Part I: The Plan
Kruger National Park. The mother of all parks. Almost 400km long and 160km wide, housing all African mammals, big and small, amid a kaleidoscope of picture-perfect African backdrops. No trip to South Africa, or indeed to SouthernAfrica, could be complete without a visit to Kruger National Park.Naturally, I had to go. And with a companion such as Bruno – who is practically Tarzan incarnate – I knew it wouldn’t take much prodding.
Part II: The Journey
We just had to drive through Swaziland. Bruno wasn’t keen on another border or another visa stamp in his bulging passport. But I was secretly glad to transit through Swaziland, as that would be the 27thcountry I have seen in my life, edging me ever-so-close to my goal of seeing one country for every year of my age.Yet, our trip to Swaziland wasn’t one of exploration and discovery, per se. We were people on a mission – to get to Kruger NP as quickly as possible, before the throngs of South Africans arrived for their school holidays in late-March. As such, I unfortunately cannot write a detailed, well-informed blog entry on my impressions of Swazi culture, Swazi people, or Swazi landscape. Yet, we didn’t transit through this 180km long country as quickly as many, so at least I got a bit more than a 3-hour superficial glance-out-the-window view of my 27thcountry.
A few very obvious differences popped out at me once I crossed the border. The vibe immediately felt more peaceful, more relaxed, and slower than South Africa. Its towns seemed less populated, polluted, and chaotic. It felt safer. People looked happier. Swaziland was a breath of fresh air after South Africa’s dense, loud chaos. The landscape was also suddenly different: there were sugarcane farms everywhere. The sheer amount of sugarcane everywhere made it seem like an alien species had invaded the land! Just tall, thin, green wire shooting up from the ground and swaying in the wind, as far as the eye could see.Most of our Swazi days were spent in the Royal Hlane National Park – “Hlane” meaning “wilderness”, and “Royal” because it was commissioned by Swaziland’s king. Did I mention that Swaziland is one of Africa’s few remaining monarchies? King Mswati III, a descendent of the Great Kings who liberated Swaziland, maintains absolute power over his one million citizens. You can fill in the blanks as to what this entails – $45 million private jet aircraft, refusal to subject himself to rule of law… – but at least the man has followed in the footsteps of his ecologically-aware father, King Sobhuza II. In the 60s, Sobhuza chose to set aside these 30,000 hectares of land for nature and wildlife protection – much to the dismay of surrounding, powerful sugarcane interests – because he learnt there was a tree on the land that was over 1000 years old! Ok, well that and because he wanted to restore the “Butimba” (“Royal Hunt”, a yearly event where Swazi men traveled to this region to hunt big game and offer it to the king) to its former glory (there was pretty much no big game left in the region by the turn of the century).
Anyway, the highlight of the park was the water hole, a short walk from the campsite. Bruno and I spent 2 solid days parked there, reading and relaxing and waiting for the plethora of rhinos to visit us. Most of the good pictures I posted on my “Save the Rhinos” blog entry come from this water hole, as the rhinos here were not fearful or disturbed by human presence. (Perhaps it is because Swaziland claims to have had no rhino poaching incidents since 1992.) The other highlight of our time in the park was the amazing storm we witnessed on our last night. The sky was absolutely electric for close to two hours, lightning shooting through the sky, constantly, and from every direction. It even put the incredibly Zimbabwe storm I blogged about in November to shame.However, there was one very disappointing aspect of the park, which I must mention: the misuse and overuse of wood. All rangers learn to leave nature the way it is – not to move or take anything. This includes dead and rotting wood, which decomposes and rejuvenates the earth while, in the meantime, providing homes for insects and small mammals and scratching posts for countless larger animals. Yet here, in Hlane NP, rangers gather all dead wood and provide it, free of charge, to tourists wanting to barbecue. Worse, they have an all-day bonfire burning outside the restaurant, “for ambiance”, and wood burning all day behind the ablution block to provide hot water for the few tourists needing a shower. I would have preferred the cold shower, thanks. Bruno spoke with various rangers, who admitted to learning about wood ecology in Ranger School, but who laughed off their current practices. And he spoke with the camp manager, who said the rangers were discussing possibly charging tourists to buy wood. This is a small, and too-insignificant step for the park to take. In a world that is more faithful to the dollar than the land, national parks and nature reserves need to be the exceptions – here, at least, nature and wildlife must be the priority. If not, then where will we begin to redress the woes we have caused nature and its non-human inhabitants?Part III: The Destination
In contrast, Kruger National Park has been a bit of a haven for us these past two weeks. Yes, we have spent two weeks in a national park without leaving! You don’t have to – with gas stations, mini-grocery stores, restaurants, a bank, and even a post office, there is no reason to step out of this parallel universe.I have seen more animals here than I ever thought possible. At every turn, there is something to catch your eye – an elephant, a pod of hippos, a few giraffes poking their heads out from among the trees. If you’re lucky, you might spot a lion, a leopard, or a black-backed jackal, and if not, you at least have the impala, zebras, and wildebeest to feast your eyes on! You know you’ve spotted a LOT of animals when you drive past “yet another” waterbuck, and you don’t even slow down!
