A particle physicist around the world - a photo safari in the Kruger Park (South Africa)

As a physicist, I have the chance to travel the world and visit many places. From December 2nd to 10th, I was hence visiting South Africa, which was actually my first visit to the African continent.

I landed in Johannesburg where I spent two days during which I visited colleagues to discuss physics (work first, but work is fun).

But I also took some time to visit the museum of the origins (South Africa is the place where human beings are originating from) on the Wits campus. The museum is really great, and they have an impressive collection. To know more about what one can find in there, I refer to @gavvet blog where several posts detail things that lie in the museum.

And thanks to Steemit, I also spent one evening with @jacor and @naomi.louise (see here). The social aspects of Steemit have also a value: one can meet people from all over the world very easily, have a nice dinner and a few drinks (or vice versa). And we can exchange about our respective interests and learn about other cultures, or others in general.

To rephrase @jacor, try to do the same with facebook… Good luck with this!

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THE KRUGER PARK

The main purpose of my visit in South Africa was attending one of the key conference in particle physics that occur every two years in the Kruger Park. And this for 8 years.

On top of the conference, I took the time to visit the Park as the best moment to see the animals is either early in the morning (before the conference sessions start and when the animals are getting some food) or in the evening (after the conference sessions and when the animals leave the shade).

The Kruger Park is one of the largest reserve in Africa. It has been founded at the end of the 19th century by Paul Kruger (the president of South Africa at that time) in order to protect the animals (and the plants) from the hunters that were destroying, for the fun, the entire ecosystem.

One can find there about 150 mammal species including** lions, leopards, elephants, hippos and rhinos**, as well as more than 500 types of birds, and a large number of fishes and amphibians.

The park offers moreover a lot of very nice roads that allow one to either book a tour with the rangers or rent a car and have a tour by oneself. I did both :)

I got many animals with my camera, but only 4 out of the big five. No lions… I will have to come back then! I share a few shots below. Please have fun!

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First: four of my big five

A leopard, a rhinoceros, one of a bunch of buffalos and a lonely male elephant. We also saw a troop of elephants, but the single male was more impressive (which is why I show this picture). For all the four pictures below, I avoided to get too close and used a very good zoom.

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Second: antilopes (kudus and impalas) and zebras

Those are just so beautiful. Quickly, impalas become part of the background noise. I have seen more than a thousands of them. They are everywhere, even in our plates. I tried. Very interesting food, as kudu is too. We had those cooked on the barbecue everyday.

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Then: wild dogs and hyenas

We observed a bunch of young wild dogs hunting an antilope, and this was really nice to see. Apparently, these animals are difficult to catch. Hyenas were also funny, trying to eat the tires of the car…

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Of course: girafes

I really like girafes. They are beautiful animals. And impressive. I took many shots of them, but only hare one here:

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SOURCES

• All pictures are the result of my own inexperience matched to my amateur camera. I hope you liked them.
• The information on the Kruger Park is extracted from my guide, but the same can be found on the corresponding wikipedia page.