Kruger

Everyone who visits South Africa wants to visit Kruger. Normally I think that places and activities that are over-hyped tend to be a bit of a disappointment because expectations are so high. I am happy to report that this was not the case at all with Kruger National Park, which was every bit as awesome as described.

Sitting in the northeast corner of South Africa, Kruger National Park is one of the largest game reserves in all of Africa, covering about 7,500 square miles. It is home to numerous plants and animals, including what is known as the Big 5 – lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and buffalo. The term Big 5 actually comes from the hunting industry, which used it to describe the 5 most difficult animals to hunt on foot. But, Big 5 is used by the safari industry to describe the 5 animals most sought by tourists. Which to me is debatable, because buffalo are not that interesting in my opinion. Plus, I’m all about the zebras.

But! I was lucky enough to see all of the Big 5 on my first safari, which I’ve been told is pretty rare because the leopards are very difficult to find. They are shy by nature, and tend to move around solo, rather than in groups.

My colleague and I arrived at our accommodation just outside of Kruger park in the afternoon, and left shortly after that for our sunset/night drive. The night drive was organized by Kruger Park guides themselves, and we were part of a group of about 15 people, all from other hotels/campsites. It was a larger group than we would have liked, but the lodge we stayed at only does game drives during the day (which we also did, but more on that later.)

On the sunset drive

The sunset drive was beautiful, and is a good complement to the day drive, because you can see animals more active at night. As this was my first safari, I did now know what to expect, but basically you meander through the park, and when anyone sees something worth seeing, they yell stop, and the driver stops for everyone to see whatever it is. A good idea in theory, as you have many eyes on the lookout for interesting wildlife, but it all depends on who you have as part of your group. We happened to have a trigger happy Afrikaner who became known to us as the man who cried eagle. Driving around, he would yell “Stooooooop I think I see an eagle!” So we’d stop…only to find out it was a vulture. Ten minutes later, “Stooooop I think that’s an eagle…. No it’s another vulture.” Insert eye roll here. Dude, 99 out 100 birds in the park is an effing vulture, sit your ass down and be quiet...

One of those HAS to be an eagle, right?! Wrong, sir. Wrong. 

Anyway, once it gets too dark to see, the driver/guide passed out giant torch lights that people held pointed into the bush to keep searching for animals. It’s difficult, but you’re looking for eyes in the darkness. It’s pretty cool though, because the guide can usually tell what type of animal by the color the eyes turn when reflected in the light. During the night drive we saw bush babies, a small spotted genet (which is like a little cat), elephants, impala, zebras, giraffes, lions, and yes, a lot of vultures. The vultures are actually good in a way because if you see a lot of vultures hanging around it usually means lions are nearby, because the vultures are waiting to swoop in and pick at the leftovers of whatever the lion was eating.

Sunset elephant 

Zebras!

Peek a boo.. we see you.. 

The coolest part I think was when we were driving through the dark, and a lioness was lying right in the road. We disturbed her slumber, so she grumpily got up and stared us down for a little while. It almost seemed like she was trying to determine if it was worth pouncing on us. She decided against it and stalked off into the night, but it was interesting to be stared at by a lion for that long.

The day drive, which started very early the next day, was where we saw all the rest of the Big 5. And while I enjoyed the night drive, I think the day drive was better, mostly because there were only five of us in a much smaller safari vehicle, and our guide, who works for the lodge we stayed at, was MUCH better than the one from Kruger itself. Our day guide had a really good eye for finding the animals, and knew a lot of interesting facts about all the animals we were seeing.

We left our lodge at 5:30am, which was not the most fun, but you have to leave so early in the morning, because once it gets too hot, all the animals take an afternoon siesta and it’s hard to see them. When we got to the park entrance, there was already a huge line of cars waiting to get in, but because we were part of a tour we got to go right in, which was nice. The other cars, which were personal vehicles as Kruger allows self-drives, would have to wait a while since the number of cars allowed in the park at any given time is restricted.

Rise and shiiiine

Driving through the park, the most prevalent animal by far is the impala. They’re everywhere. The impala is an important part of the ecosystem though because they are the main food source for the big cats and scavengers. Our guide jokingly calls impala the McDonalds both because the feed millions but also because they have three black stripes on their butts that kind of look like an “M.” Impala apparently also have really good hearing, so you’ll often see zebra hanging around with the impala because they get alerted to approaching predators.

Kruger Big Mac

#bff

Surprisingly the next most common animals we saw I think was elephants. Kruger has over 13,000 elephants that roam around freely, sometimes causing a traffic jam. We even saw some baby elephants tagging along with their mamas, which were adorable.

