The Holiday Inn was a bit plush and included a free breakfast, but unfortunately there would be none of that for us! Instead we were instructed to rise at 4:15am so we could be downstairs with our stuff by 4:45am to pack the van and get on the road by 5am. Ugh!
I hardly slept anyway. In fact, I hardly slept since arriving in South Africa. Jet lag? Altitude? Johannesburg isn’t that high at about 1500 meters, but it is significant enough to possibly play a role. Not sure what was keeping me awake, but I ended up sleeping in the car much of our long day of driving on our way out to Kruger National Park.
Along the way there we stopped to see a few of the big sights. Blyde Canyon was pretty spectacular and purported to be the 3rd largest in the world. We also stopped to see some natural pot holes along a river with waterfalls as well as some overlooks including Heaven’s Window (?).
I sat next to one of the Germans on the drive. She had lived in Australia for about five years so she was familiar with the place. When I mentioned to her that in some ways South Africa was somewhat disappointing because it was so similar to Australia she agreed with me. Of all the countries I have been through on this trip, South Africa seemed to be the most developed and modern – sans the U.S. and South Korea. It has a dry landscape very similar to Australia but, of course, the wildlife is completely different.
Kruger National Park is very nice, huge, and quite impressively maintained. There is a huge fence around it to keep the wild animals from chomping on the neighbours. Overall there are about 50 campgrounds in the park, each protected by electric fencing, but only 5 or six of those include shops and other modern facilities. Each of the big camp grounds were surrounded by an electric fence and electric cattle grid at gate to keep vicious animals out. We ended up pitching our tents along one of the border fences and saw hyena prowling right along fence line right behind our tents just a few feet away.
The gear our tour company has provided is less than impressive. Obviously purchases for long-term use and bought on the cheap from South African companies, everything seems heavy and clumsily designed. The tents are all made of heavy canvas and steel poles held together awkwardly by rope and hooks that will create some hefty calluses on our fingers by the end of this trip. All of the cooking gear is make out of cast-iron metal and the plates and cups burn your skin because they are also make out of metal. Definitely old school camping.
Some meals are cooked for us by our tour guides (who are good at it) and others are cooked by us or purchases by us while we’re on the road. We all help in cleaning up and doing whatever other responsibilities need doing.
One of the Germans complained to me at one point about how expensive the trip was and I totally agreed, based on what we were getting. I’ve always shied away from these prepaid trips due to the costs because you know half your money (at least) is going into the pockets of corporate executives / offices in expensive Western countries.
I’ve always known that it is much cheaper to just rock up in a country and plan your tour with local tour companies from there, but I was always a bit concerned with security in Southern Africa and thought it would be safer to visit this part of the world with a group. Johannesburg is, as we know, birthplace of the carjacking – and there have been plenty of other gossip from other travellers and government warnings about the place over the years. I do think it is getting a lot safer than it use to be.
South Africa does seem a lot safer than I was expecting, but one of my fellow travellers did get done by a ATM con artist. He was an older house painter from New Zealand who obviously didn’t read all the government travel warnings about the place because they all seem to focus on the ATM scams as being the biggest thing to watch out for. He was even offered assistance by someone to help him with his transaction – part of one of the big scams.
It all happened on the first day on our way out to Kruger National Park when we stopped in a small town for a break. The scam works by having a criminal tamper with the ATM by inserting a plastic device into the card slot that traps your ATM card so you think the machine has eaten it. Instead, the criminal knows how to get your card out by pulling his camouflaged plastic device out to release the card after you give up and leave. The card won’t be of any value to the criminal without knowing your PIN number, so they have to hover around the area to watch you type it in before they step in to retrieve the card. Sometimes they will offer the victim ‘assistance’ when they’re really trying to get a better look.
In the end, our fellow traveller lost about $300 before he was able to call his bank and cancel the card. Unfortunately for him, now he has no access to his money without his ATM card and has been forced to make expensive credit card cash withdrawals. The safest ATMs are those inside banks and malls that heavily used and are guarded by uniformed guards, so that’s what I look for. So far for me, no problem.
Once we arrived in our camp site and pitched our tents, we had a short time to get ready for an night time safari. The night time safari’s happen when all the nocturnal animals are up and about, which are most of the big famous ones, but require viewing with spotlights which can make photography a bit tricky. We saw all kinds of great things on our safari, including elephants, zebras, giraffes, monkeys, zebus, and buffalo. Perhaps the most impressive, however, were the pride of lions we found lounging out on the road. They didn’t seem too phased by our safari bus and hung around quite a while for pictures before they were coaxed to move on out of our way. When they did they would walk around the back of the bus where I was sitting and give us a death stare from only about three meters away as they passed. It was really quite chilling!
