Sunday, May 26, 2013

South Africa - Kruger NP and Drakensberg (2012)


After spending a few days in Blyde River Canyon, we made the short drive to Kruger National Park.  This is one of the oldest and largest game reserves in Africa, extending 220 miles from north to south and averaging about 40 miles wide.  We entered the park on the southwest side at the Phabeni Gate.  Neither of us had been on safari before so we weren’t sure what to expect.  We checked in at the gate and got some information and a map. 

Within the park, there are 21 rest camps, as well as several high-end private safari lodges, which were way out of our price range. The rest camps are surrounded by an electric fence with a guarded gate where you can come and go.  This keeps most of the animals out, but some of the smaller ones and especially the baboons are still able to make it inside.  The gates generally open around 5:30 am and close at 6:30 pm.  You have to be in before they close, or they charge you a large fee to open them back up. 

Within the rest camps, there are various types of lodging, from campsites to small huts.  Located throughout the camps are communal bathrooms with showers and communal cooking stations.  The two camps that we stayed in where the largest in the park and had the most amenities, including a restaurant, grocery store and a gas station. 

Our first camp was Skukuza, where we stayed in a safari tent.  The tents were on cement slabs, with two single beds and a small refrigerator inside.  Ours was along the perimeter of the camp, with our braai (Afrikaans word for barbecue) right by the fence.  Each night, a pack of hyenas prowled along the outside of the fence, smelling the meat on the grill.  There are signs everywhere to not feed the animals, but I’m sure some people have ignored those warnings.  It was unnerving to have such a dangerous animal so close, staring back at you a few feet away through the fence.  And the noises these animals made were bizarre.  We now know where the expression “laugh like a hyena” comes from.

Skukuza rest camp


For those who aren’t staying at one of the high-end private safari lodges, there are a couple of ways to see the park.  You can drive around in your car, or you can sign up for one of the organized tours in a big safari jeep led by park rangers.  The tours are inexpensive, and you have the advantage of an experienced guide, a much higher viewing platform (compared to our tiny rental car), and a group of people to help spot the animals.  We decided to try a tour once and signed up for the early morning one that left at 4 am.  It was interesting to go with a guide, but we didn’t do any better in terms of spotting animals and found that we preferred to just drive around on our own. 

Doing a self-drive tour involves cruising down the many paved and dirt roads that wind through the park at about 10 – 15 mph.  When you spot an animal and you want to stop for a while and watch it, you can pull over to either side.  Since traffic is moving so slowly, it isn’t a problem to be in the wrong lane and if there is a good spotting, it isn’t uncommon to have 10 cars lumped together pointed all different directions and blocking the road.  There are speed limits in the park at 45 kph (28 mph) for paved roads and 35 kph (22 mph) for dirt roads, and they are strictly enforced.  This is a good thing as drivers are often looking off into the bush and not always in their own lane.  It is also good because animals could jump in front of your car, or maybe they are just sitting or napping in the middle of the road. 

animal crossing
 

While out of the gated camps, you aren’t allowed to get out of your car for obvious safety reasons.  In fact, if you have a flat tire, you are supposed to just wait for another car to come by and have them send word to the park rangers at a nearby camp, who will come help and keep watch.  There was one area that you were allowed to leave your car on the south side of the park on the Crocodile River.  We came down to look for a pride of lions that were reportedly spotted in the area and saw that there was a viewing area.  There was a ranger perched up the hill on a rock that whistled at us and waved us up.  We nervously got out of the car and walked up to the viewpoint.  The ranger had a gun, which looked more like an antique than something capable of taking down a lion.  There were nice views from up on the rock, and the ranger pointed out the crocodiles and hippos in the water below and some paintings in the rocks that were left years ago by the San Bushman.

 
For most of our stay in the park, we rose early in the morning and stopped by the camp headquarters.  Here they had two big maps of the park where people would mark the animals seen during the day with colored magnets.  One map was for the current day and the other for the previous day.  We mainly looked to see where the big cats were spotted and then planned our route around that.  We left the camps as soon as the gates opened, returning for a few hours during the hottest part of the day, and heading back out for the afternoon.  This was because you more likely to spot the animals during the cooler morning and early evening, and it was really hot driving around in the middle of the day.   

