Kruger Park

First, a disclaimer: For those of you at home waiting to hear from your student, we still don’t have internet access – although our kind guide Shane has once again made his laptop available for us to write a blog entry, so that you all can know that we are well and having an incredible time. Through the miracles of kindness and insanely amazing technology, Shane is sending this entry through his cell phone from the remote and wild Kruger Park camp where we are staying. We are just back from a 7 hour animal drive (starting at 6:00 AM) where we saw so many wild animals it is almost indescribable in the wonder.

Right now, I’m sitting on the porch of the thatch roof bungalow where we are staying (we have a number of these small bungalows). The porch is tiled, with a dining set and kitchen outside, and we look down directly over the Shipandani River. It is completely wild on the other side, and last night, we could hear the lions calling out. Just minutes ago a lone buffalo waded into the river, not 300 feet away. It is humid and about 80 degrees, very pleasant. We have free time until 6:00 when we head out on a night drive (with a spotlight to try to surprise the nocturnal animals). We are going to have a fire and bush brai for dinner tonight, and if it is anything like last night, we’ll be able to see an incredible number of stars. It is so clear here, and the sky is so bright, we were able to see the Milky Way last night. It was…amazing.

Several students used this afternoon free time to go on a game walk. Diane, Jameson, and Chris are out there right now, with two armed rangers, walking through the bush. Several others, Angie, Becky, and Laura, went swimming in the camp swimming pool. Others (including Damond and Kati) are doing laundry by hand and hanging it outside the bungalows to dry. I suspect others are catching up on their sleep with a little nap. It is so calm and peaceful here!

When we drove into Kruger Park yesterday, we came in through the Phalambora gate, which is a little more north than the typical entry points. The terrain here is mainly rolling and flat, and filled with Mopani trees, which are kind of small and scrubby looking. As it is autumn here, the leaves are starting to turn, so we can see the orange-y gold colors mixed with the greens. There is a lot of savanna grass too. Every now and then there are stands of larger trees, especially along the rivers. We have found a number of buffalo herds under the trees. The buffalo are huge, and are apparently one of the more dangerous animals here. They get mad easily, they stampede, and they are in large groups. When we were all walking yesterday (with armed rangers!) one of our groups came close to a herd of buffalo. Our rangers stopped us and warned us to be very quiet. But the buffalo heard us, and we could here some snorting and loud breathing, and then there was a loud noise, and suddenly they were stampeding. It sounded like a movie sound effect! Fortunately, the buffalo went in the other direction, I should add!

As we were trying to get to our camp (about 2 hours into Kruger Park) yesterday, we were kept seeing animals out the windows of our bus. At one point, we saw three elephants on the side of the road (our first elephants!). The bus stopped and we were busy exclaiming and taking photos, when we slowly realized that our driver and guide didn’t seem happy. Then we watched as the largest elephant (who was only an adolescent male) began pulling his ears back. That’s a sign that he was feeling challenged. He started putting his weight towards his back feet, as if he was going to start charging us. Then the smaller two elephants crossed the road, and then another group, and then more and more elephants appeared! But as the elephants began to gather around on either side of the road, our driver was increasingly nervous. He slowly started to back up the bus. We couldn’t go past the elephants as they might consider it a challenge (and we were being challenged by the adolescent male who first caught our attention). We waited and waited, as at least 30 elephants crossed the road, mostly large females and children (and one tiny baby, which of course, is a relative thing). After most of the elephants were across, the aggressive male (who our driver called ‘the naughty one,’) crossed the road, still trying to stare us down. Our driver began slowly inching forward, afraid that they would charge the bus. But as we got really close, we won the game of chicken. The naughty one reared up, flapped his ears, trumpeted, and ran away. We were all literally screaming, with both joy and excitement, and probably a little fear tossed in. Just yesterday morning, there was a photo on the front page of the paper of a little car crushed by an angry elephant. And apparently busses have actually been flipped by angry elephants, so perhaps we can say we barely escaped with our lives!

Today, we stayed mainly on the bus. Humans are not allowed to walk in the park unless with a ranger, and there are only a very few walking paths. We are also not allowed to get off the bus except on bridges. They are very strict about their environmental guidelines. And I suppose it is an issue of safety as well.

But even on the bus we had an amazing experience! We started out by seeing three hyenas crossing the road. We got quite close to them, as they stared at us and we stared at them. They were very strange looking and very intense. Apparently it is very rare to see hyenas, and they estimate that there are only 2000 in the whole park (which is the size of England). We saw a number of different elephant groups, including some that were actually frolicking and spraying each other in the water. We saw SO many impala, which look like small deer, with the males having twisting black horns. They have black and white markings on their rumps, and our guide said that because the markings look like the letter ‘m,’ and everyone eats the impalas, they call them the McDonald’s of Kruger Park. In fact, we saw so many herds of impalas that by the end of our drive today, we had become jaded. I actually overheard one student point out another herd of Impala, and another student say ‘so what.’ It was really kind of funny, in a gentle sort of way.

