South African Safari- the real thing!

Kruger National Park in South Africa is larger than the country of Rwanda or the state of Rhode Island. Obviously we couldn't see the whole thing but our three days in the Range Rover were really cool. We flew into Johannesburg (Jo-burg as it's known locally) South Africa late Friday night and met up with Adeline, Caroline and Emi Ellis, friends from NY that we often travel with. A harrowing 15 hour flight brought them to Joburg and the Protea Hotel early Saturday morning. We got them settled in and then set out to explore the town for the afternoon.  Zoe had done a little research with friends who went to school there and we had a short itinerary of local sites on our agenda. Unfortunately the receptionist told us that those areas were unsafe and we would surely be mugged/throats cut if we walked around.

Nelson Mandela square

Not taking any chances, we took their advice and jumped on the Gautrain to Mandela Square for lunch and a quick walk around. Aside from a giant statue of Nelson Mandela it felt like a NJ mall. We walked a bit, had delicious Thai food for lunch then hired a taxi to take us to one of Zoe's recommended areas. Enough of Forever 21!











We had a rather questionable taxi ride through areas that were nothing like a mall and ended up in Maubonneng, the artistic section of town. We walked a bit went thru a few galleries and stores then took the train back home in one piece.

The girls and Nelson

Papa elephant

This bird has 13 colors

 

Same As above

Up close in the wild, so cute these giraffes

Next morning bright and early we zipped over to the airport, spent a little time buying Zulu jewelry in the shops then flew to Nelsbruit, where we were picked up by our So. African guide, Dave. Our safari began.
We spent the next 3 days in and out of a big Range Rover tracking anything we could find. First night we gave Dave the night off from "home-cooking" and opted for the great looking menu  in the restaurant in our camp ground. At a table overlooking the river we saw elephants, hippos and rhino's as we ate dinner. Dave was a scream and we had lots of fun with him. After a drink or two we confessed that we weren't really animal people and if we missed anything on the list we would not be crushed. Pressure off he turned out to be a a nice guy, well traveled, spoke perfect English and was well acquainted with the American political climate.

 When we weren't thrilled by the sites we spent time discussing the upcoming election and teaching Dave a few choice American expressions. His favorite had to be "why buy the milk when you get the cow for free?" courtesy of Paul, followed by I'm "jonesin" for a cuppa coffee and "We're off like dirty shirts". The scenery was incredible, the animals beautiful to see and the 4am sunrises spectacular. Enjoy the photos.

female lion guarding 2 dead buffalo

Dead buffalo waiting to be eaten by the lion pride

Dead buffalo at 7pm, here vulture covered carcass at 4am

Rhino crossing

Baby elephants were so cute

Hyena lying about in the sun

Dead hippo surrounded by crocodiles waiting to feast       

A view from the big Range Rover starting night tour

It was nice to see herds of animals roaming the park together/zebra and buffalo

We saw so many elephants but they were great to watch.

More elephants

Still blurry but beautiful

A little blurry but spectacular iridescent blue

The whole group preparing for another day looking for animals

Hyena by night using powerful flashlights

sunset over South Africa

Close up of rhinos- one of the "ugly five"

The time to see animals is early morning so Dave had us up at 4am each day to start the tracking. A few sips of instant coffee and we were on our way. The banana bread he made was delicious but we couldn't eat until 7 at least! We saw everything on our list except a leopard. Oh well, Nat Geo Wild can fill in for us! (we saw one in shadow, I'm sure)

Meet Dave our South African guide, we told him leave shirt on next photo

My beautiful Zoe getting ready to head out

Dave preparing breakfast after a 4am start looking for lions

Famous monkeys with blue genitals, my personal favorite!

Sunrise in Kruger

Elephants drinking and bathing

We saw a herd of elephants and watched them eat, bath etc. for about 30 min

Dave's breakfast: steak, eggs, sausage, bean salad and bread/butter

The park was beautiful and the scenery changed all the time. Sometimes lush, sometimes desert, sometimes rocky. It's was great driving through and watching the animals change with the scenery.