One of the carry overs from the old safari days, which were primarily trophy-hunting expeditions, is the notion of the “big five” animals.  These are the elephant, buffalo, rhino, lion and leopard.  It is a goal of most of people who go on a safari to check these off the list.   We saw our first one within minutes of driving into the park when a herd of elephants were eating along the side of the road.  They were huge and left a trail of demolished trees and bushes in their wake.  There are nearly 12,000 elephants in the park, and they were very easy to spot.  This is the world’s largest land animal and probably the most intimidating when you are sitting next to them in a car that is smaller than they are.  It’s not common, but they can be aggressive, and we had an encounter with one that was walking down the side of the road.  We tried to pass it, but it wouldn’t let us.  As we got closer, it turned around and blocked the whole road, raising its trunk and stomping its feet.  We did a u-turn and headed back the other direction.   



About an hour after spotting the elephants, we came across a large herd of buffalo crossing the road.  We were only a couple hours in the park, and we had already seen two of the big five. This was another animal that we saw quite a bit throughout the park, usually when a very large herd was crossing the road, one or two at a time.  We often had to wait for over 30 minutes for the whole herd to get through.  This was also an animal that you don’t want to rush, as they can be temperamental and have been known to charge cars.  It was really interesting to see them around the watering hole during the heat of the day when they roll around and emerge covered in a thick coat of mud to keep cool.



There are two kinds of rhinoceros in the park – the white and black.  They are both actually a similar color, but the white rhino has a wide mouth that is better suited for grazing and the black rhino has more of a V-shaped mouth that is better for plucking twigs.  We saw about a dozen white rhinos, but no black rhinos.  Both types are still being poached today, as their horns are believed to be an aphrodisiac and fetch a large amount of money in Asia.  There are only a few hundred of the black rhinos left in the world, and they are considered critically endangered. The park service is doing what they can to stop poaching, using helicopters and apparently drones to help spot the poachers.  While we were there, it seemed that poachers had been spotted, as a helicopter flew over us, very close to the ground.  Shortly after, a truck filled with dogs and machine gun wielding police passed us at about five times the speed limit.     



The big cats are probably the most exciting of the animals to see and the most difficult to spot.  They are mostly nocturnal, and it didn’t help that we visited during the summer when the bush is at its most dense.  They eluded us for several days, and our first spotting was three lions napping on the far end of a waterhole. Then a couple days before we left, we were lucky to see four cars stopped in the road just as we left the camp at 6 am.  We pulled up and parked but couldn’t see anything.  People in another car told us there were four lions in the bush, and a few minutes later two of them emerged right in front of us.  They wandered through the parked cars like a couple of exhibitionists, stretching and yawning and then laid down in the middle of the road for a nap.  We watched them for about thirty minutes before they headed back into the bush and out of view.  



Halfway through our stay, we had a stretch of good luck and saw four different leopards.  The first had just dragged its kill (an impala) up into a tree about 100 ft from the road and was having lunch.  These cats can drag prey up to three times their weight up into the canopy, keeping it out of reach of other predators.  There were at least twenty cars backed up trying to get a look.

An hour later, we were driving down the road, and Andrew spotted another leopard lounging in a tree, this one much closer to the road.  Being the first to see it, we had a prime spot to take some pictures as he slowly stood, stretched, and climbed down from the tree.

The following morning, we drove the same road, and yet another leopard came walking out of the bush right in front of our car.  It slowly walked by, fixing his eyes on Andrew as he frantically snapped pictures.  As it passed within a few feet of the car, he had to put the camera down and roll up the window.  Later that day, we could hardly believe our luck when we happened upon another leopard sitting on the side of the road.  While leopards are generally solitary animals that don’t make much noise, this one seemed to be injured and made a strange moaning/howling sound.



