Happy Belated New Year! (Plus some vacation photos)

Posted on by GymBagMakeup

I hope your holidays were spectacular and filled with everything that brings you joy! 

The Boy and I spent our holidays in South Africa and just got back to the US three days ago and man did we hit the ground running! The day after we got back we closed on the house and then spent the next two days moving (again). I did want to check in quickly though because I missed you! As soon as I find all of my makeup again we’ll be back to the normal cosmetic fare (I’m looking forward to doing a favorites for 2015 post and a post about what makeup I took to Africa). In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from our trip (I’ll do a mega photo post in the near future). 

We were able to spend two days driving through Kruger National Park which was spectacular. All of the animals had just recently had babies which meant that there were baby EVERYTHING, it was so cool! We were also really fortunate because we saw everything with the exception of Leopard, Cheetah and Eland. Right now I’m just going to share a few photos but let me know if you’re interested in video and I’ll do some editing and share that as well. 

 

A Waterbuck doe
  
By far the most prevalent buck we saw were the Impala. or the Bushbuck. It’s hard to tell which one is which really.
    
  
a male Waterbuck.
  
These adorable little Duiker were in one of the rest stop areas and were completely unbothered by people.
  
Somewhere in this photo there is a hippo. It’s like where’s Waldo only better!
  
Who is coming to the park and burying human ashes there?! There are only about five places in the park where you are allowed to exit your car, this is the only one we came across that wasn’t on a bridge and apparently they have a burial problem here.
  
We saw several Giraffe but I didn’t manage to get very many good photos of them.
  
Guinea Fowl are EVERYWHERE but I love them.
    

img_1021

Ok I can’t tell if these little guys are Bushpigs or Warthogs. BUT, these were my favorites. The warthogs are full of sass (actually they are super ferocious and will totally kill you if given the opportunity. one of my friends was attacked by them and it was pretty gnarly) and I just love them. Those little babies kept threatening to attack us too. So cute!
  
    
  
here are some hippos that are actually visible.
  
  
I got a LOT of photos of animal butts. But the baby elephants were too precious. I ended up with more videos than photos of elephants.
  
More elephants. We saw a couple hundred of them which was amazing and completely heartening.
  
Thevultures were actually very beautiful and the park is tracking them all at the moment because their numbers are dropping and they’re not sure why.
  
This was the view from the restaurant where we ate lunch. Iconic South Africa with the water buffalo and the elephant crossing the river.
  
Kudu buck. These guys are absolutely enormous.

I hope you enjoyed the wildlife photos!

How were your holidays? Did you get everything you hoped for for Christmas? Did you make any new year resolutions? 

Tidbits:

  • Yesterday was my first day back at work and it wasn’t as terrible as I had feared it would be. 
  • I forgot that it is winter here and wore flip flops and capris yesterday. I wanted to change as soon as I walked outside but then I realized that I have no idea where my long pants and shoes were. 
  • I’m feeling the need to catch up on some cosmetics shopping! I’m going through withdrawls! So what new and wonderful things were released this last month? Enable me!
  • I’m going for a new haircut this weekend and I’m torn between a pixie and a bob.  

8 thoughts on “Happy Belated New Year! (Plus some vacation photos)”

  1. Firstly, Happy New Year!
    Secondly, Welcome back!
    Thirdly, glad the move went well! Good luck unpacking and finding your winter clothes lol.
    Fourthly, OH MY GAWD! All the pictures!!!
    Oh I could TOTALLY see some earth spirit granola cruncher who wants their ashes to be one with the animals and Mother Earth. For sure. Very entitled.
    Warthogs are nasty but those babies are kinda cute in a don’t kill me kind of way…
    Hippos are deadly too. I remember my coworker who is South African telling me about all the deaths via Hippos – they’re really territorial and people underestimate how fast they are.
    I loooove baby elephants. Have you ever seen that episode of Planet Earth about their migration? That scene with the baby elephant losing its mom and getting lost made me so sad…
    Side note: Our family car was the GM Impala, I will always remember that green nightmare.
    Get a Lob! Like this:
    http://www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/hair/advice/g3621/top-celebrity-bobs-and-lobs/?slide=10

    Reply

    1. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 🙂
      Earth spirit granola cruncher is my new favorite thing. Im stealing that term 🙂
      Apparently hippos are responsible for more human deaths than any other animal in Africa (except for mosquitos who carry the highest death count due to malaria). They ARE really territorial and I would imagine that it is sometimes difficult to know where they are in the water. It’s crazy because they look so cute and a little slow but it’s a complete trick.
      Baby elephants are just about the best things in the world. I don’t remember that episode, it’s possible I blocked it from memory though because that sounds devastating.
      Ooh I like that cut! That’s kind of what I was going for with my current cut but something went awry 😝

      Reply
  3. Pingback: Vacation Photos – South Africa | Gym Bag Makeup

  4. But the hair is awesome!! I’d say a bob, though.

    Also, AMAZING vacation!! I can’t imagine how exciting and fun that must have been. Animals!!

    Reply

    1. Thanks! I did go with a bob. And I think I am going to try my hand at a 20’s finger wave kind of situation now…
      It really was so cool. The animals were really one of my favorite parts. I mean come on…baby elephants! What’s not to love 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s