Kruger

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Next morning we got up, had the free brekky, checked emails, skyped my mum and dad and then just got ready to leave. We ate the left overs of last nights dinner that we cooked for lunch then at 2pm we loaded into a tiny little car with Henri our guide and another guy from the backpackers to drive us to their camp. The drive took about an hour and a half and the camp is inside Marloth park, on the boarder with Kruger, literally. We arrived at the gate and Henry (a different younger one) was waiting in a safari vehicle with 3 people from Spain. We hopped in and went for a little safari inside Marloth alongthe fenceline with Kruger as well. We saw Giraffe, Hippo, crocs, Impala and Zebra as well as many many birds! Was pretty cool, people live there and have holiday houses there and there are zebra etc just eating peoples lawns! We were going along the fence and came across a massive herd of elephants including babies! We were able to get out of the car and walk along the fence to get a closer look. The river runs along the fence too and they were eating all the long grass there. We got very close, only because there was an electric fence in between us. There is no danger walking around Marloth during the day since all the meat eaters live on the other side of the fence, but at night the Leopards jump the fence so you are not allowed to walk between 6pm and 6am. We arrived at the camp, very cute and they have an 18m high platform to watch the animals from. We all grabbed a beer and headed up there to watch the sunset over Kruger… magical! Then suddenly I spotted a Giraffe walking down the dusty driveway! It ate from some of the acacias nearby then wandered off into the distance.
Dinner was piri piri chicken cooked on a Braai, basically a bbq but only the hot coals are used. Was delicious! Our tent was large with 2 actual beds inside, so we had an early night after dinner since the next morning we were leaving camp at 5.30am. Henri woke us up at 4.50am and we had a quick light brekky before jumping in the safari vehicle with blankets and jackets on since it was freezing and the vehicle is open. The wind was terribly cold since we had to drive out on the main roads to get to the Kruger gate nearby. At 6am the gate opened, just after we arrived and within 1km we spotted our first lions! A mating pair. We hung around for about 25mins and lots of other cars were there too, but they would stop for a quick photo then go off. We had to stay on the road and in the vehicle, but Henri got us a good view and knew a lot about the lions. He said that they will mate every 20min for up to 5 days until the female has had enough, and that she initiates mating, not him. Sure enough we saw all of that come true! We saw them mate twice, right next to the road!
After that we drove down the main road and spotted Spotted Hyenas in the long grass. Then I saw a Spotted Eagle Owl in a tree and everyone thought it was awesome. They are big owls with large tufts of feathers above their ears and amazing eyes! He was settling down for sleeping. Henri said he hardly ever sees them. We saw loads of Impala and Wildebeest etc. eagles flew overhead and lotsof birds were waking up with a lot of noise at sunrise as we drove by. Henri told us about the Rhino how the males have a territory and poo in certain places and if a visiting rhino comes into the territory they will poo next to his pile so he doesn’t get a surprise and knows who is in his place. He also rubs his feet in his own poo so the smell goes everywhere… eww! We had a second breakfast at about 9am at a lodge right on the river and saw some hippos up close and a giant cape buffalo! At 9.30 we continued our game drive and went to a little lake and saw loads of hippos including babies playing on the muddy bank, big big crocs and lots of herons and giant storks too that were fishing. There was a small green herron that uses bugs it catches from the trees to fish for fish by throwing them in the water and waiting till something comes to eat it! Clever!
