I went on safari in Kruger National Park with Waverly and her friend from the US, Miranda. On Wednesday we went to Nelspruit, a major town near to the park. Thursday morning we awoke at 5am to get to Kruger for a morning drive. The driving is done in safari vehicles, a cab in front for the driver and 3 or 4 raised bench seats that are open except for a canvas roof. It was very cold and windy most of the time in the vehicles and especially in the morning. The driver for our first game drive in Kruger is the driver for the hostel/safari company and the rest of the game drives were by safari guides.
We entered Kruger and the first thing we saw was impalas. There are lots and lots of impalas in Kruger. The driver even told us, we don’t need to stop long, you will see many impala. The way game drives are done is to drive around in the safari vehicle trying to spot animals. There aren’t viewing areas you can go and see a wildebeast or whatever, you just drive around and hope you see something. Watering holes are likely to have animals like waterbucks or impala, but we saw the more “exciting” animals in the bush. If you see something you tell the driver to stop and if he sees something, he will stop. The drivers are really good at spotting animals. It was always exciting when the driver stopped because we knew there was something to see we hadn’t spotted. When the vehicle would stop we would crane our necks from side to side and I would ask Waverly “what is it? What is it?” Sometimes the guide would just look off into the distance intently for a bit but most of the time there was an animal we hadn’t spotted. Twice he spotted giraffes, once in dense brush off the road and once in a tree line over a mile away that we would have missed.
After the first impala’s we saw we drove more and I spotted a lone impala off in the distance framed by foliage. I was proud of my animal spotting skills but this would end up seeming kind of silly compared to what we saw in two and half days. At that time, we didn’t know what to expect and it can vary a great deal. People at work had told me about going and not seeing any cats, so I knew that was a possibility.
Then, we passed another vehicle headed towards us and they said they had been following a lion. The animals walk on the road a lot so that is an easy way to spot them. Later we saw an incredible picture of that lion sitting in the road.
The first exciting animal sighting was two rhinos, a parent and smaller rhino. The guide told us that white rhinos have the babies walk in front and black rhinos have the babies walk in back of the herd. Then he said “where do white people hold their baby?” “And, where do black people hold their baby?” That is how you can tell whether you are seeing black or white rhinos. We never saw rhino herds and there are mostly white rhinos in Kruger, so it was not the most useful explanation.
Then we went to camp to have breakfast. We were staying in tents in Pretoriuskop, in the southern part of Kruger. I invented a sandwich at breakfast, toast with peanut butter and jelly and cheddar (It was to have lots of calories and protein. Of the pbj family, it was better than peanut butter and banana, not as good as pbj and bacon). Then we went on another game drive. On safari, you mostly are either eating or on a game drive. We saw more impalas including two males that were fighting. They were rubbing their horns together but not very vigorously, so it looked more like they were flirting. Impala’s look delicate and soft, even the guys. Then we saw our first zebras. I really like zebras. They are like funny horses. Their neck fringe stands straight up so they look punk. There were some impalas and zebras and wildebeests hanging out in a field by the road. Later the guide told us that animals like to hang out with animals tougher than them, so they don’t have to worry about predators as much. For those animals wildebeat>zebra>impala. Sometimes there is low grass near the road, which is good for sightings. Tall grass and trees are worse. The most exciting part of the mid-day game drive was seeing elephants. There were three elephants way off in a grassy depression leading away form the road. At the time, we didn’t know if those would be the only elephants we saw, so it was great.
Then we broke for lunch at one of the rest areas. A guy from Europe was with us and he warned us about trouble monkeys. Those are monkeys that hang around the rest areas and try to take loose items or food from vehicles. I thought that was a fun concept to bring back to the US. “I can’t find my keys, maybe a trouble monkey took them.” Every meal we had on safari was great. Breakfast was pastries, the aforementioned sandwich, yogurt, fruit salad, cereal, etc. Lunches were sandwiches, salad, and very delicious curry potato salad or macaroni salad. Dinners were cooked over a camp fire. Marinated chicken the first night and beef stew the second night, with pap and rice, respectively. Pap is a South African dish made of corn flour. There was a lake near the rest area and we saw our first hippo there. Hippos bob up and down in the water, from fully submerged to sticking their nose out, so you don’t see very much hippo.
It sounds super exciting when condensed, but on safari there are long stretches of driving when you don’t see any animals. Sometimes, we went an hour or two at a time only seeing impalas or something way off in the bush.
That night we had a night drive. We went out at about five as the sun was setting. Right outside of camp we saw our first baboons. They were crossing the road in front of us. There was a baby baboon riding on it’s mothers back which delighted Waverly and Miranda but I missed it. On night safari, there are bright flashlights in the vehicle and you shine them out to the sides and use the lights and headlights to try to spot eyes in the dark. I think we mostly spotted animals in the lights without actually seeing their eyes. Night drives are good for seeing cats and we hadn’t seen any cats yet. The night guides were different from our day drivers and they were incredible at spotting animals. As the sun was still going down they saw a rock antelope on a rock face way off in the distance. The drivers also spotted a chameleon on a tree (while we were doing about 20 mph and in the dark!) and we saw a bush rabbit. We also saw a few owls. Mostly I am using correct names but if I don’t know the right name, I just append “bush.” Bush rabbit, bush squirrel, etc.
