Safari part 1 - Kruger National Park

The 2-week safari I'd booked was in actual fact a combination of 3 different tours. A sort of 'a la carte' safari that meant I wouldn't be with the same group over the next 2 weeks. The first group was on the smallish side, with just Phil the Aussie, Monia the Italian and myself. We started off a bit weary after our late night expedition, but there was a lot of driving involved in the first day, so plenty of time to rest in the van...

The weather was crappy, so much so that we skipped out on viewing "God's window", since visibility wasn't good enough to see it. Since I've no idea what "God's window" is, I've no idea if I should have been disappointed or not. We did stop along the way at Blyde River Canyon, which had pretty amazing scenery, so I was happy.

After a longer than expected (expected by me, anyways) drive, we finally arrived at the tribal village that would be our stop for the night. As I got out of the van, I was hoping that the bored looking people dressed in skimpy tribal outfits weren't there to great us, but no such luck. They were. I was horrified when these very bored looking people started singing to our tiny little group as we approached the entrance. No eye-contact, no smiling, just some unenthusiastic singing on their part. How awkward.

Things didn't immediately get better as we were shown around the village by a young man claiming to be the tribe leader's grandchild. He explained to us some of the tribe's traditions and how they lived. He brought us around the different buildings and would occasionally call upon a tired and put-out looking woman to show us some of the daily chores like the grinding of maize or making grass mats. Oouf. I'd seen enough of this 'in real life' to feel how fake this was. I know I sound like I'm complaining, but I've been brought on tours to see 'traditional village life' enough times to last me a lifetime on this trip. Definitely not my favorite.

Things did get a bit better after dinner, when the village boys were called around the bonfire to dance for us. The reason it was better was because the boys finally looked like they were having fun, and weren't so much dancing for us as they were for themselves. We later found out they hadn't danced together for a while, so they really were having genuine fun. Of course, all 3 of us had to join in and dance a little, which was fine, but things got dicey when we were asked to sign a song from our country. Phil started us off with the Aussie classic 'Waltzing Mathilda', but was soon thrown off by the fact that the boys knew the words to the song. Pretty funny. I of course couldn't think of a single Canadian song I could sing and I certainly wasn't about to start belting out a Celine tune, was I? I decided to go with 'Frere Jacques', which yes, I know is not Canadian per se, so sue me. At least I knew it would be a laugh to hear the boys sing the same tune in their own language, cause of course 'Frere Jacques' is translated in every language known to man. I wasn't disappointed.

By 8 o'clock that night, every single person in the village was in bed except our tiny little group of 3. I managed to stretch the evening out until 10PM (woohoo) by chatting and staring at the slowly diminishing camp fire, before going to sleep in my mummy sleeping bag on what would be the first of many early nights of camping.

We woke up bright and early (or should I say dark and early) the next morning to head out to Kruger for our very first game drive. I'd slept well enough, if a bit uncomfortable in my mummy sleeping bag, not realising that you weren't supposed to try to turn around IN the sleeping bag but WITH it. Lesson learned. There was also evidence of a creature (most probably a rat) having visited us during the night, since Phil's cough drops were no longer in his pocket but now lay near my sleeping bag in a tattered chewed up mess. Lovely.

Once at Kruger, we met 3 more people who'd started their safari the day before, so our group was now doubled from 3 to 6. One of the girls warned us that it might be *ahem* a tad cold on the truck, so be prepared. Understatement of the year. Have you ever been sitting on an open vehicle going 50 km/h when it was 5C outside? It may not sound like much, but remember, this is Africa, not Canada, where I would be appropriately dressed. I was wearing all of my layers plus the new fleece I'd bought (thank god), a scarf and wrapped in 2 blankets and still I froze. I spent the morning alternating between states of frozen misery and absolute wonderment at what I saw.

Setting aside the weather for a minute (did I mention it also rained a little? While sitting on an open truck?), it was pretty freaking cool to be there on a safari in South Africa's biggest game reserve. Between the time we left at around 6:30 AM and breakfast a few hours later, I saw: guinea fowls, water bucks, hyenas, impalas, giraffes (yay!), buffalo's, zebras, elephants (yay again!) and vultures. A bit later on in the day, and you can add to that list hippos, crocs, kudzu, bush bucks, a white rhino (sort of. even with binoculars, it was only a black spot on the horizon), warthogs, a wild cat and a baby zebra less than a few hours old.

After the first full day of game drives on safari, I've discovered that it's much like I imagine fishing to be. You sit around waiting and doing nothing much for many hours and have brief moments of excitement along the way. OK, the major difference between fishing and a game drive is that there aren't any beers on the truck, those only come after.

The moments of excitement for that day: watching a herd of elephants cross the road in front of our truck, seeing tons of giraffes, graceful yet geeky all at once, and seeing vultures pick off the rest of a lions meal. And the quiet moments were very 'zen' like for me. Very relaxing and peaceful, with lots of time for thinking and just taking it all in. If I could have recorded my thoughts during those quiet hours, my blog would now be a 500-page novel.

Another evening spent by the campfire before settling into our freezing tents for the night. I slept fully clothes, with jeans and all of my layers, but stupidly used the blanket provided to me as a pillow. I really can be dumb sometimes. :-(

The next few days were very much similar, but in a very good way. We were on a hunt for lions and leopards, and were halfway successful. We saw a lion walking around, looking for prey to stalk, and later saw 3 lions resting after having gorged themselves on a poor unsuspecting zebra. Lots more animal watching (love those giraffe and elephants!), taking pictures and daydreaming the rest of the time. The camping was comfortable, regardless of the weather, and the food was very good considering this was a budget safari.