Beattys Overseas

Upon departing Cape Town on Monday Jan 7, we flew to Johannesburg and stayed for the night at (another!) Protea Hotel which unfortunately was the most despicable hotel experience we've had since Paris.  We won't go on about it here, but I'll say this; if you ever want to stay at Gold Reef City in Jo'burg, find another hotel than the Protea.

The following morning we were on the road in our rented truck.  Hertz didn't have any mid-size SUVs with automatic transmission, so they upgraded us to a "Buckey," a king-cab pickup truck with a camper shell.  But it's a manual transmission, so John had to do all the driving for 6 hours from Jo'burg to KwaZulu-Natal, a region of South Africa along the Indian Ocean, bordering the country of Swaziland.  The drive was long and a little slow, often times stuck on a two-lane country road for hours with huge industrial vehicles in front of us going below the speed limit.  It was good that John's aggressive NYC driving skills helped us navigate the passing of slower vehicles on these 2 lane roads, otherwise the trip would have been 8 hours.

The drive did, however, provide an astonishing vista of the changing topography and social communities along the way.  When we first left Jo'burg, we were on a 4-lane freeway with billboards on the sides of the road advertising for local casinos and liquors.  By the time we entered Zululand, we saw nothing but cornfields and cooling towers for mines.  The occasional village dotted the side of the road, and crowds of people waited on dirt driveways for a free ride or one of the few taxi buses that roam the roads.  We passed near areas where the Boer War battles took place.  We shall definitely return to this area to explore its amazing history!  This was really Zulu country! 

Mmoooooooove out of the way!Livestock wandered the shoulder and even the center line of the road, and farmers pushed wheelbarrows so close to the shoulder of the road that I wondered if anyone ever gets clipped.  At one point, we drove past two young boys sitting atop an old stump in a field near the road.  We both commented on how beautiful the sight was, and turned the truck around to take their photo.  They were a little leery of us at first, but when John got out of the truck with his blonde hair and American accent, they seemed fascinated.  Both the boys spoke English, and cheered to each other when John gave them 50Rand ($7) and asked to take their photo. 

 

Senzo and Xolani

They are brothers, Senzo (age 12) and Xolani (age 14) who live in a village nearby this road.  As we talked with them some more and wrote down their names, a dozen other people from their village appeared, laughing about these weird white people in the big white truck taking photos of the boys.  We smiled and left them with a wave and a honk, all of them cheering and waving as they became smaller little dots in the rear view mirror. 

We had booked a 4-night stay at Mkuze Falls Game Reserve for 5-star lodging and Big 5 viewing. 
Our first wildlife sighting, not our last...As we entered through the gate, we saw a warthog standing in the middle of the dirt road that leads to the Lodge.  "Stop the car! Roll up your window," I shrieked the John, not knowing a thing about warthogs and letting my initial shock of seeing a wild animal so close to us overtake the very cool moment.  Little did we know that we'd see warthogs a hundred more times, along with many other African wildlife...

- Whitney

Our 4 days at Mkuze Game Reserve and Lodge were unforgettable.  The reserve is located on nearly 10,000 hectares (more than 20,000 acres), home to the Big Five - lion, buffalo, elephant, rhino and elephant - as well as cheetah, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, kuru, nyala, impala and warthogs.  Well, there are even more than this, but I can't type it all. 

By the way, we learned that we can't really call this a "safari."  According to Daan, our guide, the last true safari goers were the men who, with rifle in hand, and the porters carrying their gear, entered the true wilderness of the African bush in search of whatever lay therein to be discovered.  Often times, this entailed hunting of the Big Five.  Tour operators and certain resorts will call their tours "safari" trips, but that's just not proper.  And, we're all about getting things right.  Just ask Daan, who had to answer a billion questions from us, as were we the chattiest game drive passengers he's probably ever encountered.  "Daan, how long is a giraffe's gestation period?"  "Daan, what kind of beetle is that?"  "Daan, why are all those impala sprinting across the path with such fear in their eyes? ...Oh, there's the lion."

Our chalets peek over the gorge to the riverAccommodations were individual chalets, each overlooking the waterfalls of the Mkuze River.  The food was plentiful, the service tremendous, and our level of relaxation increasing each day.  The mornings started early with a 4:30 wake up call from Daan, then a quick coffee and rusk before the 5:00am game drive with our he and our (Zulu) Tracker Muzi.  The drives last about 2 plus hours, and upon our return to the Lodge we ate a lovely breakfast.  Rest for a few hours, then lunch back at the lodge or in your room on your private balcony, then another rest until High Tea at 4:00pm.  Our evening drive started after High Tea, and after that, a huge 4-course meal was served around 8:00pm.  Oh, yes, and there were snacks mid-way through each drive.  It seemed like all we did was eat and sleep, and when we weren't doing that, we were staring with awe at Africa's wildlife in their protected habitat. 

So, let's get on to the wildlife.  Our sightings were plentiful, with Muzi, sitting on the tracker's seat on the hood (bonnet) of the truck, and Ranger Daan knowing where certain animals hang during parts of the day and during weather.  We had great weather; never hot and even once a rainshower.  Our photos tell the stories, but we will say that they're a little graphic.  Perhaps our most thrilling sighting was three lions - two males and a female - noshing on a recently killed wildebeest whose eyes were still open.  A huge male elephant walked right by the truck, and a male lion allowed the truck to come within 5 meters of him while he napped in a grove of trees.  It was amazing, but the photos do most of the talking.  Thanks to everyone at Mkuze for a wonderful time!

After our Game Reserve experience, we certainly have a greater understanding of and respect wildlife management, including the "culling" of certain animals whose presence in numbers greater than the environment can sustain, can cause catastrophic damage.  For example, Daan suggested than having more than 70 elephants on the 10,000 acre property would leave the reserve a barren dirtland in less than 5 years.  Elephants try to eat up to 5% of their body weight each day, which means that they eat all ours that they're awake.  If they were allowed to graze and reproduce without management's interference, they'd eat everything on the reserve and therefore harm the environment for the dozens of other species. 

When we left Mkuze, we checked into the Intercontinental Hotel in Johannesburg and settled in their comfy white bathrobes and slippers.  John went for a drive to visit a friend from the Kennedy School who lives and works in a suburb of Jo'burg.  They had a wonderful time catching up, and took a drive into Soweto (the famed South-west Township) of Johannesburg where much of the country's tension over apartheid erupted.   

By the time we were onboard our Quantas flight to leave South Africa, we vowed to return soon.  It's an amazing country which we are pining to explore further.  Our 18 days in S.A. were well spent and extremely fun, as our blogs show, but we have more to see and more to do.  Next time, John must do shark cage diving, and we want to do a full tour of the eastern coast. 

- Whitney