I think when people think of going to South Africa, the first travel activity they think of is going on a safari. It was certainly my first thought when the chance to go to South Africa came up. Along with going to Robben Island, the safari was one of the things I was most looking forward to doing. I will say the safari was magical. But first we had to get there….
Day Three – Toboggan and Gruskorp Gorge and arrival at Safari Lodge. After a filling breakfast buffet at our hotel in Johannesburg (there was an omlette bar!), we loaded into our bus and left Sandton (a suburb of Johannesburg) and started our trip to Kruger National Park. We departed at 8am, in order to beat the traffic. This turned out to be a day with lots of driving, but the itinerary had some fun stops along the way.
First up after a few hours was a rest stop. This was exciting for me because we got to check out all the fun snacks that were available at a rest stop. The snack shop at the rest stop was where I first came across Biltong. Biltong is a South African cured meat – it is air dried, so it is not as tough a jerky. It is also marinated in vinegar, so it’s taste profile is not smoky like jerky. I’ve read a description of it as a cross between jerky and prosciutto. The biltong stand was in the back corner of the convenience store – there were several trays of biltong one could choose from, and the attendant would scoop whatever you wanted into a paper bag for you. (I read later to never buy pre-packaged biltong.) I didn’t have the courage to try the biltong this first time that I saw it, but I love jerky so the idea intrigued me and I kept it in the back of my mind. We instead got some candy, including Peppermint Crisp, which our tour guide told us was his favorite South African candy. Peppermint crisp is chocolate with mint candy inside, sort of like pop rocks. The 13 year old also got a slushie – I guess it’s fun to try favorite snacks in foreign countries. (Some of the kids on our tour got strawberry milkshakes with every single meal and one day, I asked them if the strawberry milkshakes were better in South Africa, but they said, no, they just really like strawberry milkshakes.) Also – there rest stop gave us our first peek at animals; the rear deck of the rest stop looked out over an animal reserve where we saw ostriches and impala.
We got back on the bus and continued driving. There was a lot of driving this day, but it was interesting to drive through some towns and see how they were different and also the same from America. A lot of the towns didn’t have paved roads beyond the highways and that felt so different to me. Some of the buildings were only half built, but clearly were still being lived in. And then every so often we would pass a sign for a library, and it was somehow really reassuring to me. I wrote this haiku:
Even in this small town
without walls and pavement,
sits a library.
I have to admit, there is something a little uncomfortable for me about being a tourist in a country that is still developing. Even this idea that South Africa is “developing” seems not quite right because there are parts of South Africa that are as sophisticated and modern as any other city in the world. Yet there are large income gaps for sure, and I’m not even really sure how to talk about those parts of my trip. As a visitor to this country, I wonder if I’m objectifying other people’s lives when I take in these small towns and notice the poverty and lack of resources? From the comfort of my air conditioned bus, I watch people go about their day walking to buildings without electricity, selling things from ad hoc stands made of salvaged materials…I don’t want to be patronizing, because people don’t deserve that from visitors to their country. But I do think about what I am bringing to a country as a tourist. Do I add value here? Should I? Because it seems off to just take from a place. I didn’t even want to take pictures of many of the towns we passed through, it seemed somehow disrespectful. I don’t know if I’m articulating my feelings well. It’s a question I thought a lot about while on this trip. and actually on our last day, I got some good insights on this from a tour guide.
For lunch we stopped at Misty Mountain Lodge where, in addition to a restaurant, there is a 1.7 km Toboggan track. The toboggan ride was fast and exhilarating and only slightly rickety as it curved down the side of the hill, thorough open grass land. I couldn’t decide whether to take in the scenery or close my eyes and savor the wind in my hair.
After our toboggan ride, we had lunch on the patio of the restaurant where we got to enjoy the beautiful views of the mountains.
After lunch we got back in the bus and continued on to the next stop: Graskop Gorge, and an elevator that would take us down 51 meters (about 15 stories) into the gorge for a walk through a rainforest like ecosystem. One thing that I didn’t realize until this trip was what a diverse range of environments in South Africa. When I thought of South Africa, I often thought of savannah and grasslands. On this trip, however, I saw such a wide variety of habitats. Graskop Gorge is full of lush green trees and waterfalls. The trail had informational placards all along the way that detailed the biodiversity in the area. We took about an hour to walk the trail through the forest.
After the trail walk, the elevator took us back to the top of the Gorge where we could see the gorgeous views of the Mpumalanga province. We then had the option of adding a zipline experience to our Graskop Gorge visit. Despite having a fear of heights, I’ve always wanted to go ziplining, so I jumped at the chance to go and the 13 year old came too. Funny story, as I was getting into the helmet and gloves and harness for ziplining, I asked the person working the zipline what the helmet was for.
“It’s so that you don’t hit your head on the cables.”
“Oh,” I said, “I thought it was to protect your head if you fell.”
He laughed at me. “Nothing is going to protect you if you fall.”
Well that was reassuring… In the end, though, the zipline turned out to be very relaxing. So long as I didn’t look down and think of falling to my death, I mean. It was a little like being in a swing, slower than I expected, and as I looked off in the distance to the mountains and trees, I tried to savor the near weightless feeling of flying across the gorge.
After the leaving the Gorge it was just another hour and a half to the Safari Lodge where we would spend the next two nights. We arrived around 5pm and had about an hour to get settled into our cabins (yes… cabins!) before dinner. The cabins were quite spare – stone floors, one outlet, and real keys. I mean when was the last time you use an actual key at a hotel. Well this wasn’t a hotel for sure. The 13 year old had a bit of a crisis when she realized that there was no wifi in her cabin.