The most prevalent animal in the park is the antelope.  These are similar to deer, except that instead of seasonal antlers, they have permanent horns.  There are quite a few different antelope in the park and we saw waterbuck, the beautiful greater kudu, blue wildebeest, the small klipspringer and many impala.  In fact, there are around 1.5 million impala alone in Kruger.  After a few days, we rarely stopped when we saw antelope.   

blue wildebeest, greater kudu, impala, klipspringer, waterbuck
 
Besides the big five and antelope, there are a wide variety of other animals in the park.  In fact there are 147 specials of mammals in the park alone.  Di’s favorite animal was the giraffe, and we saw them just about every day.  We also enjoyed seeing the zebras, which were also prevalent and provided some entertainment with their spastic gait.   We usually spent about an hour parked in front of one of the waterholes every day and watched the hippos, crocodiles and other animals drinking and taking a dip to cool off.  There were also plenty of monkeys, baboons, warthogs and giant lizards to name a few.  The only thing that we really wanted to see and didn’t was the cheetah. 

common hippopotamus
 

Burchell's zebra
 

southern giraffe
 

chacma baboon

leopard tortoise, Nile crocodile, Nile monitor, vervet monkey, warthog, lizard

Before we came to the park, we didn’t even think about the birds that we would see, but Kruger is a birdwatcher’s paradise.  We saw a yellow-billed hornbill eating a big hairy spider, vultures picking at the leftover remains of an antelope, and eagles perched on top of trees looking for prey.  We saw ostriches as well as many other brightly colored small birds.  There are reportedly 517 species of birds in Kruger National Park alone.   

brown-hooded kingfisher, crested barbet, pied kingfisher, ostrich, yellow-billed hornbill, helmeted guineafowl, tawny eagle


oxpeckers on an impala
One of the more interesting birds that we saw quite regularly was the oxpecker.  These birds sit on animals and eat parasites off of them.  We saw them on rhinos, giraffes, antelopes and zebras. 

Our last night in Kruger brought a spectacular thunderstorm with lots of lightning and heavy rain, ending our drive a bit early.  The next morning, we reluctantly left the park and headed south.  Our safari trip was the highlight of our visit to South Africa.  It is a completely different experience seeing these animals in the wild.  We probably won’t have much interest in going to zoos after this.

After spending so many hours in the car during the previous week, we were looking forward to our next stop in the Drakensberg Mountains.  This is South Africa’s highest mountain range, and there are several national parks within it.  Our first stop was the Royal Natal National Park.  The main attraction here is the Amphitheatre, which is a crescent-shaped wall four miles wide and nearly 5,000 feet high.  The top of the wall is over 10,000 ft above sea level.

We stayed at the Thendele Rest Camp, which is situated on the side of a mountain opposite the Amphitheatre.  The views from the patio of our chalet were stunning, facing out over the park.  As we enjoyed our morning coffee, guineafowl pecked around looking for scraps, while baboons ran from chalet to chalet doing the same.  The wild life in South Africa seems to be plentiful everywhere.

While there, we attempted to hike from our lodge to the top of the Amphitheatre. The first section was a bit challenging, but the views all along the way were spectacular.  On one section called “the crack”, we climbed up a rocky cliff through a series of rope ladders, passing directly under a waterfall, bringing us up to the top a ridge.  From here, it was gentler slopes, with grassy fields and lots of wildflowers.

It took five hours to reach the ranger station near the ridge of the Amphitheatre.  From here the trail continues along the ridge sometimes leaving South Africa and entering the neighboring Kingdom of Lesotho.  The gate attendant told us it was another two hours to reach the top of Tugela Falls.  This is where the Tugela River plunges 3,080 feet, making it the second highest waterfall in the world.  Our legs and feet were already aching and we didn’t think it was possible to add another two hours one way to the trip and still make it back to our lodge before sunset, so we decided to turn around.  It was disappointing not to reach the waterfall, but when we reached the car that afternoon barely able to walk, we were glad to have turned around when we did.  It was still a nice hike in some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve seen. 

hiking in Royal Natal National Park
 
The next day we packed up and moved a little further south in the mountain range to an area called Giant’s Castle.   This area got its name from the outline of the peaks that resemble the side profile of a sleeping giant.  We did a short hike that afternoon to some nearby caves to see the cave paintings.  These were done by the San Bushman, an indigenous people in South Africa that lived in the caves, maybe even as late as the early 20th century.  They were skilled hunter-gatherers and nomadic, leaving few traces of their existence other than the rock paintings.  There was a guide at the caves who gave us a good tour and some insight to the meanings of the paintings and how they were made.  She also gave an impressive display of the San language, skillfully making the clicking and popping sounds that are unique to the language.
 
