Kruger National Park

Whenever I've thought of game parks in the past I've always pictured bumpy, narrow dirt roads winding through the African bush and crude camps where visitors can get a few hours sleep and nothing more. When I visited the Serengeti it surprised me partly because it was so much like what I had pictured before I came to Africa. South Luangwa Park in Zambia was similar in that it had the bumpy roads and the crude camps; the only real difference was the landscape. Those parks fit my stereotypical impression partly because they are in developing countries. South Africa's Kruger National Park is different.

Kruger is an African game park with all the comforts of home. The main roads in the park are actually paved, meaning that people like me can drive in with a Toyota Yaris from Budget Rent-A-Car and spot elephants and rhinos while blasting the techno/hip-hop mix playing on South Africa's “Five FM” radio station. By 6:00 at night all visitors must be inside one of Kruger's eight fenced camps. The two “camps” I've been to so far have really been the size of small towns. Inside the fence there is a campground for people who have their own equipment, but there are also bungalows, guesthouses, and lodges to fit all price ranges. Each camp also has a reception, a lobby, a gift shop, one or two restaurants, a cafeteria, a laundrymat, and sometimes even an internet cafe.

I enjoyed the Serengeti and South Luangwa because when I visited those places I really felt like I was out in the middle of nowhere in the African bush. Kruger isn't like that at all, but I still really enjoy it for what it is. During the day time it's easy to turn off onto a dirt road and drive fifty miles from the nearest camp, but at night it feels good to come back to a nice sit-down meal and then watch one of the wildlife movies playing at the camp's large outdoor amplitheatre.

I began my day by leaving Skukuza Camp just before sunrise and heading East towards Satara Camp, where I had booked a bungalow for tonight. My first sighting of the day was an elephant munching on some trees. Only five or ten minutes after leaving this morning I passed by the animal, hit the brakes, and pulled to the side of the road to get a better look. After turning down the hip hop beats on Five FM and shutting off the engine, the silence of the African bush emphasized that myself and the elephant were the only two beasts around. I sat, stared, and listened as the elephant tore branches and leaves away from a nearby tree and shoved them into his mouth. I've seen plenty of wild elephants before, of course, and I saw plenty more later today, but there was something incredible about coming face to face with one for the first time myself, all alone, and without any guide or driver assisting me. After watching for a few minutes I headed off in search of another discovery. I decided that I prefer dirt roads to paved ones, so I turned onto Kruger's unpaved S36 and spent most of the morning following it North towards Satara.Giraffes, Zebras, and Impala are a dime a dozen in Kruger. Even though the novelty of seeing those animals wears off quickly, occasionally there is a sighting involving them that is pretty impressive. Turning a corner on a dirt road in the middle of the bush and finding myself in the center of a herd of fourteen large giraffes today was one such occasion. Again, I shut off the car and spent some time just sitting and watching. A few of the giraffes picked at Acacia trees near the side of the road, and two of them stopped in their tracks and stared back at me as if I were as exotic to them as they were to me. After several minutes I started up the car and drove closer to a giraffe grazing on the other side of the road. When I approached he left his tree to join his buddies and walked across the road only ten or fifteen feet in front of my car. The giraffe was literally so close that I had to lean all the way forward in my seat and look upwards through the windshield to see his long neck and head.I arrived at Satara just before noon, took a quick hot shower and a nap, then headed back out at 1:30 to search for more animals. Many giraffes, zebras, and impala later I finally came across a small herd of elephants. First I spotted two of them grazing on the side of the road, then I saw that there were two more nearby. I shut off the car and watched, but I also new I had to careful. Elephants are usually peaceful, but under certain circumstances they can become belligerant and even dangerous. Careful not to intimidate the elephants, I started the car when I was through watching and avoided driving in any way that could be construed as approaching them. I didn't even drive one hundred feet before I spotted another large male elephant and a baby blocking the road in front of me. The view was great, but it also meant that I had to wait for them to leave, as trying to drive around them could be the beginning of a disaster. After waiting for a few minutes I noticed one of the other elephants walking towards my car in the rear-view mirror.Being surrounded by wild elephants was a little uncomfortable for me. I knew that it was unlikely any of them would attack me or the vehicle, but if either the elephant behind me or the one in front of me got upset and decided to charge, there would be nowhere to drive but straight towards another elephant. Fortunately the one behind me crossed to the other side of the road and when the elephant in front of me moved to the side a little, I floored it and rallied past, leaving the animal in a cloud of dust behind me.The icing on the cake today was seeing a family of spotted hyenas on my way back to Satara. I've seen a few hyenas in the past, but I've only seen one or two at a time and it always has been from a distance. Todays hyenas were impossible to miss. While driving on Kruger's paved H1-4 road I saw what looked like a lump of road kill in the distance. When I got closer I saw that the road kill was acutally a lazy hyena who had decided that the warm tarred road would be a perfect place for him to nap away the afternoon. Some people in another car nearby me had stopped to watch something else on the side of the road and when I looked over I saw a large male hyena, two cubs, and one very small baby hyena. A few more cars stopped while passing by and the baby hyena was the star of the show. The cubs rolled and played on the road and the baby, who was so young that his dark fur coat didn't show any sign of spots, tagged along and climbed in and out of a small shelter nearby.As with every day I've spent on wildlife safaris this trip, I saw and experienced so much that it wouldn't be reasonable to write about it all. In a nutshell, besides the three sightings that I already wrote about I also saw buffalo, crocodiles, rhino, more kudu than I care to count, plenty of wildebeast, and several species of exotic wild birds. I also passed by a whole lot of elephant dung in the road that was the size of soccer balls.

I'm optimistic about tomorrow. Todays sightings have been good, but this is really a pretty dry time of year and I think most of the animals will be further South where the climate is a little wetter. I bought a book about spotting wildlife in Kruger yesterday and it looks like some of the best places to see game are near Lower Sabie, exactly where I'm headed tomorrow morning.