Kruger

There’s nothing like staring into the eyes of a wild African lion, even if it’s through binoculars.  I was in the backseat of a Toyota Land Rover, wedged between Ruby and Oscar.  We had been traveling the winding roads of Kruger National Park for three days, and had seen elephants, buffalo, giraffes, warthogs, hyenas, wildebeests, impala, duikers, bush buck, kudus, crocodiles, hippos, zebras, white rhinos, baboons, and lots of cool birds (magpie strikes, lilac breasted rollers, a pearl spotted owlette, glossy grackles, a spotted eagle owl, bateleur eagles, brown snake eagles, African hawk eagles, tawny hawks, bourchal’s coucals, a saddle billed stork, and the endangered southern ground hornbills).  One day, we missed seeing a leopard by a few minutes.  We heard lions calling at night, but the large cats had eluded us by day. 

Cute bed head

Suddenly, we saw it – a bunch of cars pulled over.  A sure sign of a sighting.  In the pale, yellow grass, just 50 feet away, lay two young male lions.  Another napped nearby.   All three lolled around, half asleep.  Perfectly camouflaged, the lions were visible only from certain angles as we maneuvered for sightlines in the car.  (Note: getting out of the car is echt verboten unless you’re in a designated rest area, most of which are fenced in).   As we pulled away, Neil spotted two other heads popping up about 100 yards away in the grass -- a male lion and a lioness.  Apparently, the nocturnal noises we had heard were young males fighting over the lioness.  For the next 15 minutes, we watched the mating pair stand up, stretch, and move together to the shade.   Every now and then, the lion would look up and stare at us.  He didn’t care that we were there, but there was no doubt that we people in the car were the ones in a cage. 

Surprisingly, warthogs were my favorite  

Going on safari at Kruger National Park was one of the few things we had booked before leaving home (the other two were the Futaleufu rafting trip in Patagonia and our violin training in Buenos Aires). One of Africa’s oldest and largest game reserves, Kruger is a great place to see a large variety of animals.  Rather than go high end, we stayed in the park rest camps, which turned out to be the perfect level of comfort – similar to U.S. National Park facilities.

Sunrise in Kruger National Park

We did, however, hire a guide, which allowed us to relax during the trip even while we covered a lot of ground.  Throughout our four-day safari, Chris, from Cashan Tours gave us fantastic explanations of the geology, eco-system, history of the area, and animal behavior that we were seeing.  He also cooked delicious barbeques and knew many special spots in Kruger for spotting wildlife.

Hyenas

The safari was pretty different from what I had expected.  For one thing, Kruger is about the size of Massachusetts.  And it’s not like the animals are hanging out all over the place.  We spent a lot of time driving around slowly, looking at tracks and droppings in the road.  At times, it felt like we would never see an animal.   For every time an elephant or giraffe was on the road, there was a time we really needed Chris’ expert guidance to find the animal.

A 5-year old elephant

Having done a few animal-viewing activities on our sabbatical, here’s the comparison of how easy or hard it is to see animals:

1.     Galapagos - the animals have no fear of humans whatsoever.  Not only are they everywhere, they sometimes get curious and chase people.

2.     Magdalena Island (Chile) and Boulder Beach (South Africa) – the penguins go about their business right in front of you with no fear.

3.     Kruger - the animals are spread out over a huge area and you have to search them out.  But once spotted, the animals are not afraid of cars and it’s possible to observe them up close. 

4.     Amazon jungle – most of the animals hide from you and are incredibly hard to see; e.g. finding a sloth one km away in the tree canopy was a huge coup.  But seeing animals in the jungle is probably the most immersive – the humidity is oppressive, the insects are unavoidable, and it’s just you walking in the jungle or riding in a canoe.

Another surprise for me about the safari was how sedentary it was.  I’m talking hours in the car, every day.   We tended to get up early for game drives, and then nap at midday.  After four days, including the long drive to and from Joburg, we were all feeling seriously couch-potatoey. Don’t get me wrong, though.  I really loved our trip to Kruger.  If I lived here, I would go every chance possible.    

A small pack of wild dogs

This pair of wild dogs veered up to flank some impala

The same day we saw the lions in Kruger, we also saw a cheetah and wild dogs.  The cheetah was perched, looking around on a log.  Very cool. The wild dogs were a real treat to see, as they were hunting.  They are endangered and rare, so we felt extremely lucky to have seen them.  Six wild dogs trotted down the road towards us, went right past us, and then stopped in the road to have a conference about the impala down the road behind us.  The six dogs then divided into three pairs and went off in different directions to flank the impala.  We tried to follow them but couldn’t get to the right place.  Amazingly, a few hours later we saw the same pack of dogs about 20 miles away, again hunting.  They must have been unsuccessful on their earlier hunt.  You can watch wild dogs hunting on Planet Earth, but seeing even part of the hunt in person was a total thrill.