Days 15-18 Kruger

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The day started for me at 03:30 when I had to pack my things and get ready for the journey to Maputo, 10 mins later I was out the door for my 2km walk to Fatima’s for the so-called shuttle to Maputo, it didn’t get off to a good start as the driver didn’t turn up until 04:30, throughout the journey I was imagining how fab that extra 30 mins in bed would have been! So at 04:30 when we were finally on the road to Maputo, gradually as of course we had to make sure that the chappa was full. This meant slowing down every 5 mins with the “conductor” shouting Maput, Maput at every person standing by the road that he saw. The chappa doesn’t stop for food which is surprising at it stops for everything else, the sustenance was provided by the locals leaning in through the open windows trying to flog you things, I didn’t fancy trying to open up a coconut with my pen knife or trying to cook cassava so I had to settle for crisps instead, so apart from the odd banana my food intake was 4x packet of crisps for the day – highly nutricious!

It was with reluctance that I left the chappa after 10 hours but I immediately found myself in another chappa to Neslpruit. With the usual stop starting it took a mere 5 hours to get to the border, a journey direct in a car would take 1 hour, on the way the chappa was stopped by the police for being overloaded! Every chappa was overloaded, I was to learn later that Moz police target chappas originating from SA. This took half an hour to settle and we were only let go when the driver phoned his mother-in-law as she was head of the traffic police, I’m sure that can’t have been the reason for him asking for the hand of his wife!.

Immediately after leaving the border the police stopped us again, this time the driver got a fine as he didn’t have lights on his trailer!!!. Then around 5 mins later we stopped again at the next garage, so I asked the driver what was up, he said he had to wait for a further hour for the chappa to fill up again (as he had dropped a load off at the border!!By this time I had been travelling around 13 hours and was losing my patience so I told him where to go and tried to source an alternative, I happened to be in a queue for chips at KFC and there was a white guy in front of me so I asked if he was going to Nelspruit and could he take me and he said yes – result!! Had a great chat on the way, mostly about how much he hated his job but also about women and money, both dear subjects to me:-). He told me all bout his boss who used to be a smuggler and was in the SA special forces ad got up to all kinds of trouble. He was the inspiration for the lead character in the film Blood diamond with Leo De Caprio and Leo spent a week with him getting into Character, fascinating stuff.

So my new chum very kindly dropped me off at the hostel a total journey time of 16 hours, definitely the hardest day of the trip.

Total journey time 16 hours and I have to be ready for 05:00 the next morning for a safari!!!!!!!

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Despite arriving late in the evening, I managed to join a safari that was already underway in the Kruger. I would be spending a day in the national park which of course started early at 05:00 I was driven to the park gates to join the safari jeep. The Kruger is very civilised for a national park with 10 little towns spread throughout it, these camps had petrol stations, shops, restaurant and accommodation from campsites to bungalows. It was a far cry from my last safari but it was still a fab day out, we saw 3 white rhino, too many elephants to count, hippo, crocodiles, buffalo, impala, Kudu and a tortoise! – no leopard to make it to the big 5 though.

The weather was overcast most of the day and the temp was around 15C I was woefully underdressed in sandals, shorts and T-shirt but thankfully the jeep had loads of warm blankets that I wrapped myself in throughout the day. These were even more necessary during the journey back to the hostel. The jeep had canvas sides that could be lowered when it was on the open road, but it soon became apparent that there was a hole in the exhaust and with the sides down it soon became difficult to breathe. So we had to leave one side of the canvas up which meant for a freezing 2 hour journey home – nothing has been straight forward during this trip!! It got a whole lot worse when we traversed the highlands when the temperature lowered still further and then we found ourselves in the middle of a thunderstorm with torrential rain and most of it coming through the open sides of the jeep. We arrived back at the hostel shivering at 19:30, how I missed the 40C heat of Vic Falls!.

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I had wanted to take a trip to Blythe River canyon today, but no-one else was up for it, this meant I had a day spare so I wandered round Nelspruit and found myself in the middle of a wine festival which was fun. I also managed to buy my ticket on citybug to get me to Joburg airport the next day, another setback – the 10:00 bus was full so I had to catch the 07:00 bus instead which would mean I’d have to hang around the airport for 4 hours. So the next day I had another early start, I had booked taxi the previous night, double checking that they had done it, the bus was departing at 07:00 but I had to be there 20 mins before departure. So at 06:35 I was getting slightly worried and checked with the guy at the hostel that the taxi was on its way, he said sure it will be here in a few minutes. So I waited outside the electronic gates for the taxi to arrive, at 06:40 I knew it wasn’t coming so I buzzed the gate for them to let me back in so I could ask him to ring me another taxi. I don’t know what he was playing at but he wouldn’t let me in, I buzzed the gate around 30 times to no avail, if he had let me in by this time I’m not sure what I would have done, I was fuming! So I had no choice but to make my way to the bus stop on my own steam, uphill with approx 30kg on my back. There was no way I had time to walk it to the stop but if I got near the centre maybe I could hitch a ride from someone. A few cars passed me but despite my outstretched thumb none of them stopped. Then the fourth car stopped for me what a saviour, by this time I was panicking and drenched in sweat after the exertion – great start to the day!. I was so grateful to the driver as if he hadn’t have picked me up, I’d have missed my bus and probably my flight to cape town! We arrived with 5 mins to spare and I could relax again. I was slightly perturbed when the driver said a prayer before he set off!! The bus gave me the best journey of my Africa trip through beautiful scenery and we even saw 3 rhinos at a service station on the way, how cool is that, you could see the rhinos from the gents loo!!

The flight service in Africa leaves a lot to be desired, whilst I was waiting at the airport there was an announcement every 5 mins of another flight delay, if my flight from Cape Town to Joburg was delayed on the way back I could end up missing my flight home!

Lucky on this leg that my flight was on time, there was some mean turbulence on the flight to cape town which was fun. On arriving at Cape Town I took the MyCiti bus into the centre and was presented with some amazing views, on stepping out of the bus I was nearly blown off my feet. I struggling up long St which is the main bar area and to my distain found that everywhere was shut as it’s a Sunday. After 14 hours finally arrived at the backpack hostel and found myself the solitary man in a dorm full of teenage Irish girls-😊

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