The flight yesterday was uneventful, the picking up of the rental car likewise and even the 5-hour or so trip to our lodgings in Hazyview, right outside Kruger, went fairly smoothly (I only took the wrong road twice, both times due to a horrendous lack of signposting). Once we'd settled in at the hotel we had a huge dinner and in the wee early hours today (I'm talking pick-up outside the hotel at 5am), we went on a real, muthafuckin safari tour of the western parts of the park.
The view from our front porch. We stayed at Nabana Lodge, where the food was good and the rooms were clean, but chilly. The wifi was near non-existent and they closed down the common area (the only place with some chance of a connection) around 9pm.
Our first encounter with the local wildlife was this very friendly golden retriever, who enjoyed both a good cuddle and some choice pieces of my steak.
We drove in through the Numbi gate, which goes through a rougher neighborhood, but has much shorter lines than the Phabeni gate a bit further north. Both are about 15-20 minutes from Hazyview proper. We drove a small truck and let me tell you, it was COLD, especially since the wind came wailing through exposed areas of the canvas walls. Brrrr. Still, I would recommend a safari, at least for your first visit to the park. It helps you get a feel for the layout and distances and since the cars are in radio contact, you will usually see some stuff you probably would have otherwise missed. We were reasonably happy with our tour, although I thought our guide was a bit of a jerk - he told us he would not speak to people unless they greeted him properly first. Still, he seemed well acquainted with the animals of the park and fairly free of political correctness in his description of the various nationalities that came to visit. According to him, the Chinese were mainly interested in how something tasted, while people from India were very racist towards the blacks.
My first pic inside the park: A lion drinking at one of the articially built reservoirs.
As you can see, it was still a bit dark. We would never have gone here and seen this, if not for splurging on a safari. Just seeing this beautiful, young male lion was worth the cost of the safari.
A bit later, we came to the Kruger gate and saw our first warthog. It is quite common to see them kneeling, as they're digging for food in the ground with their snouts.
We had brunch at the main camp of Kruger, Skukuza. They have a very good restaurant there, where you can load up with tons of carbs, protein and fat at very reasonable prices.
Typical South African river landscape.
We soon saw our first of many, many elephants. We were told that there were actually too many of them in the park and they were wreaking havoc with some of the trees and plant life there. They're not exactly careful eaters when they start tearing up a tree.
A whole family of warthogs.
Ever the Hawkeye, I spotted our only rhino of the day (but far from the last of the trip). Early on, we were told by our guide that he wanted to just do very brief stops, if stopping at all, when we saw ordinary animals like elephants and impalas and giraffes, because those were animals we'd be able to see on our own later on. However, when I questioningly pointed out the rhino, the message was clear: "We stop for rhinos". He later told us that, due to the poaching problem, the tour guides would never reveal the location of rhinos over the radio; in fact it was not advisable to even point them out to other cars even when you were looking right at one. The poachers are sneaky bastards and will often scout and pose as regular tourists.
We soon found out that this rhino had a companion. They were ambling along peacefully, so maybe it was mother and child or a couple looking to mate.
My first lioness pic. About half a dozen of 'em had taken down a cape buffalo and were merrily devouring the carcass. Again, we would probably not have happened upon this, if not for the radio our guide had.
Killing buffalo is hard work. This was probably the top female of the pack and the one chiefly responsible for the kill. She was visibly panting hard the whole time we were there, and that must have been a good 20-30 minutes.
Here is my first video from Kruger, a one minute clip of the lions feasting on the buffalo.
We also caught a brief glimpse of some giraffes.
This kudu was not angry with me, just very, very disappointed.
Some purdy scenery from the Voortrekker Road, a gravel road that stretches from a bit east of Numbi gate to roughly the Afsaal picnic site. To us, it proved a veritable gold mine of photo ops the next day.
This cape buffalo was sticking his tongue out at me. Very rude.
Finally, these buffalo were part shocked, part disgusted to see us. They were not the first, nor the last in that respect.
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