Our stopover on the way to Jo'Burg was Dubai, where we arrived at 1am local time. Nonetheless, the pilot happily announced 35°C when we touched down and we could certainly feel it coming down the gangway. A rather uneventful stopover was made little more exciting due to a late gate change, but besides me making key signings on the football simulator nothing much happened otherwise. 4.45am saw us boarding the second leg of the journey.
On touchdown in Jo'Burg, Yeya's Colombian friend Liliana waited for us at the airport and we drove to the apartment complex she lives in. Helpfully, it's situated on top of a shopping mall, which proved useful for running all sorts of errands. Most importantly though, we had to reconfirm our plans for the next day. It took a fair bit of convincing to the travel agent that our flight and camp reservations for Kruger Park still came through (we had convieniently forgotten to confirm anything over the last weeks). Thankfully, we could use Liliana's local Blackberry for the calls we had to make and also were able to use various office equipment for last minute scanning and faxing. Well worth noting here that everyone in SA seems to have a Blackberry - very unusual to see after the iPhone and Android craze in Europe and the US. After meeting Liliana's family and having a quick bite to eat in one of the ubiquitous shopping malls, we went up to see the lodging for the night, which Liliana had organised. It turned out to be an empty corporate apartment of the highest standard, with a standout shower. Before heading to the very comfy bed we went out to meet some friends of Liliana's though, a lovely Chilean family who made sure we were well fed and watered (or wined) by the end of the night.
The next day started quite early as we were picked up by a taxi transport to the airport at 8am. The distance to Kruger Park is drivable from Johannesburg, but the flight saves a good few hours which helped us to maximise our time in the park itself. On arrival in Nelspruit, we made our way to the most Southeastern corner of Kruger Park. It took us about 30 seconds inside the park to see the first wild animals (Impala) and within 10 minutes we had seen an elephant crossing the road in front of us. Good start! Thirty minutes and numerous animals later we arrived at our home for the next few days, a beautifully positioned and very well done safari lodge with the name of Sheshangeni. In a sign of things to come, we started off with a sizeable lunch, followed directly by our first afternoon/evening game drive of the visit. Our guide Simon proved to be a very knowledgable guy, pointing out various animals, plants and features of the landscape to us. We continued to see a good few animals, most importantly some rivaling male Impala, Giraffe and our first Zebras. The Singaporean family that shared the car with us was hoping for a Leopard viewing, but despite all efforts we couldn't spot the elusive cat. An oppulent dinner concluded the day, before we crawled into bed around 9pm.
Despite the early night, we didn't get that much sleep. Most animals are more active in the mornings and evenings, so that's when the game outings are scheduled and in the bush 6am counts as morning. We had the car to ourselves and managed to add some buffalos and hippos to the list of sightings. Most importantly though, we saw our first big cats, as two male lions were lazying around in the grass right next to the main road. We spent a good amount of time next to them, but they didn't really get up from their bed of grass. Back home, we had an enormous breakfast, so enormous that we had to follow it up with a nice snooze in the sunshine on our veranda. Falling into a repeating pattern not unlike Turkey, the snooze was directly followed by lunch, which we - now in the know - ate only selectively (we knew what was to follow at dinnertime). The afternoon drive was shared with a few very nice and excited South Africans, who were quite talkative and we learned a few things along the way. It was great to see other people who were as excited about seeing animals as we were. As a highlight we sat by the river for a while and added crocodiles, hippos and rhinos to the list of animals sighted. We should also note that there was a really nice picnic set up during sunset, which (obviously) was only a prelude to what was to come at dinner. It featured some nice wine though and also introduced us to biltong, the ZA version of beef jerky. Very tasty!!
Dinner and breakfast came and went, as did our (comparably quiet) morning drive with Simon. Large parts of the area had actually been burned by the park management three weeks before we arrived, so we think that this might have pushed some animals further out into other areas of the park. On the positive side, the view on the remaining animals was very good, as there was less vegetation for them to hide in. To mix things up a little, we changed location mid-day and transfered to a bush camp a little further into the park, where we traded our little chalet for a luxury safari tent, also with a nice little veranda. Not much else changed in our routine though, as lunch was followed by another afternoon drive. Our new guide was called Dixon, who was a really interesting guy. His grandfather had been part of the group of rangers who had created much of the Kruger infrastructure and he had quite a few stories to tell and some strong opinions on poaching and animal conservation in general. We spent much of the drive chatting and learning. We also managed to see a rhino family with a little baby rhino and a huge herd of buffalos lying around in the grass after dark, probably upwards of 100 animals. The day ended - as you may guess - with a lovely dinner, where we met a German couple who was traveling South Africa for three weeks.
Our last day brought us mixed emotions. The last drive proved fairly uneventful, but we really enjoyed seeing the landscape one more time and saying goodbye to Kruger Park. Our travel back to Jo'Burg was a little difficult though, and we lost both a little bit of money (inexplicably, although we suspect somebody got themselves an extra tip) and a much loved hat on the way. We also struggled with some of the car rental logistics, leading to a slighly sour mood. Yeya took the motivating part and successfully got me to go for our first big shopping in the supermarket underneath the apartment, which proved to be a super useful decision and helped to lighten the mood again. A really nice Italian dinner with Liliana and some of her friends also helped and in the end we went to bed with positive thinking.
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