Breakfast in Tokyo, Lunch in Cape Town & Dinner in Medellín

Every day on the Safari we were woke up at 5:30 for a light breakfast and then off on either a walk or a drive. I picked a company that did walking, most just do drives. On day 2 we drove about half an hour from camp, watching the sun rise and then started walking.

You don’t usually encounter large animals on foot, they hear you coming, they move faster than you and leave the area. We did see a few buffalo though, and towards the end of the walk one elephant eating in the distance. The stuff you really see when you walk is more birds, insects, plants and lots of animal tracks. The guides were excellent and full of information about the whole bush, not just the big 5. Did you know that smoking elephant dung will get rid of your headaches?

After the walk, we drove back to camp and saw another elephant en-route, ate a large brunch and had several hours to relax in the camp before the 3:00 afternoon drive and following night drive. This was the basic schedule every day. On this day however, around 1:00 we were sitting in camp reading, talking, chilling out when a herd of elephants walked by. There were around 15 of them and they were only 100 meters away at most. This was amazing, I filmed part of their procession, eating as they went past. The camp was not fenced at all either, making encounters like this even more cool!

The evening drive was good, starting off with a giraffe, then we saw some kudu (large antelope), steenbock (small antelope) and I saw the back of a white rhino running into the bush, not long enough for a photo though.

After the sundowner drinks we headed back towards camp, saw a large Porcupine running into his hole and had to wait a good 20 minutes for an elephant to move off the road so we could continue. When we got back to camp, the guides found buffalo tracks all over the place, then we heard them and it became apparent that they were spending the night very near camp. After that discovery we had impala stew for dinner and went to bed. Some of the more nervous people in the group (ie the girls) had stories of hearing lions attacking buffalo outside their tent before dawn. It’s amazing what the mind can invent.

The guides did find lion tracks not far from camp the next morning, no dead buffalo though and we spent the morning driving instead of walking, following lion and buffalo tracks. We saw a few buffalo but never found the lions. Instead we saw a mother giraffe with a baby close by, an african wild cat and we startled 3 white rhinos on the road. Again they disappeared before any photos could be taken. On the way back to camp for brunch we drove up to the water hole and saw a large herd of elephants there, one taking a bath. Just as they were leaving a buffalo came right past them, and started drinking. The mainly submerged hippo in the pool didn’t seem to care at all.

That night we saw a couple large owls, then were charged by a rabbit who stopped a foot in front of the land rover and then ran off. The best was right at the end of the drive, a spotted hyena running alongside and then in front of us. Back at camp after dinner we were sitting around the campfire, everyone else departed for bed but I stayed up a little longer talking with the guides and listening to lions and hyenas calling in the distance. Getting the full bush experience!

For the last 5 days I have been on a safari in Kruger park and I’ve taken about 400 pictures/videos in that time. I’ll start at the beginning, this may take a while.

My safari was not within the national park, but in a couple different game reserves bordering the park on it’s Western edge. The only difference between the park and the reserves is one is govt run, the others privately owned and managed. There are no fences and the wildlife is free to move about to wherever it wants. The reason I chose a private reserve safari instead of the park was A, no mobs of other tourists around, and B, me and my small group would have 2 professional guides taking us around for the time period. I also chose a camping safari instead of going to one of the lodges, since the price tag for these is very high (by camping I was able to stay in the park twice as long for the same $$$).

My 4 night/5 day safari started with me getting up at 4:00 in the morning for the bus pickup taking me to the reserve. (after it went to Joburg to pick up the rest of my group, why is my hostel always the first pickup location!?) It’s about a 6 hour drive to the park from here, which is in the far East of South Africa, bordering Mozambique. That drive time was spent sleeping, or trying to anyway.
Once we arrived there we stopped at a bush pub just outside the reserve to meetup with out guides and have lunch. The rest of my group were, remarkably, all Norwegians! Two separate groups of them, all together we were 8 + the 2 guides.

After lunch we drove into the reserve and to the camp, I wasn’t really expecting much from this but since it’s through the reserve the whole way it’s essentially just a viewing drive that gets you where you’re going. We saw impala pretty much straight away, the novelty of that wore off by the evening though, there’s lots of impala around.

Then we came across a large herd of buffalo crossing the road, the first “big 5” sighting. These guys are quite different looking than the North American “buffalo”.(the term “big 5” was invented by the hunters originally as the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt, now it’s basically just a marketing term for the tourism industry. the big 5 are: Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo and Leopard.)

