South Africa Part 2

After about 7 hours of driving through Mpumalanga we made it to Paul Kruger Gate, the major entry point at Kruger National Park. I had a feeling of awe upon passing under and out the other side of its thatched roof. Visitors and locals alike share a reverence for the natural world within the boundaries of this park. It appears to be conditional. Upon departing at Crocodile Bridge at the end of our tour, Lianne and I noticed thick deposits of rubbish on either side of the road which started almost immediately upon exiting the park. Within the park itself however, there was a merciful absence of litter. I thought to myself that if we can harness an attitude of respect and awareness, and people can adhere to it within the confines of the park, why can't we apply this to the earth in general? The earth, which once would have looked pristine in its entirety as the Kruger does now. There are places that are designated for the protection of their nature: this is a good thing. The pity is that this has come about because wherever else we go we treat as if it's a personal rubbish dump.

On with the show! Happy happy happy!!! Kruger reminded me of the biblical descriptions of Eden and as we travelled its roads I imagined life before the rise of mankind. (I had to imagine it without the roads of course.) Animals move around freely, not following the migration routes that once would have had elephants, for instance, spanning the length and breadth of the African continent, but grazing in herds and following the food: hunting or being hunted. And it was here that I realised that zoos, no matter how modern their facilities or generous their enclosures, still miss the point of conservation.

On our first night in Kruger we stayed in a permanent tent at Skukuza rest camp. There was some concern about whether or not we could bear the heat, the tent being equipped only with a pedestal fan. In the end I slept like Rip van Winkle under the wide African skies, barely even stirring as the hyenas lurked metres away, licking their lips and eyeing off my sausage.



Not Paul Kruger Gate, but Skukuza. After about 8 hours of driving, we'd finally made it.

The next day we had a plan. Lianne's grandparents' ashes were scattered by a birdwatching hut at a place roughly halfway up the Park called Letaba. We were staying that night in another rest camp further South from Skukuza at Berg-en-Dal. After a quick breakfast down by the river, we'd set out, make it to Letaba by lunchtime, then turn south and drive back to our new accommodation. It was probably gonna be a tall order. But it never happened. We rose late, then our order for breakfast was forgotten. By the time it arrived we were well behind the 8-ball. Then we hit the road and out they came, species by species, the animals! It was one glorious creature after another: elephant, giraffe, white rhino, buffalo, kudu, baboon, warthog, wildebeest, zebra, even a few lion. And we'd barely gotten halfway to Letaba before lunchtime, when I realised that even if we turned back now, we'd still struggle to make it back to Berg-en-Dal before the 6:30 curfew.

So we pointed the car south and hightailed it back to camp; making it with about 10 minutes to spare. I'd travelled across the world to see these majestic animals in their natural setting and here we were driving past them in order to make a deadline. Ha! Is that irony? I'm not sure that it is, but it would probably make it into the 4th verse of that Alanis Morissette song if she were writing today. Perhaps we could classify it as an "alannic" situation. Alannic - adjective: used to describe situations which everybody calls ironic, but they're in reality either coincidental or just plain unfortunate. Rain on your wedding day? Sounds like misfortune to me. But only if you've planned to get married in a garden. A free ride when you're already late? In no way are these two things even connected. The price of a bus ticket so you can get to your yoga studio doesn't actually have a bearing on what time you arrive. And being late only means you'll have to forgo a bit of the wanky chanting they do at the beginning. Big dicking deal. Maybe you should have left earlier, instead of endlessly trying on different bobble hats in front of the mirror, you weirdo.

The camp curfew was, nonetheless, a very important one. I believe the fines associated with missing the 6:30 deadline are enough to make one consider spending the night in the wild. When it could quite literally become a "deadline." Eh? Eh? And we had another 3 days in the park after this one, so it was no reason to whimper like a Frenchman with his baguette caught in his bicycle chain. But even driving with such purpose (okay, I'll be honest here : we caned that little Citroen) as we did on that first day, it was still our best day for viewing wildlife. We just spent a lot of that day reversing, is all. We'd shoot past something blurry and one of us would say "I think I saw something back there." Then we'd brake, and slowly reverse back to where said blur materialised as kudu or rhino or, infuriatingly, impala. No, that's not true. Everything in nature has its own beauty.



Out of the way you wrinkly old bugger!



Impala resting in the shade. They have such amazingly precise markings, like they've been painted.

On Day 2 we spent the day in the pool, braai-ing, drinking Amarula and enjoying an evening game drive. Gosh, that's a smashing line up and an all round top way to spend a day is it not?; certainly much better than deskwarming in a freezing staffroom as I am right now. The Amarula was good, but we drank so much we dehydrated ourselves. As soon as the truck left on our evening drive we both felt a thirst that was only partially relieved later when the adorable Indian girl in front of us offered some gum. Some people are just so nice. She probably had no idea how much we appreciated it.



It is such a beautiful time of day.



It was 40 degrees celsius on our last day in the Kruger. I loved the heat, but knowing about the pool back at camp was probably what made it really bearable. Animals graze in the shade. We have pools and air-conditioning.