Pachyderm traffic jam 

Those tusks!

To give you an idea of how close they actually are.. 

As I mentioned earlier, the hardest animal to see by far is the leopard, and we were really lucky to be in the right place at the right time to see it, because the leopard disappeared a minute after we found it. Our guide said it was a female, and he thought the only reason she was close to the road was that she was hunting – there was a big herd of impala close by. But because so many cars stopped to see her, she wandered away hungry. Sorry leopard.

Leopard!

The rhino we saw was also very far away, so I was not able to get  good look or picture...just grey blobs in the distance. I would have liked to see it closer, but getting close to a rhino is not the smartest thing you can do. And to complete the Big 5, we did see the buffalo.. but zzzzz… not really interesting.

Not only did we see the Big 5, we also saw what our guide calls the “Ugly 5” – which includes warthog, hyena, vulture, hippo, and wildebeest. Most of these animals fall under the category of being so ugly they’re actually kind of cute. Except maybe the vulture. Which are just ugly ugly. 

Wildebeest herd

Here piggy piggy  

Hyena crossing

But I enjoyed seeing all of these “reject” animals as well. Warthogs are funny little things. They eat down on their knees, and when they run they stick their little tails straight up in the air. If you can get close enough, they also make little squeaky piggy noises, which I learned in Ghana because people feed them so you can get closer. The hippos we saw were all wading in the water, so again couldn’t get a good look. But hippos are actually the most dangerous animals in the park because they are super territorial and will rip people to shreds if they get too close.

And lastly, we did finally see a few eagles, so suck on that annoying bird man. 

Tawny Eagle

Long Live the Weekend

No matter where you are, there are never enough weekends. And as much as I am enjoying my job, I am already feeling the pressure of fitting in everything else I want to do during my time here in South Africa. And the longer I’m here, the more the list is growing... not shrinking. There are just too many fun and interesting things to do (poor me, right?)

But to try and start making progress, over the past three weeks, I’ve had three awesome weekends.

Weekend 1: The Durbs

Although hot sun and scorching savannah are the iconic images of Africa, Johannesburg is surprisingly cold (still.) I woke up this morning to 30 degree temperatures and wicked wind. It sounded like there was a ghoul in my apartment because the wind was whistling through the small gap in my balcony door. It was slightly alarming to my sleepy brain.

To escape the cold, three weekends ago, I took a one hour flight to the coast to spend a few days in Durban. Durban, the second biggest city in South Africa, is situated on the Southeastern coast on the Indian Ocean. It is a popular destination because of the glorious tropical climate and the lovely beaches. Even in the winter, Durban is still warm, thus the basis of its appeal at this point in time.

From Johannesburg to Durban

My friend and I stayed in an Airbnb up the coast from Durban in a sleepy little beach town called Umdloti. And It. Was. Lovely. We had a stunning view of the ocean right from the front of the apartment, and we were within walking distance of the beach and a number of bars and restaurants. There are wild monkeys in this area as well, and they are known to try and get into mischief around peoples’ houses. But other than seeing a few by the side of the road, we did not have any monkey encounters. Unfortunately.

View from the balcony

Umdloti Beach

There are also dolphins that frequent the beach, but it was the wrong time of year to see them. However, Durban is the busiest port in the country, so we saw a lot of tankers and cargo ships waiting to dock… just as good? No.

But the beach itself was nice. The ocean does get quite rough though as there is a sharp drop just off the coastline that creates big waves and strong tides. I swam a little, but not like I do at my beloved Bethany Beach. The beach also has a rather large tidal range, which creates some very cool tides pools where you can spy on the flora and fauna. I disturbed a rather large gaggle of crabs on one of my tide pool expeditions.

Tide pools on the rocks

Lots of interesting little coral

Crab being crabby

All in all it was a restful weekend, full of lazing around on the beach, reading good books (I’m on a Ray Bradbury kick at the moment, Grammy, since I know you’ll ask), and eating lots of food.

Weekend 2: Joburg Day

September 1 marks the first day of Spring in South Africa, which feels strange to me because A) its September, but also B) as noted earlier its 30 degrees sill. But in honor of the first day of Spring, Johannesburg holds a huge outdoor music festival called Joburg Day where the biggest musicians from South Africa are invited to perform. And they pack a lot in! Each artist only has about a 20min set so you really move through a lot of artists.

One of my coworkers was kind enough to make a playlist of music from musicians who would be performing a few weeks in advance of the show, so I was familiar with some of the music and could sing along with some of my favorites.

The festival was held about 25mi outside of Johannesburg at an old polo club, and thousands of people come, which is a lot of fun. Everyone brings camp chairs, beach umbrellas, and coolers, and just hangs out all day.

