wasn't feeling well throughout the trip
• I didn't notice my main camera was only shooting JPEGs
• A lack of big cat sightings
• Birders decided to hijack a mammal safari.

The only person who was complaining was you and your behaviour was very trollish. I didn't do this thread to go poor me, I did this thread what could be my last safari went horribly wrong.

Now I don't expect you to apologise but I had to stop what I was doing sling back your criticism.