Spring Vacation

Last week was my spring vacation. I was lucky enough to have two springs this year. I love spring so really it is a blessing. It reminds me of growth and renewal and I feel like being in Africa has given me the opportunity to grow and be broadened and renewed in life.

Anyways, Lane and I decided to go to Kruger National Park on spring vacation. We planned to fly into Johannesburg and then rent a car and drive to Kruger. We would then go for a few days across the border to a tented camp right in Mozambique. It was an 8 day trip and proved to be eventful, fun and an opportunity for great life lessons.

We left early on Saturday morning for our trip to Johannesburg. Everything went to plan. The airport in Cape Town is under construction right now in order to improve the facilities for the world cup. As a result, it was interesting because the domestic terminal was literally a tent with doors. We had to board a bus and board the plane on the Tarmac. The flight was about two hours and they actually fed us real food, which was a big plus.

In Johannesburg we went to go rent the car. However, we learned that car rental companies are real jerks. They wanted to charge us about $150 more than they quoted us and it was going to be expensive so we declined taking the car and were going to arrange our own transportation. It was a little bit of a risky move but we figured we weren’t leaving until the next day anyways so if we couldn’t figure out transportation we could always go and pay the amount for the car. But, the clerk didn’t tell us the total amount for the car until after he had already swiped Lane’s credit card. He didn’t ask for any permission and as a result he placed a hold on Lane’s account for about $1000. Being college students, we of course don’t have a huge credit limit or enough money to cover an extraneous $1000 to be missing. Especially since, I lost my debit card a couple weeks ago and am still waiting on the replacement from the states. Anyways, so we asked when the hold would be removed and they said 7-14 days. Lane and I were so frustrated because they didn’t even ask for permission and now we were going to be stuck literally without money at the beginning of our trip and it wouldn’t be returned for one, maybe two weeks. In effect, it all worked out after an expensive call to the states to Bank of America where we asked them to remove the hold because apparently the car company didn’t have the authority to do that. But it all worked out.

We stayed in a Backpacker’s in Johannesburg . Our room was a little cabin out in the backyard. It was quite eccentric but I found out that all hostels are a little eccentric. The manager was really kind and helpful. He arranged to pick us up from the airport after we told him what had happened and then gave us suggestions for how to get to Kruger. We booked a bus that left the next day and the manager arranged for our transport to the bus station. Things were beginning to look up.

We took the bus from Johannesburg to a town called Phalaborwa (pronounced pal-a-bor-a….don’t ask me why). It is a little town right outside one of the gates of Kruger. If we had driven, the trip would have taken about 6 hours but the bus made many stops and it seemed that each time we stopped it was for about 30 min so our trip became a 9 hour trip. It was nice way to travel though because we were on a double decker bus and Lane and I had the very front seats with a great panoramic view. We saw the landscape of the countryside and visited many cities. In addition, the long ride gave us a chance to get at least a little school work done ( I had a test on Tuesday and Lane had a paper due on Monday).

In Phalaborwa, we stayed at another Backpacker’s. They had so many dogs. I think there were 6 running around the property. Anyways, we had gotten to Phalaborwa but there is not a transport system within Kruger so we weren’t really sure how we were going to get around in Kruger. We already had a night reserved in Mopani, which is a rest camp in Kruger and then the day after we had to be in Letaba so somehow we had to arrange transport. We got into Phalaborwa around 7pm and we immediately asked how we might be able to get transport. They gave us a number for a transport company. I called them and by some miracle they had a vehicle and a driver to take us everywhere we needed to go.

The next day, Monday, Cornelius, with Africa Unlimited picked us up from the Backpacker’s and drove us to Mopani. Cornelius was from Holland. He really loved Kruger and all the wildlife. When they came to pick us up, we were very surprised. I was envisioning a transport vehicle and that many people would be on these vehicles. However, the vehicle that showed up was a twelve person van and Lane and I had actually reserved the whole thing. In effect, we had a private tour of Kruger National Park. The journey was supposed to take about 90 min but Cornelius drove very slowly through the park so that he could show us as many animals and interesting tidbits as possible. The journey ended up lasting 3 hours and we had hundreds of pictures. It was great. If we had driven ourselves, I am confident that we wouldn’t have learned half of that stuff about Kruger, so really it turned out to be one of our better and cheaper decisions not to rent the car. Anyways, he dropped us off at Mopani . He was going to come back the next morning to take us to Letaba where we already had transport into Mozambique.

Mopani was beautiful. We had a little bungalow with a view of a river. While we were eating a snack outside, an elephant actually came to visit the river and gave himself/herself a shower. It was great fun to watch. Additionally, the night sky was full of more stars than I have ever seen in my life. It was absolutely beautiful. Actually after we ate dinner we had to find our way back to the bungalow, but it was so dark that we had to use the flash on the camera to find our way and scare away any pending animals. Thus, we have some really....awesome picutres of abosultely nothing but they serve as a reminder of a really funny event.