The view from our seats

You can go up to the stage to see your favorite artists perform, or you can stay under the shade of the umbrella and enjoy all the music from there as well. We went back and forth depending on who was playing. They shoot off confetti and huge balloons for the crowd to bop around, and everybody just stands wherever they are to dance ... it was a blast. J

Confetti cannon

Balloons in the crowd

Weekend 3: Hartbeespoort Elephant Sanctuary

Although all of these weekends I am describing were fun, I think I did save the best for last. Yesterday, my friend and I drove about an hour outside of Johannesburg to visit the Hartbeespoort Elephant Sanctuary. The facility also has a monkey sanctuary on site, called Bush Babies, which rescues mistreated or abandoned animals from all around Southern Africa. There are numerous monkeys on site, most of which are not native to South Africa, but are rescued from exotic pet trades or are “donated” by people who tried to keep them as pets and realized that, surprise surprise, monkeys do NOT make good pets.

Angry Capuchins did NOT want us to pass

The sanctuary also has 5 elephants at this specific site, but twelve total including the two other partner sanctuaries they have around South Africa. The elephants all have different back stories. Some were rescued from unsafe/abusive zoos, some were orphaned in the game parks and came to the sanctuary to be raised, some came from holding pens where they were awaiting shipment to China, and some even came from another “sanctuary” that was found not to be a sanctuary at all, but was mistreating the elephants.

I’ll just pause for a second to say that, sadly, this is not uncommon at all, where organizations pose as sanctuaries to lure in tourists, but are not taking proper care of their animals. Thanks to my sister, I’ve learned a lot more about this, and it happens a lot in South Africa. Especially with big cats, who get sold off the canned hunting facilities when they get too large to handle. I couldn’t believe this isn’t illegal, but sadly it’s not. Travelers beware.

Anyway, I did my best to research Hartbeespoort and the Bush Babies Monkey Sanctuary before going, and as far as I could tell they are a legit operation. I hope I’m not proven wrong in the future, but the experience on site was definitely positive. The guides and elephant handlers were knowledgeable and in tune with the personalities and needs of their elephants. All five of the elephants we saw have lived at the sanctuary for 12+ years, and will live there until they die. The organization had to open several other sites because they don’t have enough land to accommodate elephants at the sanctuary in  Hartbeespoort. They also explained that because these elephants never learned defensive skills, having never lived in the wild, they cannot be released because they would not survive.

Tag. You're it.

The guides spent a lot of time talking to visitors about elephant health, anatomy, and behavior. I learned a lot about elephants during this visit. For example, I had no idea elephants on have four teeth, two molars on top and two on bottom, and they shed their teeth several times throughout their life. Teeth are developed from the back and push forward as the elephant ages. Elephants have six sets of molars in their lifetime and as a tooth wears out through grinding, another pushes forward to replace it. The guide demonstrated this process by showing the elephant jaw bone and skull. You can actually tell the age of an elephant by looking at its teeth. In the wild, as the final set of molars break down, it’s harder for the elephant to chew and digest food, which means many wild elephants actually die of starvation or malnutrition.

Guide teaching us about elephants

Elephants molars

I also didn’t know that elephants don’t drink through their trunks. (Although I’m 99% sure that Dumbo does, so you fail Disney.) Other than picking things up, trunks are just used for breathing. Elephants can suck up about 6-9 liters of water into their trunk, but they then squirt it into their mouths. The trunk has 40,000 different muscles, which is insane, and the bottom of the trunk even has two little fingers it uses to pick things up. Or hold your hand, as I found out later…

During the visit, we had the opportunity to feed two of the elephants, who like to be fed but not pet, and interact/pet two other elephants, who either like or tolerate humans, not sure which. The fifth elephant apparently does not really like people, so he gets to hang out away from the group when there are visitors.

Chow time!

I’ve never been that close to such a huge animal before, and it was the coolest thing ever. Elephant skin is much more rough and prickly that I thought it would be, and the trunk feels so flexible and powerful. I think their ears are my favorite though.

Those ears <3

We had a moment

The elephant I got to pet was named Temba, and he was very patient and sweet. He even gave me a kiss on the cheek. It was a bizarre feeling.. like someone was trying to vacuum my face. But I loved every second.

Snotty elephant kiss

I got to walk around with Temba too, as he held my hand in his trunk. Such a cool experience.

Casually just walking my elephant

P.S. Bird Update

I think Humphrey is building a bird army to come take back “his” balcony. I’ve chased him away twice now in the time I’ve spent writing this. And he’s brought a friend. Things are escalating. I need backup.

Of course you realize, this means war!