Overseas Adventures: Kruger National Park

Angie and I had a weekend away! We went to Kruger National Park in South Africa her first weekend here (Aug 29-31). We left Swaziland early on Friday morning (Jono offered to see the post-ops) and drove North. The park was only about a 2.5 hour drive from Siteki. We got our passports stamped and crossed the border. I can only be in Swaziland for 30 days at a time, so I have to cross the border every few weeks. It was good to get my passport stamped so my 30 day period started over.

Border crossing between Swaziland and South Africa.

We had a few adventures throughout the trip. Shortly after we crossed the border into South Africa, we got pulled over by the police. The cop came over and asked for my driver's license. I handed it over. Then he told us we needed to pay 500 Rand ($50) for having a cracked windshield. (Indeed, the windshield was cracked but it was a tiny crack). Anyway, we went around and around and we asked him if it was really an offense to have a cracked windshield. We also made the point that if we paid the fine, how were we to know that we wouldn't get pulled over multiple more times for the same offense. The cop didn't speak great English, and the language barrier made it even more difficult. I even made a fake phone call to Jono (no reception on my Swazi phone) to ask if it was truly an offense to have a cracked windshield.

The cop was not budging. He then asked for my International Driver's License. Thank goodness Angie had our guide book that stated that driving in South Africa is legal if you have a valid Driver's License with a photo from your home country. So we showed him the book, and he dropped the topic.

He went back to the topic of the cracked windshield. I asked him to show me the book where it is considered an offense. He brings back this huge book and can't find the cracked windshield section, I guess.

After about twenty minutes of this, he just tells us to go on. We gave him some American fruit snacks and a granola bar and got on our way.

I really was not trying to get out of something that was truly an offense, it just seemed suspicious to us. He was telling us an arbitrary number ($50) and had no actual "ticket" to fill out for the offense. Jono had warned me this could happen (much more common in Mozambique than in South Africa), so we were prepared and knew how to handle the situation.

We finally made it to Kruger at about 10 a.m. We spent the first day driving around the park on our own and saw lots of amazing animals: black rhino, white rhino, hippos, elephants galore, an ostrich, zebra, giraffe, warthogs. It was so incredible!

That night we stayed in Komatipoort which is just outside of the park. We stayed in a lovely little Bed & Breakfast. They had arranged a safari for us the next morning at 5:30 a.m. We went with a great guide named Jean. We were also joined by an Italian family and a German family.

Within our first thirty minutes in the park we saw all of the cats: two cheetahs, two leopards, and a pride of lions. It is really rare to see all of the cats because some of them are rare (only 120 cheetahs in the park), and the park is 414 km in length! It is hard to grasp the size of the park, it is huge.

Here are some of our favorite photos from the day:

White rhinoceros. They are actively being poached in Kruger Park, despite heavy security measures. The tusk is the only part of the rhino the poachers desire. They grind the tusk into dust and illegally smuggle it out of the country to Asia, where it is considered to be useful medicinally.

Hitching a ride on the back of a hippo :-)

Cheetahs. They are not many in the park and it can be difficult see one. We felt very lucky!

Violet breasted roller

It was a very early and very cold morning in Africa. I never thought I could be so cold in Africa!

Hippo in mid-yawn

The Cape buffalo. This is the male (bull).

Lioness just after making a kill. The poor impala! After this, she took it back and hid it in the brush, and soon she led her two little cubs back to eat.