I had a little bit of time to spare, so I walked around the grounds, and sat by the pool, did some yoga. It was certainly too cold to go into the pool, but I took my shoes and socks off and dipped my feet, which felt quite refreshing. Oh and there were zebras just wandering around, no big deal.
We were literally summoned to dinner by the banging of drums. Dinner was buffet style – soup, eggplant, chicken stew, roasted sweet potato, salad and dessert was a variety of fruit along with mousse and Malva cake. We had to be up early the next morning, and it had been a long day of travel, so after dinner, I went back to my room, took a shower then read and journaled and went to bed. I have to admit that I had a rough night of sleeping. There was loud music that played all. night. long. It was as if someone was having an all night dance party. I found out later that it was indeed an all night dance party – turns out we had arrived on pay day and the town two miles away had a dance club and people always partied all night on pay day. Or pay weekend, as it turned out to be.
Day 4 – Kruger National Park Safari. The next morning, we got up at 4:30am to meet up for a Safari at Kruger National Park. We had a morning snack of rusks and tea (or coffee, depending on preferences.) Rusks are very dry cookies (biscuits), almost like biscotti, which you dip in your tea (or coffee) to soften. The Lodge also packed us each a breakfast pack in a brown paper bag to take along with us. It was very early and quite chilly – the sun still hadn’t come up yet. We were all a little bleary eyed and shivering as we were introduced to our safari guides (our guide was named Derrick) and we loaded into the jeeps. We were given cozy fleece lined windbreaker ponchos to wear to keep us warm as we drove to the park, which was about fifteen minutes away. As we drove, we could see the sun start to rise.
The safari was absolutely magical and amazing. We saw so many animals just walking around and doing their thing. Derrick said that the animals are used to the vehicles, so it’s generally pretty safe if you stay in the jeep. It’s when people get out of the vehicles that animals starts to get defensive. Derrick was a great guide – he is from a tribal area near Kruger National Park so he grew up in the area. He said that it’s sad because there aren’t as many animals at Kruger as there used to be. A combination of factors has made it more difficult for the animals to find food so many of the herds are migrating to other parts of Africa. Even still, we saw an amazing array of animals, I thought. I’m just going to photo dump a bunch of the animals we saw in the first hour or so of our safari:
One thing I thought was really neat was that as we were driving around, the tour guides all would stop and tell each other what they had seen and where. Which is how we managed to see a lion. As we were driving down a road, another jeep pulled up and told our guide that they had seen lions down by the dam, and so our tour guide headed that way, and sure enough….
Around 9am, we stopped to eat our breakfast packs and I also found more ketchup snacks and bought some post cards. We bought some tea and hot chocolate at the snack shop since it was still quite chilly.
Continuing on our way. More animal (and non-animal) things we saw…
For lunch we stopped at a picnic area and had sandwiches, fruit, and cake that the guides had brought along. Across the river from our picnic area we could see a herd of elephants and I did some sketching. I was really leaning into the sketching on this trip, as a way to remind myself to slow down and really look at things:
After lunch, we drove around for another few hours. Here are more photos of the post lunch part of our safari:
Around 5:00pm we started heading back to our Lodge. While we waited to re-fuel at the gas station, I asked Derrick if the land that made up Kruger National Park was taken from tribal lands. He said that it was and that it’s a long, angry, complicated story, but that many of the tribes are still getting payments for their land and that the park has created a lot of jobs, so it isn’t all bad. I’m not sure if Derrick was trying to put a positive spin on things or what, but it is for sure a complicated issue.
My practical takeaways from the safari: 1) Dress in layers. We start in the early morning for best chances of seeing animals and it is quite cold. But then in the afternoon it got very hot. Also those fleece lined windbreaker ponchos were amazing. If they had sold them in the gift store, I would have gotten one or four. 2) It is very windy driving around in an open jeep. One of the kids in our tour group lose his earphones when they flew off his head as we were driving along. Evidence of how windy it was:
We got back to the lodge and had and hour or so to rest before dinner. The 13 year old wanted to spend some time on her tablet, so I got out my watercolor paints and decided to make a painting of the little cabin where I was staying. Even though my painting supplies take up lots of space and I use them maybe only once or twice on a trip, I always try to make room to bring them because there is always some point on the trip where I just need a soothing quiet activity. I spent maybe an hour painting it felt so restorative to be doing something creative after the past few days of so many new experiences inputting into my brain.
Dinner that evening was a feast of grilled meat. We ate in the boma, which we were told was short for British Officer Meeting Area, a term from colonial days. It turns out that a boma actually dates from pre-colonial days and originated as a word for an outdoor enclosure that was used for anything from containing animals to community gatherings. For sure the current day use was more the communal gathering type. The food was delicious and we lingered over dinner, talking and swapping tales.
Around 9pm, I retired to my room to shower and pack since the next day we would be leaving the lodge and be on on our way to the airport then to Cape Town. It had been such a beautiful day and I was sad that we had just one full day at the Safari Lodge. Our tour guide later told us that they also have safari trips where you camp, and some of them are very kid friendly. Bucket list items for sure.
Favorite road trip snack? (I liked sour gummy worms.) Do you have a particular food you always order when you are away from home? Have you ever been ziplining? What is your favorite collective noun for animals? Any bucket list vacation ideas/hopes/dreams?