We saw herds of buffalo - they are huge!

a view from the camp range rover on night track

We went on a tracking adventure one night on a big RR bus with about 20 people. We were told to look for "yellow eyes" as we shined 2 lights out in the darkness. We could see shapes and were told to call out stop when we found something. I swear I saw a leopard but by the time the bus stopped and backed up so we could find the yellow eyes I saw, it was gone. Oh well. We did see 2 lions stalking, then chasing a kudu but they crashed into the brush so we didn't see what happened. Just a well, the chase was enough. We also saw 2 hyenas going after a baby hippo but again, have no idea if the hippo got to the river first. We were all rooting for the hippo.

view from our bungalow in camp

spectacular gold and black

rhinos in the wild

After almost 3 days in the park we spent our last afternoon visiting the Grand Canyon of South Africa and having lunch at a local well known spot- Harry's Pancakes. We had bacon and cheddar, shredded pork with apricot chutney and a traditional beef "pancake". We were expecting a crepes like pancake but they weren't kidding, real pancakes with meat. The scones were unbelievably delicious.

Deb and Adeline at the canyon

A view from the canyon

Third largest canyon in the world

Walking through the canyon

Zoe and Debra

Zoe and Caroline

 A view of local shops as we ate savory pancakes at Harry's

 

Gorillas! and the Icy'Ibwacu Village

A once in a lifetime experience....for me emphasis on once!

Gorilla passes cost $750 each for non residents and $375 for residents. Luckily Paul and I got resident visas and saved $750.

Once again we found ourselves at the crazy bus station in Nyabagogo for the 2 hour drive to Musanze, the start of the gorilla tour. Dan was with us and he was pretty amazed at the crowds and the general controlled confusion. We're getting used to it though and have now figured out the best way to deal with the crowds and the buses is to pick a clean, relatively comfortable looking bus going to our destination, and grab a good seat on it. The buses do not leave until every seat is full and sitting in a middle seat is really uncomfortable for 2 hours. Also they have a funny habit of closing all the windows if there is a drizzle or just to keep the breeze out. For me that is a killer. Especially since there are many "pungent" people riding the bus. Gotta have that window open!! They are happy to buy your ticket for you if you are already on the bus and we just read and people watch til take off.

Dinner in Musanze was surprisingly good. Unbelievably we found a little restaurant across from our hotel that makes homemade pasta. Go figure.

We were picked up at our hotel at 6:30am for a 40 minute drive to Volcano National Park in search of the gorillas in a Range Rover. The drive was really nice with several volcano's looming in the background.

Once at the park we met up with the all the other trekkers, where they split us up into groups of 8 or so, gave us a guide and assigned us a tracker and a specific gorilla family. That along with a cup of black coffee and a tribal dance send off and we were on our way.

Tribal send off

Paul and Dan before the hike

drummers and musicians

send off song

Our guide Francoise in green and porters in blue

They dry the chrysanthemums and use for natural insect repellent

The guide leads the way, the trackers are in the bush looking for the gorillas and the porters carry your gear. We had a bottle of water each and a muffin. Not much gear. Each group is a assigned a gorilla family and you head out to the point of your trek.
We started across a field of chrysanthemums, an easy walk, until we reached the entry point. The forest is primarily bamboo, nettles, very tall trees and lots of underbrush.

A small clearing in the dense brush. I hated being in the thicket where you couldn't see the sky

 Our guides led the way by hacking through the underbrush to create a path of sorts. It was very dense and it felt like we were bent over most of the time pushing the brush/nettles out of way and trying to find footing in lots of deep mud. You really couldn't stand up and hike and look around you. It rained quite a bit at first and between the heavy rain, slippery hilly terrain, and the ants and nettles I was more or less just tolerating the hike. It was steep going and we hiked laterally and up for almost 2 hours until we were told the gorillas were close by. I was first in line and our guide was a little ahead, then, just as I stepped out into a small clearing there was a really big gorilla just sitting there in front of me, not doing anything, just sitting in the rain. That was pretty exciting!

Sitting in the rain

This was a big guy just watching us

Our whole group filed around the gorilla in a wide semi circle standing quietly at the edge of the clearing and we stood there for about 5min taking pictures. Paul leaned over and said, if this is all there is, it's not worth $750! That was not all there was!

The rain stopped and the trackers beat around the bushes so to speak and soon we had lots of gorillas in our little clearing. Then the excitement began.