I have a bunch of black pictures from the night drive from trying to take pictures at night of animals in dense bush. The first cat we saw was a leopard. It was walking towards us on the road and then it turned away and walking away about level with the vehicle. I have a picture of its butt. I think the second exciting animal we saw was a hyena. It was about 20 feet away and not moving. It was gazing at the ground and didn’t seem to care that we shining a light on it and talking. I really like hyena faces and I’m glad I got to see a hyena. Then we saw two lions. One was a girl lion and they both might have been, I’m not sure. They were very close to the road. I think when we first stopped they were only 15 feet away. It felt a little bit dangerous. They moved away from us but stopped about 25 feet away for a bit. I think lions are a bit overrated, because you usually only seem them briefly and at night. It’s also fun to see elephants playing or impalas bouncing up and down over brush, but when you go to Kruger people are really concerned with seeing the big five (lion, elephant, rhino, leopard, water buffalo). The big five comes from hunting and if you are sightseeing, then zebras or giraffes might be more fun than water buffalo but not as good for bragging if you are a hunter. A bit later we saw a third lion walking parallel to the road and roaring. The Euro guy had done an impression of the lion he saw and it was like that. Low and short and not very loud, Ruuur, Ruuur, Ruuur. The guide thought he was looking for his lion ladyfriends.
It was pretty cold our first night in Kruger. We had hot water bottles to snuggle with and we used them for the morning drive the next day too. I think of day two as elephant day. First we went and looked at a watering hole that was empty except for a few hippos. Two young hippos were playing, sticking their jaws out of the water and on each other. Then we saw a few waterbucks. Waterbucks have a white behind. The guide explained that waterbucks sat on a toilet seat that had been painted so they have a white U shape on their butt. Then as we were cruising along the road a pack of wild dogs approached in the opposite direction. Wild dogs are very rare, I think only cheetah’s have fewer numbers in Krueger. They are splotchy black and tan and white and about the size of a coyote. There were about seven of them and they didn’t seem fierce at all. Some went by on the road, close to the vehicle and some veered off into the bush. Wild dogs are thought of as intense predators because they will bring animals down in a pack and start eating while the animal is still alive.
Then we went and saw the watering hole where the battle at Kruger took place. It’s on youtube, but I can’t get the link from my work computer. There were lots of Waterbucks there and I was hoping there would be a lion-croc fight over one of the young ones but it didn’t happen. Then we saw about three zebras. I asked the guide how many zebras he would see at a time since we hadn’t seen more than four and on tv I have seen large herds of zebras. He said nine or ten was the most zebras he would see in Kruger. Then we drove for another hour or so, seeing a bush lizard, before we saw about fifteen zebras right by the road! There was a kid zebra and a teenage zebra dude and a bunch of adults. That was one of my favorite sightings.
Then we saw an elephant pretty close to the road eating a bush. After that we saw water buffola completing the Big Five. ***old dudes*** Next we went and looked at a creek bed. In one direction there was a rhino off in the distance. In the other direction there was a giraffe way off in the distance. I have a picture that looks like a loch ness monster picture because the giraffe is so far away and it has the same head shape. Nevertheless, we crossed off giraffe from our list of animals to see.
Then we stopped for lunch. There were lots of trouble monkeys at lunch. When the group next to us finished eating trouble monkeys came and scavenged their leftovers. Then the trouble monkeys went to our vehicle. I had to shoo five monkeys off our vehicle trying to get into our bags. As we were pulling out of the parking lot I saw that there was a minivan with an open window and monkey was going into it.
We saw a lot of elephants after lunch. We were driving thought high bushes and I saw some dark shapes behind bushes. Just as I thought I should say “stop” to check if they were animals we got a clear view of another elephant between two bushes. There were three or four elephants eating leaves as they wandered away from us. The guides had told us to stay low in our seats and not lean out because animals will react to a human shape and not to talk too loudly. One of the elephants shook his head at us and the guide told us that he was irritatied with us. We moved on and saw a lone elephant pretty fast. That elephant shook his head even more angrily. He wanted to kill our safari vehicle. Our guide told us elephants had charged him but he didn’t get give details about what happened. Shortly after that we saw two groups of elephants. One groups was next to a concrete cylinder with water in it. One of the elephants was sticking it’s trunk in and then spraying water on a child elephant. One of the smaller elephants was trying to get his trunk in the water but he couldn’t reach.
We moved on from the elephant area and drove for a bit before seeing some cars stopped on a bridge. The bridge was a bit narrow so cars were backed up and the first person we asked didn’t know what there was to see. When we pulled forward more someone told us there was a leapord in the dry creak bed. That was the only cat we saw during the day time. It was lying in the shade of a tree and didn’t move during the time we were looking at it. That was it for day 2 and we went back to the camp.
This was the giraffe day. The guide had an incredible sighting of a giraffe and zebras way off in a tree line. Then we saw giraffes not too far away in trees and bushes. There were two. The way the head sways as they walk is fun and I like the horns. The giraffes looked at us, which was nice. A lot of animals either ignore us or move away.
Jeff