The next morning was sunny and clear, so we squeezed in one more hike to a lookout called World’s View.  We could see the entire Drakensberg escarpment, from Cathedral Peak to Giant’s Castle.  This area is so beautiful and has such great hiking that we were wishing for just a few more days in the park.  But, it was time to get back to Durban and start moving down the coast.  We had a nice trip inland and were able to see quite a bit of South Africa.  By the time we returned to the marina, we had put over 2,000 miles on our rental car. 

hiking near Giant's Castle
 

Friday, May 17, 2013

South Africa - Durban and Blyde River Canyon (2012)

We arrived in Durban, South Africa on November 15th.   Durban is a busy port and the third largest city in South Africa.  There is a population of 3.5 million in this diverse city.  While the majority of the people living in the region are Zulu, there is also a large British and Indian influence as well.  Walking around, you could hear several languages spoken, and in fact, there are actually eleven official languages in South Africa.  Fortunately for us, the British influence in Durban is still there, and English is the first language for the majority of the residents.   

For our one month stay, Saviah was moored in the Durban marina.  There are two yacht clubs at the marina, the Royal Natal Yacht Club and the Point Yacht Club.  Both are very welcoming to foreign cruisers and provide free monthly memberships.  We spent quite a bit of time in both yacht clubs, which each had showers, wi-fi and a restaurant.  We were surprised at how inexpensive the food and drinks were and ate most of our meals there since cooking for ourselves would have cost at least as much.

One meal we really enjoyed was curry.  Durban is home to the largest population of Indians outside of India.  They were brought over by the British as indentured servants during the region's time as a colony, to work in the sugar cane fields.  Many chose to stay after their term finished, and today the Indian influence is a big part of the Durban culture.  The curry was some of the best we’ve ever had.  In fact, we ate it nearly every day and didn’t get tired of it.   

While in Durban, we didn’t venture more than a few blocks from the marina and only did so during daylight hours.  Crime is quite bad around the city, and there seemed to be bars on all of the shop windows downtown, and most of them you had to be buzzed in before entering.  We were warned to keep everything of value inside the boat and lock it up even though the marina had 24 hour security.  We were given a tour of the city one afternoon by Bob Frasier, a member of the Point Yacht Club.  He drove us around downtown and through some of the neighborhoods in the area.  We drove through one of the affluent suburbs, and it was shocking to see not just bars on the windows, but walls around houses, some with barbed wire and electric fences and even armed guards outside. 

That was fine because there were plenty of things to keep us busy in the marina.  We had sailed almost 10,000 miles since leaving New Zealand six months earlier.  Saviah was really showing some wear and tear.  Andrew had several projects on his to-do list, including repairing the bowsprit which had some rot that needed to be removed and epoxied before putting on a couple more coats of paint.  He took advantage of the fresh water to clean the boat and polish the stainless steel which was really starting to rust.  It was also a good opportunity to catch up on engine maintenance as well as dozens of other small projects. 

It wasn’t all work though.  He had time to crew on one of the local boats during the weekly club races.  He sailed on a 40 ft Beneteau that with was set up for racing with all carbon fiber sails and the latest high tech gear.  We haven’t done any racing, so it was a good learning experience.  It is amazing to see how quickly sails can come up and down with 16 people on board. 

Meanwhile, Di spent time planning the next six months of our trip.  It was really nice to have wi-fi at the yacht clubs which she used to research weather and various potential destinations in the Caribbean and South America.  Our initial plan was to travel from Cape Town to northern Brazil, where we would spend a few months before sailing along the coast of South America toward the Panama Canal.  This route would require us to hug the South American coast, in order to avoid the Atlantic hurricane belt from June to November.  However, after some research, we found it would be quite expensive to visit Brazil since US citizens have extra costs for entering the country.  We also read about big problems with crime in the anchorages and coastal cities in Brazil.  Several cruising boats reported being boarded by thieves, and others were robbed on the streets just outside of marinas. 