We also saw hippos in the Letaba River. They were amazing, and one of them was very aware of us watching them. He kept surfacing, looking straight at us, while shaking his tiny Shrek-like ears to free them of water so he could keep an ear out for us. We could see the darkness of their bodies under the water, although they only ever surfaced with their eyes and tops of their heads. At the same time as we were watching the hippos, a herd of elephants was down the river, drinking and splashing.

We also saw giraffes, which sort of lope along at a fairly great speed. We did see one group of three of them, including two youngsters, right up close to us on the road. We saw others, head, neck, and shoulders only, through the scrub. Their heads gently bob forward as they walk. It was amazing to see.

We saw several small groups of zebras, and just as we were heading back, we saw a larger group near a watering hole. One of them came up closer to us, and seemed almost the pose, slowly facing us, then turning to the side so we could take photos while the sun made the stripes shine. Zebras look just like horses, and they seem to look at us people in the same way that horses look at us, with a quiet kind of intelligence. Perhaps we were anthropomorphizing them, but it sure did seem like that zebra was looking at us with some kind of understanding.

We also saw a single small Steen Bok, some Waterbuck, a mixed-up female Kudo hanging out with a bunch of Impala, and countless giant Termite mounds. The Termite mounds are giant chimneys for the huge Termite colonies under ground. Some of the mounds are easily more than 15 feet high, and we have at several points mistaken them for Giraffe necks from a distance. At the base of the mounds, we can see small holes bored into the dried mud from predator foraging. The mounds are very striking and interesting.

We have not seen lions, or any of the cat family. We also haven’t seen a Rhino either, although we are hopeful of seeing both as we drive south tomorrow.

The animals seem to be unafraid of us for the most part, and unafraid of each other. Of course, we haven’t seen any of the top predators, and the picture might change then, but we have seen a number of different types of animals close by each other seemingly peacefully. For example, at one point today, by a large wide river bed, we saw an adult Giraffe slowly bend his front legs to drink from the water, with three Impalas only feet away. Only 100 feet away, a large herd of giant black Buffalo rested under a stand of trees. There was a Fish Eagle in one of the trees above the buffalo.

We’ve seen a number of wonderful birds today too. The most beautiful by far was the brilliantly colored Lilac Breasted Roller, which was royal blue and robin’s egg blue on his belly, purple on his chest, turquoise on his head, and brown and white on the rest of his body. When he took wing, he flashed us with the brilliant blue under his wings. We also saw Pintailed Whydahs, with very long black tails, and a number of crested fancolins. The Whydahs are black and white only in mating season, and then the the males turn brown to match the females for the rest of the year.

Today at lunch, which we ate out on a great veranda at Letabi Camp, we were overlooking a large river basin. The birds flew right in to join us. At one point, someone put down a bowl of cut fruit, turned away for a moment, and turned back to find the bowl surrounded by birds of all types, from Bul Buls to Red Wing Starlings, to shiny blue Burchell Starlings. It happened so suddenly and we all saw it happen, and it was almost out of the movie The Birds.

Right now, as I type, we have a medium size greenish yellow bird, with a large orange beak and bright black and white checkered wings watching us. We think it is a Crested Barbet. A grey Gymmogene is lurking about ten feet away, with its head like a parrot and its body like a large pigeon. We are also being stalked by several small grey squirrels, which I suppose must get fed by occupants of the bungalow as they visit.

There are no machine sounds around us, only nature, which right now mostly sounds like singing insects and birds. It is unbelievably peaceful. We are actually whispering as we talk here, and it is completely unconscious. It somehow seems to fit the peace of the place.

In the past few days, we have left the escarpment where Johannesburg was located. The escarpment is very far above sea level (with an altitude close to Denver’s). It is mineralogically rich, which of course accounts for Johannesburg itself (as a gold mine city). As we drove out of Johannesburg, the area seemed very dry and flat, much like Southern California. Apparently, almost all the trees (of which there were few) were imported by the British. We passed six major power plants, built right on top of large coal deposits. The power plants had a very forbidding appearance, but that may have been because they each had 6 giant cooling towers of the type that in the US we use for nuclear power plants. There were a number of mines, mainly strip mines, along the highway. It wasn’t really a very beautiful drive until we sta rted to reach Mpumbalanga, which is kind of hilly and mountainous.

We stayed overnight at Graskop, which is an old Victorean era mining town, now rather charming and arty. We had pancakes at Harrie’s Dutch Pancake House, which was amazing. We also had a chance to look down over the edge of the escarpment, a mile down into the bushveldt, or lowlands, where we are now. The escarpment ends suddenly, with a huge drop-off. We stood at the edge, looking down and seemingly able to see forever, and the mist was gold and pink from the setting sun, and it felt truly like a miracle, one of those moments that actually touch the heart and make a person feel larger and better. It was amazing.

We saw a number of the gorgeous geological formations along what they call the Panorama Route. Bourke’s Luck Potholes, worn into the rock cliffs as two large rivers meet, and of course, we saw the Blyde River Canyon and the Three Rondewals. The view there was also very powerful, much like looking out over the grand canyon, except here it was green and alive, and the canyon walls were bright yellow and red and orange from lichen.

We are all well, and having a wonderful time. This is a great group. Kruger is amazing (I know I keep using the work amazing, but it is the best word for this experience. Really). We'll write more when we have regular internet access, which may be in a few days….