Baboons and the Big 5

---

Our last few weeks in South Africa have been one great big blur, starting with the wedding of Lara Glass and Paul Domjan, with somehow a natural extension into the world of animals. But first ‘The Wedding’

The Wedding

Jan had been intimately involved with all of the nuptial preparations, right from telling Paul when to propose (before we left for South America) and choosing a proposal ring with him on-line (I just went to Argos!) on to answering Lara’s questions via email whilst in the Amazon Basin and the far end of the world. So being fully involved on the run up to and on the day was expected especially as she was to be one of the bridesmaids.

The bridesmaids dresses were made in Thailand by one of the fathers of Lara’s sister who teaches there, and were a stunning shade of electric blue. Unfortunately it was discovered way too late that the dressmaker was also a bit of an alcoholic, so Jan’s dress did not quite fit. However with a little nip and tuck by a local seamstress all was resolved.

This issue paled into insignificance to the problems that greeted Paul. Firstly his mother and brother took an extra day to arrive from Texas due to fog in NY and until the last minute they were not sure if they were able to board all of their flights, so a 31-hour flight took over 60! Then his mothers’ suitcase decided it did not fancy Africa and wanted to stay in New York. It did finally make it here, although after the wedding and the day before they were meant to return home.

The next issue was his best man. Fortunately the best man was currently working in South Africa and living in Cape Town, unfortunately he was involved in a project in J’berg. No problem he could fly down the night before and leave the morning after the wedding. No said his boss - If you leave we will fire you! So at 10am on the day of the wedding, Paul has to shuffle his retinue, where a pole holder becomes the best man and Stephen became an emergency pole holder.

The ceremony itself and the following reception were lovely, and great fun was had by all, especially the couples first dance which started traditionally and then went into a modern dance routine, as well as the unique song that the couple had prepared for everyone to sing.

Wine Country

That night the two of us along with Brian and Lori stayed in a B&B in the area as we had decided to spend the next day together. Before we headed off for our days adventures we had received a message that Jan had forgotten to give L&P the keys to their first nights accommodation at Clara Anna Fontein, which meant Laras father has had to climb in through a window to let them in. So we sheepishly went to return the key, knocking on the door we were greeted by the site of the couple adorned in towels as they were expecting their breakfast - not a couple of interlopers.

After this little detour, we headed into wine country. The first port of call was a place that neither Lori nor Brian had been to before, but we really liked - Fairview. This farm specializes in not only wines, but cheeses as well, so armed with our cocktail sticks we went cheese tasting, and after going around the selection once (tasting 2 pieces a time) we went around again - Yum. Deciding against the wine for now we laughed at the antics of the goats that are kept there in their tower, and headed onwards.

Our next stop was a wine farm where we tasted a sizeable number of different wines, and acted as if we knew what we were looking for in sight, smell and taste - naturally we didn’t, our philosophy was “do you like it?” This was followed by a late lunch at a berry farm, at which point Brian pronounced the specialty of the house “Berry, Berry Good!”

The Shaster Foundation

One of the options for presents at the wedding, was to make a donation to a charity that Laras’ Grandmother was involved in - the Shaster Foundation. So on the weekend after the wedding a group of us went to see the work that they carried out in the township of Khyalicha. This was an amazing project in just over 2 years they have helped the leader to expand from a crèche for children into a community based around a soup kitchen, clinic, laundry, guest house and youth center - within which the rule about no politics was higher than no fighting.

As the guests the children of the youth center put on a show for us from gum -boot dancing, to singing to traditional dance. They were extremely talented, with some of them having had the chance to perform at the Waterfront. As Pauls’ mothers suitcase still had not arrived she decided to use her allowance to buy t-shirts for the kids, which were greatly appreciated.

Baboons Matter

Lara & Paul invited us to join them with going to walk with the baboons, with an organization called Baboon Matters. A group of 6 of us intrepidly went to see a wild troop of Baboons, who although accustomed to people did not think of them as a source of food as with those found at Cape Point. In fact they were so used to humans the majority totally ignored us, although a few of the babies showed of for us. They were amazing creatures and we could have spent a lot longer just staring at them.

Flutterbies, Rosie and Snakes

On the following weekend we decided to spend the day with our friends Saul, and with the wind howling where we wanted to visit we quickly had to come up with Plan B. So we headed to Franshoek, stopping off at a place called Butterfly World. Now both Saul and Jan had passed it many times, but never ventured in, so as they had a tourist in their midst they decided to.

Not only were the butterflies extremely beautiful, but we discovered that there were other creatures there as well. The first we came across were non-butterfly eating birds, and Stephen got a shock when one decided to perch on his shoulder, and would not leave for about 5 minutes. Then we came across several Iguanas, one of whom was stuck in a cage whilst the others were free to roam. When we asked a keeper why this was the case, she opened up the cage and picked up the Iguana, who was called Rosie, and took it in turns to give her to each of us to hold and get a hug from.

After quickly seeing some monkeys jumping around we went into the world of spiders, where a giant python was taken out and draped around Stephen.

During the rest of the day we wondered around Franshoek and then had a picnic lunch. After which we returned to Saul’s house where his huge puppy of a dog encouraged us to play with her, although she has a total fear of water, and we insisted on throwing the ball and Frisbee over the swimming pool to tempt her in.

Kruger

For the Easter weekend, we were invited by a friends girlfriend to spend the weekend at her fathers sugar cane farm just outside of the Kruger National Park. We traveled up with our friends Tony & Sherice and her parents leant us one of their cars and kindly made a packed lunch for us - including a special selection for the ‘Kosher Kid’.

We had a really fun journey up, and once we arrived at the farm we met up with Kim, Anthony and his girlfriend Jackie (whose father Mike owned the farm) as well as her brother, one of his friends and 5 dogs. We were given the cottage on the other side of the front garden, which we had all to ourselves. That night we made a lovely dinner, and spent a generally relaxing evening, as we knew the next day would be long.

The Game Drive

We woke up early the next morning (about 4:30) in order to leave by 5am and be in the first 500 people into the park, otherwise we would not get in. We made it into the queue before dawn and had a wonderful of the sunrise, as well as seeing hippos before we even entered the park.

As a non-South African Stephen would have to pay 4 times the entry fee to the others, so in no uncertain terms he was told to keep his trap shut until we were safely into the park and let the others do the talking. Naturally he found this extremely difficult, but just about managed to do this without the others resorting to taping his mouth shut.

We had entered the park in 2 cars - as per the previous days arrangements, with the exception of Mike joining the Anthony, Jackie and Kim. We initially tried to go in convoy to take advantage of Mikes experience spotting game, but quickly realized that we were driving at very different speeds and so arranged to meet up at various places along the way. This enabled the car we went on to stick to the tarmac path and the others to go on the dirt roads, which meant that we would see different things and have amazing photos to share.

In our car we had 2 camera aficionados, Jan & Tony, with Sherice and Stephen primarily engaged as spotters, but occasionally sticking their heads through the sun roof to take additional photos. Jan was armed with a longer lens than normal courtesy of Mike.

It was not long before we spotted the first of the animals for the day, a pack of 3 Zebras, who were just meandering across the road. Along with a regular number of Springbok and Impala we were on the hunt for the big 5. We had a secret plan to find them - we would sing to them, normally with Stephens’ voice that would have them running for cover and there would be no chance of seeing any, but somehow it worked.

Just as we stopped to look at the beautiful scenery, and we were singing ‘Nelly the Elephant’, Sherice shouted “look right”, and sure enough coming towards us was a single Bull Elephant, we could not believe our luck. We just sat their awed by its presence and power. Things then got even better, as we had not even gone 5 meters when we could see a giraffe just beyond the Hephalump. We could not believe our luck, 2 amazing animals within a short distance of each other, and in the distance we could see another 3 elephants walking down the hill. Instead of staying we decided to press on.

Just as we coming up to the next meeting place, we received a call from the other car saying that there were Lions close to where we were, so we made a quick turn around and headed to them. We did not need to look too hard as the word was out and we had to jockey for position to be able to see a pair sitting under a tree. They were magnificent, to watch, and we stayed there until they had had enough of being watched and padded out of site behind a tree.

After our next break Sherice started singing the Elton John song ‘crocodile rock’, and sure enough as we looked into the river we saw Crocodiles, with a huge one swimming down the middle. Our next target for the day was a Rhino, either White or Black (we were not fussy), and there sitting in the long grass was a huge lazy White Rhino, it was as if all we had to do was wish for something and we would see it.

As we were driving along the path, Jan asked “what is that ahead” and we had a heard of Elephants walking down the middle of the road towards us. Now at this point we were rather apprehensive as the most scary thing in the park for day trippers was not a Lion, but a charging Elephant, and several were heading right towards us! Fortunately they paid no attention to us and sauntered into the bush, and despite our efforts to see where they went they had simply disappeared. It is awesome how an animal that large could disappear so quickly and move so quietly.

We only had 2 of the big 5 left to see, but despite our best efforts we could not spot a Leopard, however, we did come across a whole herd of Buffalos. At this point we decided, we would not be returning to the park the following day as there would be no way to top that day. So much for Jans’ fathers comment that we would see nothing.

A Soggy Day

After the previous days excitement we decided to take the following day slowly, this was helped by the fact that we woke up to steady rain, and the animals would definitely have been hiding. However that did not mean we would not do anything.

After Jackie’s brother and his friend had warmed up the quad bikes, Anthony and Stephen decided to take them around the farm area for a quick spin, and swim! As it had been raining there were several puddles that just had to be explored, and we came back muddy messes. So whilst damp, the decision was made to turn the front garden into a chipping green and several golf balls were hit, including some lost to the sugar.

Once the weather had cleared up slightly we all went for a walk along the boundary of the Kruger, but unfortunately were caught in another rain shower on the way home.

The Journey Home

On the way back Tony & Sherice wanted to show us the beauty of the surrounding area, so leaving early they took us to the Mah Mah waterfalls, the Three Sisters look out point as well as to the simply stunning Pourkes Luck Potholes. These are totally natural and have evolved due to erosion, and were absolutely captivating.

Fortunately we decided to go as far as possible down the back route as the traffic on the way back to J’berg was abysmal. So much so that the police decided to close off the northbound traffic at one point and let the southbound use both sides of the road. Now there were no signs indicating this, so we were reticent at first to drive the wrong way down a motorway at 120kmh, but it had to be done.

And so concluded a great weekend and at the moment our time with the animals.

---