So we decided to skip Brazil.  Instead our plans shifted toward the Caribbean to see the Windward Islands.  This would allow us to visit Barbados in April, before sailing to Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Grenada by June to get out of the hurricane belt.  From there, we plan to head to the Dutch Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) in July and August.  Cartagena, Colombia is the next stop on our way to the San Blas Islands of Panama, where we hope to spend at least a month.  We would then transit the Panama Canal in October and start making our way up the Pacific coast of Central America as soon as the hurricane season is over in that part of the world. 

With our plans more firm, the next step was to buy all necessary charts, flags, and guidebooks.  Luckily, a fellow cruiser named Tony Herrick has a store in Durban called Cruising Connections, where he sells all of these things.  Tony was a valuable resource, as he has extensive cruising experience and has written cruising guides covering South Africa to the Caribbean.  He also gave us lots of tips on where to go in South Africa, as well as helping track down other items he didn’t have on hand.  He was even willing to trade some of our South Pacific charts and guidebooks for some covering the Atlantic.

After spending over a week in the marina, it was time to see some of South Africa.  So we rented a car and headed out for two weeks.  We planned on spending a few days in the Blyde River Canyon area, which is 550 miles north of Durban.  In order to break up the drive, we stopped for the evening in the town of Hluhluwe, a couple hundred miles from Durban.  After we checked in at our lodge, we drove to nearby Lake St. Lucia and walked around looking for wildlife.   

This was our first taste of the wild animals in South Africa and really got us excited about going on safari the following week.  Within a few hours, we saw flamingos, monkeys, warthogs and some antelope.   Later that night, we took a guided hike through the area around the lodge.  It was pitch black, except for our very dim flashlight.  It was a little frightening at times, as you can hear noises from various animals all around, and your imagination is left to guess what is there.  Our guide cautioned us to be calm if we came upon a leopard, as one had been sighted in the area recently.  We didn’t see many animals, other than a few dozen antelope, but it was an interesting experience walking through the bush at night.


pink flamingos and a male nyala at Lake St. Lucia


The next morning we drove seven hours to the town of Graskop, our base for exploring the Blyde River Canyon area.  The first stop was the Bourke’s Luck Potholes, located at the confluence of the Treur and Blyde Rivers.  Cylindrical potholes have formed from the erosion caused by the swirling waters of the two rivers.  We walked all around the area, over the pedestrian bridges that span the rivers, taking pictures.  Once the clouds cleared up, the colors were stunning.

Bourke's Luck Potholes
 
There is a lot of rainfall in the area, which kept us indoors for more of our stay than we liked.  However, the rain throughout the canyons causes a large concentration of waterfalls.  We spent one afternoon driving around and visiting some of these waterfalls, some of them dropping nearly 300 ft.   There were some nice hikes around as well. 

Bridal Veil, Graskop, Berlin, Lisbon, Mac Mac, Sabie
 
We also drove what they call the Panorama Route, which was very close to our lodge.  This is a loop that stretches along the edge of the escarpment.  There are several spots with viewpoints where you can park along the way.  One was the Three Rondavels, three hills shaped like cylindrical huts.  Another was the Pinnacle, a column of rock that rises up from the dense trees below.  Another is called God’s Window, where the cliffs plunge 2,300 ft to the valley below.  The valley is filled with dense clouds most of the time, and it took several visits before we could actually see the valley.  There were several hiking trails along these viewpoints as well.  We were warned that there were baboons in the area, and they could be aggressive at times.  Fortunately, we only heard some loud warning growls, but didn’t actually encounter any while we were out of the car.

Three Rondavels, God's Window, and the Pinnacle
 
On our last day in Blyde River Canyon, we signed up for a cultural tour at one of the Zulu villages.  The Zulu people have been living in the region for hundreds of years and are still the largest ethnic group in South Africa, with over ten million people.  We were in the heart of Zululand, and we thought a cultural tour would help us learn something about the local people.

Our guide showed us around a small traditional village and explained the function of the different huts and about their old way of life.  After looking around the village, there was dancing and singing.  They explained the different outfits that the women were wearing based on whether they were single, engaged or married.  It was quite a production, especially since there were only four of us in the audience.  We were a little surprised at the end when they pulled us up and asked us to dance with them, which was a lot of fun.  After the tour, we made the short drive to Kruger National Park, where we would spend a week on safari.

Zulu cultural tour