We drove further on a different road heading back to the main gate. We saw loads of everything including seeing 4 rhino! 2 lone males and then 2 together. We saw them pretty close too and just as we spotted the first one 2 cars drove straight past and didn’t notice, so we had the place to ourselves. We also went to a bird hide on part of the river and saw lots of birds and a few hippos too. As we drove away we stopped next to another car and looked at all the vultures that were feeding on something, and when we took a closer look through our binoculars we saw that it was a dead male lion being fed on by vultures! Very unusual and later Henri notified the rangers at the gate. At one point we stopped and we could see in one large area, 2 rhino, a big group of ostrich, lots of wildebeest, impala, kudu (really big, big horned antelope) and some cape buffalo! Cool! We drove back onto the main road to the gate and pulled off to a lookout point over a part of the river that was very busy with cars and animals. We saw giraffe necking, which is when the males fight each other by hitting each other with their necks and heads, along with loads of almost every species of herbivore in the park. We understood why they were there when we got to the lookout, there was a pride of lions lying next to the river, so all the animals were thirsty, but not thirsty enough to risk their lives… except 3 warthog who got away with it as they were on the other side of the river. The lions watched them intently though which was cool. It was 4 females (one with a tracking collar on) and 2 big males. One of them mated with a female while we watched, then they wandered off up the river.
After that we drove to a special part of the river where we can get out of the vehicle and walk up onto the rocks with a ranger who is there with a rifle all day. You can then spot all the animals in the river, hippo, crocs, colourful ducks making a lot of noise and in the distance elephants crossing the river. We saw bright orange lizards on the rocks and white tree frogs. We also got shown the rock art from the bushmen that was on some of the ledges. Previously they were protected from graffiti etc by bars, but they were all mangled from a flood a few years earlier. We hopped back in the vehicle and drove to the main gate without seeing a Leopard  so that was a bit sad, but it was such a spectacular day of game spotting who could be disappointed!
We had lunch when we got back, picnic up on the platform. Then we went for a walk along the fence and saw buffalo, hippo etc in the river before heading back at dusk… didn’t wanna get caught by leopards! We hung out and had dinner before going to bed early again, but everyone else stayed up pretty late. We got up early again, had some brekky and went for a 4 hour walk up the other direction on the fence. At one point we had a family of Warthog following us, there are a lot of them in Marlotha. We managed to scare a bunch of Impala drinking at a local waterhole, and I even saw a Mongoose running into the bushes, very cool!
We got back in time for lunch and then had to pack our bags and jump in the safari vehicle with young Henry (older Henri had driven back to the backpackers the night before as his wife Lorna´s bday was the next day) and we drove the Spanish people to the Mozambique border to catch a bus to Maputo, then drove back to Nelspruit to the backpackers, stopping on the way for food supplies and books at a second hand bookshop. The backpackers was full and lively, as it was Lornas bday there were a lot of her friends there too. We had a few drinks with our dormroom mates from Switzerland (2 girls who didn’t come back to the dorm that night after hanging out with some of the more charming backpacker staff members) and dried out from our showers by the fire they had going. I tried Savannah Dry, a local cider, was nice! We went to bed and the party continued until about 2am, but our room was far enough away to get some peace. Next morning I had to organize a taxi to the bus stop (which arrived really alte!) the bus tickets (their online payment system wasn’t working!) once we arrived at the stop and our taxi with Gloria back from the bus station in Joburg, but couldn’t get a hold of her. I rang Jana at Mufasa and she said she´d organize it all. Our bus was late, we had somehow lost 500Rand, though it could have been stolen, not sure, and Gloria thought we never got on the bus since it was over an hour late, but thank goodness she was still waiting for us, but in a different car so we didn’t recognize it even when it was right in front of us, so took a while to find each other! Finally we arrived at Mufasa after taking cash out on the way back with Gloria and it was too late to buy food for dinner, so we ordered a pizza delivery. Jana then organized our bazbus tickets for us for the next morning and we finally relaxed, eating pizza, drinking beer and watching Hellboy on the tv with the other 2 guests and the staff at the hostel (I bought Jana some beer since she had been so helpful too!).
We paid the bill and went to bed. Next morning we got up at 6, ate brekky then Johan took us to a hotel called the Africa Centre which is inside a secure suburb with only 2 entries and exits with boomgates to wait for the bazbus since it didn’t come to our hostel. We found out though when we got there at about 7.30 (the time the bazbus lady we booked with told us to be there) that it is usually the last stop and we might have to wait until 9.30 to be picked up… crap! So I blogged.

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