Yesterday, Julia, Tim, Luisa and I returned from Kruger National Park with our intrepid guide, Mr. O. And how awesome was he! Not only did he show exemplary choice in picking which roads to go down (he managed to drive us past a leopard in broad daylight, even though they’re nocturnal), but he even bought us food, and kept us happy by rapping sporadically. He also learned to drift while we were in the car, but that’s by the by.
Kruger National Park is South Africa’s flagship game reserve and safari. It houses 8 million plus impala, and over two thousand shirtless, middle aged Afrikaaners, all in their natural habitat, the braai. Braais are South African barbeques, and more streamlined than their American counterparts. For instance, they leave out superfluous additions such as vitamins and carbohydrates. Braais are 100% red meat. Republicans would love them.
I also made that impala number up, but there might as well have been that many. Impala are medium sized antelope, and they were absolutely everywhere. If you ever go on a safari, you’ll quickly experience The Law of Waning Interest, which basically says that one gets very picky, very fast. By the third day, the impala were about as interesting as washing machine lint. As a matter of fact, even the elephants and rhinos weren't that captivating. That wasn't always true though...
Our first activity was the “morning walk”, which was so early it should have been called the “yesterday night walk”. In retrospect however, I have never woken up at 3:45am for anything so worth it. We were the only five people who had signed up and had two guides to ourselves: Jacob, and “Talkative Man” (I can’t remember his name). They took us through the bush, pointing at giant spiders, “massage trees” (where pachyderms go to scratch themselves), and dung. We also went to the top of a hill, where the view was unbelievable.
As we descended, we crept up to a large rock, and were told to hide behind a tree about 20m away from it. Then the rock stood up, and looked at us with beady eyes and a massive horn; it was a pregnant white rhino and her calf. The species have horrendous eyesight, so it couldn’t really see us, but it suspected something. It lurched towards us, covering ground very quickly considering it was basically a blind, 5-ton tank. Julia thought we were going to kebabed, took ten steps back, and leapt into Mr. O’s big strong arms. It’s worth noting that she ignored two important arguments for staying put: one, remaining close to the guides meant remaining close to the shotguns, and two, it was unlikely she cold outrun a rhinoceros anyway. Meanwhile, Talkative Man threw a rock in front of the advancing beast, which decided enough was enough, and stomped away with its calf. It was clearly not that fussed.
That turned out to be the high point of the trip, but many awesome memories followed. That night, we rode a souped-up Toyota Hilux with six lager chugging locals. We saw a herd of buffalo, elephants, another rhino (which was subject to The Law of Waning Interest), and about four hundred copies of the word “Amarula”. I always thought Amarula was type of tree, but apparently it’s also a sort of creamy liqueur that sponsored everything in Kruger, including all of the spare tires.
The excellent moments continued. We saw all of the “big five”: elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion, and leopard. The leopard almost gave Luisa an aneurism; whoever proposes to her is going to have a lot to live up to. We went swimming, tried to teach Mr. O to kick more efficiently, got sunburned, and had our own braai, turning the sausages with a Leatherman and chopsticks. Julia changed under the covers and in the parking lot, and Tim took over 800 pictures, often while pushing the “remain in your car” rule right to the limit.
And all of us lost all feeling in our bottoms. Ten hours in a car will do that to you. But during those ten hours I realized that the animals around us were genuinely wild. We were visiting on their terms, and not vice versa. The best reminder came when we saw an impala carcass in a tree. I had to go to Kruger to realize just how different it was to a zoo.
It was an overall amazing experience. Thank you so much to Mr. O for driving us and putting up with our long conversations about prep school. We cannot express our gratitude enough (although we might clean your car), and we do realize we had abnormal, slightly spoiled high school experiences.
Moral of the story: it’s a good thing rhinos can’t wear glasses.
No comments:
Post a Comment