Advertisement
Kruger National Park
One of the true wonders of the world. I mean look, even the sunset seems to be special. I'll definitely never forget this place. We got to sleep in a bit, but we again up at 7 AM. Seriously though, I cannot wait to sleep like 10 hours. But anyways... Today was the day-long trip into Kruger National Park. I keep referencing Kruger in my other posts, but while we are in Greater Kruger, the official park is like 30 km away. Kruger is about 4.5 million acres, the size of Israel. Its owned by the country of SA and has some of the nicest infrastructure in the nation. Its definitely the pride of the country. Its employees 4000 employees that live in their own town in the park. It would take 4 hours to drive west to east and days to drive north to south. Including our reserve and the others that are considered 'Greater Kruger' - its millions of acres. We entered through one the sixteen gates... The Orphan gate.
There are estimates on the number of animals, and while they may seem like a lot - put them into the size of the park, and its amazing you see anything at all. There are an estimated 2,000 lions, 1,500 leopards, 15,000 elephants, and 14,000 giraffe. So yeah... Its not quite like a zoo.
But boy do you see some animals. We probably saw 2,000 total animals in our 10 hours. We drove around all day just making an hour stop in the Samtara Camp for lunch. The camps are awesome, but everything closes by 5:30 PM because of the extreme dangers after dark. Its too unpredictable for them to be able to allow people out with the animals. The culture of the park is awesome too. There are tons of people out and about, and EVERYONE is friendly, stops and let's everyone know where they spotted animals. There are also magnetic maps at all the rest stops, and people map where all the animals have been spotted. Its a really cool culture. There are only 21 official rangers in the whole park - they are the green berets of rangers. They walk on foot with no guns and if you see one, its the rarest thing will actually see at Kruger. There are certain levels of training required to be a ranger and/or guide - and these guys are the best of the best. There are nature guides who ride around on bikes and others. Its crazy.
We saw a ton of other animals and four of the 'Big 5'. All we have yet to see is the leopard - which is the toughest. We saw hundreds and zebras, giraffes, buffalo, hyena, antelope, crocs, hippos, elephants, rhinos and others. Plus all of the bugs. According to Mongabe, our guide - all of the insects in Kruger weigh more when put together than the mammals. Imagine how many insects it would take to weigh as much as one elephant and think about it.
The experience was beyond words. It was actually exhausting to be on the look-out all day since the animals are so hard to see. You probably only see a quarter of all
the animals within your sight. The absolutely crazy thing is that the rangers, even while driving, talking, and on look-out, can see stuff in the distance at speed that I can barely make out and that many people couldn't see without binoculars. Its an amazing ability. Then there's Heather whose spotting abilities are legendary. If there is something within 20 yards of the car, there is a 50/50 chance she will see it. Anything past that distance... Forget about it. But... If you want to find tree trunks or dead wood - she can spot them ANYWHERE. You could just feel the power of the animals and the circle of life. Yes... Everyone here loves the Lion King - but to see a lion kill another animal or see how one species works against another, or with one another is amazing.
We went back to camp and had a dinner similar to the first night at the request of the game warden who came to our camp for dinner. Afterward, around the camp fire, the stories started flying again. The crazy thing out here is that life here is the bush, and that's all they know. They don't have the news, rarely read the paper and are pretty much isolated from the world. They do however have TV, and ironically ALL THEY WATCH? Animal Planet? I am baffled.
But back to the stories. Luckily this time, none of them prevented sleep, and I was able to tell some of the new visitors the stories I had already heard.
Mark told us a story about some brothers in Kruger a few months ago that were riding bikes around the small town where the Kruger employees live. They were riding bike and were attacked by a cheetah. For a long time, the cheetah would attack one brother who protected himself with a bike, while the other punched the cheetah. Then they switched. After a time, all 3 were exhausted and the guys escaped to the bush. Just then a truck of Afrikaans pulled up, saw the bikes, and decided it was a good idea to steal the. The cheetah attacked those 6 guys and it wasn't till nearly an hour later that the cheetah was dead and all of the guys were in the hospital. Talk about putting their power into perspective. We also saw articles all over Kruger about poachers that had been eaten by lions - talk about irony.
Then Pearl, the lodge "mom" told us more nightmarish stories about lions roaming around our camp at night (lucky us... They don't close the gates in the winter) and a hyena that killed a staffer at our camp a few years back. Awesome!
She also had some funny stories about a domesticated hippo named Jessica that she used to raise; and she told us some funny stories about the monkeys that live in our camp. They all know the staff, and the staff will yell at them, but Pearl ran into a few in the kitchen the other day. They are red velvet monkeys, the size of a medium-sized dog, and they terrorize the guests by jumping on the roof, eating food, and stealing things. She saw them in the kitchen trying to steal a bag of rice and yelled at them to stop. They turned to her and looked... Then tried again. The only problem was the bag of beans weighed 50 lbs and the monkey only weighed about 8 lbs. The monkey tried one more time, and ran off. But for some reason, that imagine just cracked me up.
Finally, they all told us stories about the locals and how things worked. They told us about the anti-poaching units, made up of locals that will hunt down poachers and take justice into their own hands. These guys will stay in the bush, with no food, supplies, or even shoes - for days... Just to find the poachers. For a long time, they would turn them over to the courts and they would get a fine... But once that proved to be wasted effort which brought us to our final topic of the day - local justice.
Whether it was in Jo-burg, the bush, or the cape - most of SA (while having a modern justice system) works on local justice. That means if you steal in the townships and slums of the city - you die. If you poach, you get poached, and the ways it happens can vary but are all disturbing to say the least.
It was another great day, and with two days left, our wish list includes a better view of the lions and the leopard. I apologize for all the stories and crazy legends that I keep writing, but seriously... Where else on earth can you hear this stuff. I want everyone to read them, then think about being here. Its intense, but has been amazing. And the pictures should show that as well.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0593s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb