SOUTH AFRICA APRIL 2015.

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This trip to South Africa happened on a whim. I had 8 days off coming up and knew I did not want to spend them in Kuwait where I work. I started looking at different places to visit, Nepal. India, Mauritius, Malta, just places I have heard about and thought might be interesting. One morning while I was eating breakfast downtown and searching I over heard a few ladies from the UK talking and one said that she was getting ready for a holiday in South Africa, and the others said that they had been there several times. I couldn’t understand why someone would go back to the same place so many times. This got me to thinking. I had always wanted to go to Africa, hunting but could never justify the cost; I started researching for some photo safaris. I finally found a reasonably priced 4-day trip to Krueger Natl. Park. I booked the trip, which included 2 nights in Joberg and round-trip air to Kruger.



I now had to book a round trip ticket from Kuwait to Joberg, since I had already booked the safari. I guess I did that backwards but it all worked out. I booked the flight and sent an email to the safari company so they could pick me up at the airport. That process was easy, after securing my luggage I walked thru customs with no problem and the man with my name on a board was standing there waiting for me. What I didn’t realize when I booked a room was that there is no real public transportation in Joberg at least none that was safe for me. If I had known this I would of booked a room in Stanton instead of Benoni. Someplace I could walk to see things. The only thing I got to see while staying in Benoni was the bird sanctuary, which was about a mile away from my lodge, so I could walk there.



I arrived in Joberg on Tuesday evening about 2 hours late. I was told this was due to the conflict in Yemen and the plane had to reroute instead of flying a direct route to SA. Which would of took it over Yemen after hearing the reason I wasn’t so upset with being late. I was surprised that my ride was still waiting for me. He was a very nice person and it seemed, as everyone I came into contact with was nice. We got to the lodge and I got settled in and that’s when I found out there was no public transport. Oh well, I only had two nights here. I was bored out of my skull on Wednesday except when I was walking around the bird sanctuary, and on Thursday morning I couldn’t wait to get to the airport. The lodge was a great place if you just want to sit and relax but sitting around stress me out. The host was very nice and the lodge was very clean and the meals were excellent except breakfast I like my bacon and eggs and all we had was fruit and yogurt.



Thursday morning arrives and its time to leave for the airport. Getting thru the airport was a little more difficult, my itinerary didn’t say anything about a flight change from emirates to South African airways but the only flight I could find was the South African airways. I guess I looked lost because one of the airport workers came over and asked what I was looking for. I told him and he grabbed my large suitcase and said follow me, and since he had my suitcase I did. He took me to a specific line and he spoke with the man at the counter. The agent called me over and looked at my itinerary told me my baggage was over weight by 4kg. So the man that was helping me took me to another area and he by passed about 8 people waiting in line and spoke to a young lady, she got up and came over to where I was waiting and took my receipt that I had gotten from the other attendant she told me it was going to be 140 rand which was about 12 bucks. I paid her she gave me another receipt and I followed my helper back to the first agent who looked at my receipt and printed out my boarding passes my helper than took me to another area where I had to get into line to go thru customs. If it had not been for him I probably would have missed my flight to Kruger. And yes I tipped him well.



Well I was time to board the bus that would take us to the plane that would take us to Kruger. I was able to get a seat on the bus it was a mostly standing up bus. Just before the bus left a young lady and her husband and kids got on the bus so I got up to let her have my seat she refused at first but I insisted. We arrived at the bus and after everyone got on it was still almost empty out of 37 seats there were only 13 people. Upon landing in Kruger there was a representative from the safari company there to meet us. There were to more Americans going to be with me. One was Chris and the other was Kyle one was from Alaska and the other was from Arizona but working in the Congo they were both college friends and turned out to be pretty good guys. We had gotten to the park early and couldn’t check into our rooms until 2pm so our guide took us to the restaurant and that is where Chris told me that the lady I gave my seat to on the bus was actually the oldest child on the sitcom with will smith, he told me her name but I don’t remember it. How ever she was now an adult with youngsters of her own, and a very big but nice husband.



Kyle, Chris and myself decided we would drink a beer and eat some lunch, we all ordered the same thing venison I could not believe how inexpensive it was to visit south Africa this meal cost me about 17 bucks, in the states it would of run me close to 35 or 40.we decide to sit on the deck that overlooked the river and we got to see some cape buffalo cross a few hundred meters up river from us. At 2pm our guide showed up and took us to our huts. These were traditional round huts with a thatched roof very nice inside; the two friends were staying in one across the street from mine. The only down fall I found was the beds were to small, I believe they were twin beds and I actually rolled out of mine on the first night.



The guide picked us up at 5pm and took us to where we would be eating supper before going out on our first game drive. This drive would be with the park rangers, when we had all gathered at the central campsite or eating area we were told that supper would be served when we got back from the game drive. They told us what was going to happen and then took us over to the park headquarters to meet the rangers, I’m guessing with all the different groups there, we had about 75 people but were divided into different trucks that would hold up to 24 people. Everyone from our safari group were able to get on the same truck, I was able to meet 3 young ladies from brazil that would be in our group for a couple of days and they would give me ideas about future vacations in south Africa more specifically Durban to cape town.



On our first ride we seen elephants, giraffes, lions, lots of impala, hippos, and a croc. We went looking for a leopard but all we found was her kill up in a tree, one person that had been sitting there watching the kill when we rolled up said we had just missed her and her cub by about 10 minutes. After it got dark we started spot lighting hoping to see lions or other predators hunting but we would not be that lucky. About 9pm we rolled back into camp. It was a very interesting evening.



That evening we had what was called a traditional African meal. With all the wild game there is roaming around you would think that there would be more meat in a meal, but this, was almost all veggies. In my world the word vegetarian is another name for bad hunter. I can do pretty much without vegetables but I have to have my meat. Need less to say I went to bed hungry that night; I tried to make up for the next morning by drinking lots of coffee. And eating a bunch of the little pastries they put out.



The morning of my first full day I elected to take a side trip on what they call a panorama road. This drive would be two of the girls from Brazil and me and our guide. We left camp at 6am and would not get back until 130pm. This drive would take us past forest of eucalyptus trees and water falls, banana groves, however the only animals we would see would be some hyenas leaving the park and some baboons close to one of the sites we were going to stop at called gods window. The ride itself was very nice, although the two girls slept all the way, we had three specific sites to visit today the first would be Lisbon falls the second would be gods window and the third would be a canyon that I cant remember the spelling of but I think it was something like blade river canyon but not sure about the name. Lisbon falls was nice we were there for about 30 minutes and then headed back to a town we had came thru to eat breakfast. The place we ate at was nice we sat on the patio and enjoyed the cool air and hot coffee, I had eggs with bacon and sausage which was really good, after breakfast we went to gods window which was an overlook area on a mountain looking out on a valley it was really nice even with the fog moving in and shutting everything down, we spent about an hour there because the girls tried to hike further up the mountain and got lost when the fog set in on them. We left there and had about an hours drive to get to the canyon, which I think was the best stop of the three. I roamed around quite a bit at the canyon rim looking for pictures from different angles and directions. I got a couple of the girls sitting on the edge of the canyon they didn’t know I was taking it until we got back to camp. I would try to describe these places but I don’t think I could do it like the pictures show.





That afternoon at 3pm we went on an animal drive and seen many of the same species we had seen the day before. But anytime in the bush watching animals or looking for animals is a good day. That afternoon we seen some rhino even seen a mother with her baby but couldn’t get a good picture. I was really looking for a leopard and a male lion. The only lions we had seen so far were females lying in the sun. We also saw some zebras and a waterbuck. And, some very interesting birds. The park closed at 6pm and anyone in the park after that was considered a poacher and subject to being shot. So we stayed as late as we could and than beat feet back to the gate that separated our camp from the park. Upon arriving back at camp the guide told us supper would be at 7pm. I made sure to ask if meat was included and he kind of laughed and said it would be. He was aware of my disappointment with the meal on the first night. I will say everyone else enjoyed the meal. And if there had been some meat I might have enjoyed it. But a meal with out meat is like asking someone if the wanted a cup of coffee and than handing him or her a cup of hot water.



Each morning and each evening was the same; we would meet for coffee and a snack before heading into the brush and than eat breakfast when we returned and everyone would talk about what they had seen. We had enough people in our group that we went in two different trucks and went in different directions. Although if anything exciting was spotted the guides would send each other messages on their phones. One morning we were out and came upon a mother elephant and her daughter just grazing, we were within about 50 feet of the mother, the daughter was on the other side of the road just off in the bush, we had made a mistake and gotten between the two of them but once the guide seen what happened he backed up the truck pretty quick. We watched them for about 20 minutes and got some decent pictures. As we pulled away from the elephants we noticed something walking on the road about 100 meters away, the guide said it was a leopard and stepped on the gas. I tried to take some pictures as we were pulling close to the cat. We stopped about 30 to 40 meters away and the cat walked down the road towards us about another 10 meters before turning off the road and into the bush. We watched her walk thru the brush and lay down on a small dirt mound. We left there and continued to a different area and seen a family of giant hornbills that we were told is a threatened species. We then started heading towards the camp as it was close to closing time and we had a ways to go. While we were eating breakfast the other group told us they had seen a group of 7 lions with 4 males, but they were more impressed with the leopard that we had seen.



That afternoon we went to were the group had seen the lions and they went to were we had seen the leopard, but we seen no lions and they seen no leopards, we did see a mother hyena laying in the road and she had a baby that was just off the side of the road playing like any puppy would do. You almost wanted to get out of the truck and play with him. We had seen some kudu and bushbucks, and a hippo and a baby crock in the pond as the hippo. And have course the usual groups of impala. We saw a group of mongoose the guide told us what kind they were but I can’t remember. We looked everywhere for the male lions but to no avail. We did see another leopard; it was a large male that we had mistaken as a female lion at the distance we were when we saw it. But as we got to the spot where it had crossed the road we were able to tell that it was a leopard. The guide said it was a very large male that frequented the area. When we got back to camp the other group said they had seen a lot of the usual stuff but no leopard, they couldn’t believe we had seen another leopard.



This the last mornings drive for me. I have to catch a plane at 1 o’clock for Joberg. The guide was still trying to get us our male lions but the weather had turned bad and the temps dropped pretty good, as a result this drive was probably the least productive. We did not see any lion’s male or female, this drive yielded just the usual antelope some elephants, a rhino. And some cape buffalo. As for me I enjoyed every minute I was out in the bush.



A little bit about the camp the name was skocusa. (Sp) it was almost like a small town. You had to be careful walking around there were wild animals that got in and the guide said there was a large leopard that hung around just out side the fence of the camp. Baboons would come into the camp and if you left any food out or your door unlocked they would destroy your camp. We also had a mother warthog with 3 youngsters that hung out in the village, I had to chase her off my steps one morning, I also walked up on a hyena walking to the main camp one morning at about 330am, that one scared me. Fortunately for me he was just as scared of me as I was of him. In the area where we ate breakfast and lunch we always had a troop of monkeys and one even chewed on my monopod and tried to steal one of cameras. My photo safari was just 2 full days with 2 half days I wish I had made it longer; I now know why people continue to go to South Africa time after time. I plan on going again and spending about 20 days, but I think I will rent a car and drive. There is just too much to see and do.







I hope you enjoy this and the pictures that go with it. I took close to 1000 pictures but cleaned them out to just over 500. I would love to hear any feedback, good or bad. Or if you have been to South Africa some ideas on where to visit on my next trip.

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