Day 1 - Monkeys!

 I feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to travel to South Africa and Botswana with a great group of people. Ken and I arrived in Johannesburg November 1. We spent one night in the city and then boarded a small plane for 3 nights at Londolozi, an incredibly well run camp in Sabi Sands Nature Reserve bordering Kruger National Park. We had a little time once we arrived to settle in and rest before the game drive that evening so we decided to walk the grounds of the camp to get our bearings.

About a 1/4 mile from our lodge we ran into a good sized group of vervit monkeys - mostly females caring for their young. I took dozens of photos of the animals and I am so glad I did as we saw very few monkeys for the rest of our trip.

This mother seemed especially calm with her very young baby in her lap.

 I love the photo, above. It is just such a perfect portrait of mother and baby at peace with the world!

 The youngsters all seemed more curious about our presence than the adults did.

 This young fellow, right, seemed a little older than the first baby we saw and he was being very active doing things that babies do - in this case, chewing on everything in sight!

 The little one above seemed quite shy. He wanted to get a look at us but only from his mother's lap.

 This trio was taking advantage of a good sitting spot to nurse and groom all at the same time.