I won’t begin to bore you with details of my animal sightings (poisonous puffadder snake! skin-colored baboon newborn! hideous marabout stork!) – I’m going to let the photos, taken so lovingly by Bruno, speak for themselves. Let me just say that I loved every part of the safari experience. Waking up before the sun (and even the birds), scarfing down an excited breakfast (with a hot cup of tea to take the edge off the crispness of the morning), and hopping in the car, binoculars close-by, ready to see whatever nature has to offer that morning. Having a picnic lunch by a waterhole or spending a lazy, hot afternoon at the rest camp swimming pool before a possible second round of safariing. Eating a simple meal with the stars overhead and the hyenas just beyond the camp gates, pacing, waiting, and reminding you that, for once, you are the animal behind the enclosed fence. And crawling to bed earlier than you did during your childhood, because you’re so exhausted from the day, but even more because you want to be awake early to do it all again!The best part of safariing is the search. It’s like you’re a leopard, stealthily staking out your prey from behind the cover of a tree. Ok – instead of a tree, you’re in a car, and you’re therefore not nearly as stealthy as you’d like to be, but the adrenaline is there all the same. I loved the game of watching and waiting, of scanning the horizon, searching for movement behind bushes, ears poking out of tall grasses. Sometimes you lose the game – and there were days we “lost” – but that makes the days you win all the more special. And there were days we won – like the two times we saw lions sprawled in the grass and on rocks, and the evening we saw a leopard (yes, I saw another leopard! I must be leopard-lucky, for it is practically unheard of to have two sightings in such a short time span!). Yet, call me a safari snob, but part of winning the game is spotting the animal yourself. And one unfortunate thing about Kruger is that, because of its fame, it’s incredibly busy. Spot anything interesting and, within minutes, a herd of cars will be parked behind, in front, and beside you, edging themselves ever tighter to get a clearer view of the item-to-behold. I am not proud of this, but all of our feline sightings in Kruger were not really ours – we saw the mass of cars, knew something interesting had been spotted, and raced to join the queue. Sort of takes away a bit of the charm, really.Which is why the highlight of all my animal spotting was actually the baby hyenas that approached our car (twice!), sniffing so fervently I thought they might take a chunk out of our tires. Who would have thought that a creature so ugly can be so cute as a babe? More than their cuteness, their charm came from seeing them alone. No one else parked their car by us, and no one else got their tires sniffed. Private moment! Victory!Another memorable Kruger moment was visiting a bird hide one evening. With a view on a river/marshland, we sat for more than an hour watching nothing but birds. Birds are incredibly underrated creatures, and if you let yourself get into them, you can get into them big-time. The proof is in the fact that, that evening, we were surrounded by serious “birders” – people with bazooka lenses on cameras and massive bird reference books, silently searching, shooting, matching bird to photo. I even started to do it – these people were that cool and the birds that captivating! It was refreshing to be amongst people who were quiet, respectful of their environment, and giving full due to creatures who deserve it. This is, unfortunately, in sharp contrast to most Kruger visitors, who trample off-road, stare at animals only long enough to capture a photo, and head back to camp to have a loud, drunken, wood-fire braai(campfire), where they roast the very creatures they photographed earlier that day. I like birders, and I’ve learned, more and more, to like the small, under-appreciated, yet miraculously remarkable creatures they venerate.Bruno and I are forced to leave Kruger tomorrow morning. There is no camping availability anywhere – the Easter and school holidays are upon us. It is probably for the best that we are forced out, or we might have lost track of time and stayed until my flight home on May 26th! Instead, we will head forward into Africa, past new borders and through new frontiers. Yet, I know my safariing isn’t over. Part of the game, for me, was setting goals of things I wanted to see. I set a few slightly-unreachable goals – like seeing a black rhino or a feline chasing its prey. But I also set one, fairly reasonable, safari goal, which I have not yet achieved – seeing a mature male lion, with his glorious tasseled-mane of fur. The fact that I leave tomorrow without fulfilling this now-aching desire doesn’t leave me feeling like I’ve lost, just like I haven’t achieved a complete victory. Yet. That can mean only one thing: my days of safariing aren’t over just yet.