A little scary

The really big leader of the pack

Number two guy and pregnant gorilla

  First the "number three" male gorilla came out, beat on his chest and jumped around a little. Then a pregnant gorilla sort of trudged into the clearing and laid down in the brush just hanging out. A few other gorillas came out and they all sat around eating, scratching, etc doing gorilla things. Then a really big gorilla, "number two" male came lumbering in.

staying dry

He went up to the pregnant one and started smacking her around. (our guides explained that he was irritated because she was pregnant by number three male.) Then number three comes over to the rescue and all three of them start with a little fisticuffs. Let me tell we were in a clearing that it wasn't that big and having 3 big gorillas smacking each other around was a bit nerve wracking. Now we have big gorilla number two diagonally opposite me in the clearing. He beats his chest again then takes off across the clearing directly at me. I really didn't know what to do or expect. I was concerned he was going to smack me too!! He stopped and turned around just as he reached me and stayed there, his leg touching my leg, and glared at the group. Geez!

Mama and baby

 Of course the guides said not to worry they were just playing, BUT, put down your cameras and quietly take a few steps backward. Not so easy to do on a steep, slippery hill, but believe me we stepped back. Then all three fighting gorillas dashed off down the hill, squeezing into the small space between me and Dan and Paul. So much action!

rolling around and hanging out

Paul standing in the clearing

The funny part is they warned us not to get too close and certainly don't feed them or touch them. I don't think the gorillas got the memo. I was a little concerned because one of the trackers had a gun and we were told that if anything happens they would most likely shoot us before they would shoot a gorilla!

Well once the excitement died down, we continued to stand there watching the gorillas for about an hour and then we hiked back down. After awhile the leader of the pack, a huge silver-back, came in walking on hands and legs and boy was he big. I was happy he wasn't part of the "playing" earlier or we could have all fallen down the hill! There was a new baby and nursing mom and several young gorillas so we were pretty impressed with the whole experience by then. As an added treat the guide told us we were really blessed because the entire time we hiked through the forest we could see the golden monkeys way high up in the trees. Usually you have to pay another $100 to hike up and see the monkeys!

These bad boys were really high up!!

After the gorillas it's typical for people to visit the Iby'Iwacu Cultural village located just outside the park. I went the day before and enjoyed learning about the old Rwandan Culture. What I didn't know was that people don't really live there and that the guides call and make a reservation for you. I was the ONLY ONE there and they did their thing in the poring rain just for me! They were great. It's a model of the typical forest village with all the aspects of everyday life enacted out. Thank goodness the rain stopped, these poor warriors were freezing.

A wet and rainy welcome at the Iby'Iwacu Cultural Village

Fierce but friendly warriors

The Medicine Man putting out his herbs

Using a mortar and pestle he made a  concoction

The bellows of animal skin and wood used to heat the metal

Working the bellows

Making a knife hammering the hot metal

Grinding sorghum on a stone for flour

Demonstrating his bow and arrow

 This guy was really funny. He gave me a lesson in using this bow and arrow. It was not nearly as easy to keep the arrow on the bow and keep the string taut as I thought it would be.

Lesson in progress

He loved posing for the camera!

  The village was really nice but I felt a little anxious the whole time being the only guest. At the end they asked what I thought of the whole experience. They described themselves as poachers and in fact they were. This group lived in the area of the National Park  until the war was over and the country began preserving the gorillas and park land. They brainstormed and came up with creating this village to preserve their customs and give them an opportunity to earn money. Village entrance fee is $20 and they sell some of their crafts in their "general store"

General store

They re-enacted a wedding scene: Lots of pressure on the groom. If he doesn't perform he has to leave the marriage hut and go see the medicine man. They have a traditional version of Viagra!

The bride is carried in by family/friends

The procession bearing gifts (typical Rwandan baskets)

Bride is brought to the marriage hut

everyone waits outside until the bride indicates

 her husband has successfully consummated the marriage!

And of course finished off the tour with a drum concert and dancing.

The dancing begins

Intore warrior dance

the women are so graceful-farewell dance

It was a big two days and we were happy we went. Not sure I'll go looking for gorillas again, but we have a bigger safari on the horizon in South Africa so I'm sure I'll more animal stories to write about.