The next day was more of the same. We drove the two-hour trip to Letaba stopping along the way to take pictures of the wildlife. We saw many prey but no predators…but maybe that is a good thing. At Letaba , we were picked up by Haney. We found out that he was the camp manager at Machampane Tented Camp, where we would be staying. He had an open game drive vehicle, which is basically a pick-up truck with a compartment of seats mounted on the bed of the truck. We got an awesome panoramic view of everything around. On the way to Mozambique, we stopped to look at a dead buffalo and the vultures eating it…it was a little awkward but pretty cool nonetheless. The whole landscape looks pretty dry in the winter. I had seen pictures of the camp and it looked green and lush and I didn’t know how everything could change so dramatically but after three hours of driving on dusty, bumpy roads we came down a hill and out of nothing, emerged a river and the camp sitting pretty and green amongst the dry, dry surroundings.

Machampane was everything that it promised. Five platform tents lined a pool of water (when it rains, it becomes the Machampane river). However, the platform tents were really luxurious because theyhad their own bathroom attached with running water. In addition, the beds were made up with fluffy linens. Really it was like any hotel room in the states minus the fact that the wall were made of canvas and you got in through a zippered opening. Lighting was a little different though it wasn’t really an issue. The camp only ran a generator 4 hours out of the day and this was mainly to charge batteries. Our tent had four 12V lights and that was all we needed. During the day, when the generator was running he said that we could charge our camera batteries in part of the main camp.

When we arrived we noticed that no other visitors were introduced to us, and so quickly we found out that we were actually the only people in the camp that week. At first I was a little disturbed by that fact because the workers at the camp wanted to serve us but I felt awkward because we were the only people being served and I didn’t like that position of privilege. However, this fact, despite its awkwardness, also allowed us to be really candid with the staff and they could cater the walks to our needs and interests.

Most of the staff, minus Haney, were local hires. For some, English was difficult and we weren’t able to communicate well with them. The native languages of the area were Portuguese and Shangan neither of which I remotely know at all. But as always language isn’t necessarily important to communication.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, at this camp, they take the guests on walks through the African bush with an armed ranger so the staff that we interacted with were mostly our guide (Haney), guide in training (Peterson), and the park ranger (Julius) who wielded the AK47 in our defense against the wildlife. We did find out that Julius has never had to use his weapon while on a walk and that was a very comforting notion. We walked twice a day. In the morning, we would leave at 6:30am and walk for 3-4 hours. In the middle, we enjoyed a little pause to watch animals and eat some snacks. The pace was leisurely and we stopped many places to learn about plants, animals, tracks, and everything else you can imagine on the trail. However, I wouldn’t really call them trails because most of the time we were tromping through the African bush. I was so fortunate to have guides who knew where everything was because I could have been lost in one millisecond.

On our walks we tried to go to watering holes because in the winter that is essentially the only place to see wildlife. We found out that this park in Mozambique was very new. Before hand, it had essentially been devoid of wildlife due to Mozambique’s civil war, etc. Anyways, a few years ago, Kruger donated many of their animals to Limpopo National Park and the fence between the two parks was in the works to be removed so that animals could freely move from one side to the other. As a result, there were far fewer animals in the Limpopo Park and they were much less domesticated. In Kruger, if you drove up to an animal, they wouldn’t budge because they see cars and people on a daily basis. However, I felt that these animals were much more wild and this gave us an authentic viewing of the wildlife.
Something exciting happened on the return of our first walk. In camp there is a tree overlooking the river. In that tree, a green mamba snake was spotted. I am not a huge fan of snakes or really things that can kill me in general. Well green mamba snakes are very deadly and if bitten by one, you could die within a half hour from paralysis. Fortunately we also learned that they are shy and don’t like to bite. Later that day, the snake was gone and the next day was out of our minds as well.

One other exciting event was the last night at dinner. We were peacefully enjoying our meal (the food was awesome…cooked by local women and featured Mozambiquan flavors) and a low growl emerged from what seemed like just across the river. Then we heard an elephant trumpet in response. According to our guides, if the lion didn’t back off, it would be dead by the morning. It was very exciting to hear.
We left Machampane and Mozambique with many memories and stories which are too numerous to repeat here and so as not to drone on I won’t.

The return trip was much like way in, though Haney was able to take us all the way to Phalaborwa because he had to go there anyways. It was a stroke of good luck that saved us lots of money. We left Phalaborwa the next day, Saturday, got to Johannesburg that evening and took a flight back to Cape Town that night. Nothing was really too exciting about the journey.

We were actually really looking forward to being back in Cape Town because as much fun as our trip was, it was going to be nice not to have to think and adapt at every moment. It was an interesting thought to me because I realized in that moment how much I had adapted to living life in Cape Town and going to the university there. In fact, it has become home in many respects. I mostly know what is happening around me and can navigate through the matrix of everyday life with ease. I realize now how much I have already learned on my trip and how much more I can learn with the remaining portion. Spring vacation was an eye opening adventure that I will remember forever.