After that, when we were getting pretty close to the camp we suddenly rounded a corner and there were a group of elephants. Females with young, we startled them as much as they startled us and one of the females was trumpeting and being aggressive towards us. Needless to say we drove off pretty quickly.

We soon arrived at camp, already very happy about already seeing 2 of the big five on the afternoon of day 1. Camp was large, very nice tents on wooden platforms off the ground. Solar power was the only power except for the gas heating the water for the showers. Nice spot.

Next on the agenda was the sundown/night drive. Starting about an hour and a half before sunset, stopping for sundowner drinks, and concluding with a 2 hour drive after dark. Lots more impala were around, and then just before we stopped for drinks we saw another elephant. This one was a male by himself, and much more placid than the earlier group.

The last part of the day was the night drive. Essentially driving around in the very cold night looking for animals. One guide driving, the other sitting on the lookout seat on front of the landrover with a spot light, shining it from side to side looking for the animals that are only active (or more active) at night. Top of the list being the cats, and I don’t mean household pets. First sighting was a Caracal, a small wildcat similar to the Lynx and apparently very rare to see. The the best moment of the already awesome day, nearing the end of the drive we saw a Lion. A solitary male Lion, who walked along side the vehicle a little, about 5 meters away, then stopped to look at us before walking off and disappearing into the bush. Taking pictures after dark is next to impossible in these circumstances, I tried my luck with videos. (I can’t embed the videos from youtube here or it messes up my formating so just click the link)

Technically May 16th was the longest day of my life so far. The flight from Sydney to Johannesburg is 14 hours and there’s an 8 hour time difference between them. That works out to mean that I spent 14 hours in flight and arrived 6 hours after I left.

Once I got to the airport in Sydney I stood in just about the longest checkin queue I have ever had to queue in for more than 30 minutes. When I finally got up to the counter everything got much better though, I had been randomly selected to be upgraded to business class since economy was overbooked! I’ve never been in business class before and it could not have come at a better time. The food is actually good, the seats recline almost horizontally and I had 40+ films and loads more tv shows to choose from on my personal tv. Managed a bit of sleep, and never really got bored, it didn’t seem like 14 hours that’s for sure.

Entry into South Africa was the easiest for any country so far, there was no entry card to fill out and the only question I was asked was where I had flown in from before my passport was stamped and I was waived through. From the airport I was met by a driver from my hostel in Pretoria, a 45 minute drive. That trip cost me less than the 10 minute shuttle to Sydney airport. You may be wondering why I’m in Pretoria if I flew into Joburg, but I got so many comments from people telling me to leave Joburg as soon as possible I just decided to bypass staying there at all, I may do a day tour there from Pretoria on the day after I return from my safari to see the sights there. Once I arrived at my hostel, which is in a quiet mostly residential area I went down the road to restaurant/pub on the corner for dinner. The place was packed full of white South Africans very passionately watching a local rugby game. The food there was centered around steaks, in many many shapes and sizes (they like their meat here). My very large grilled steak came with chips and a beer and cost me $7USD, hallelujah I can afford to eat out again! After that I went back to my hostel exhausted and went to bed.

Next day, after confirming my safari trip the following day to Kruger NP and being briefed on which areas around Pretoria were safe for me to walk in/go to and which weren’t, I went out and got some stuff I needed for the safari trip in a nearby suburb complete with a small shopping mall and a Sunday morning flea market. Pretoria is the administrative capital of the country so in the afternoon I checked out the Union buildings (headquarters of the South African govt) and their grounds.

One thing that features above most others when people talk of South Africa is crime and it is evident that people take lots of precautions against this. My hostel is walled in with an electric fence on top of the brick wall, only way to get in is with a code at the main gate.

There’s also a night security guard on duty. I’ve never stayed anywhere with such things before. What’s strange is, the whole street is lined with nice looking houses, walled in and with either razor wire or electric fences atop the walls. There’s loads of streets like this in the suburbs here.

People driving around in bmws, audis, mercedes etc and barbed wire surrounding their houses. Perhaps the weirdest thing about it is it doesn’t feel unsafe in this area during the day, a nice middleclass/upper middle class tree lined residential street with electric fences and razor wire. At night it’s a different place.

On a lighter note, I have elephant and rhino paper money now. That is just cool.

In the morning I’m off to the land of the elephants and rhinos for a 4 night guided driving/walking safari in Kruger national park. There will be no electricity for the duration of that time so I’ll blog next when I get back.