Getting to South Africa was quite an experience, with a long overnight in the Sao Paulo International Airport, but finally arriving in Cape Town was a rush. After months of cheap hostels, buses, and tenting around South America, we arrived to a sign in the hands of a private driver and a leather clad Mercedes chariot awaiting us. Brice’s folks were waiting for us in a swanky bed and breakfast recovering from their own oversea journey and jet lag. After nearly nine months, this was a much anticipated family reunion and an awesome day. After an evening of hugs and kisses and stories exchanged, we were ready to get our South Africa experience started.
Family Beers

We spent the next four days exploring the Cape Town vicinity: hiking around the Cape of Good Hope, an afternoon in the vineyards, checking out the view from Table Mountain, meeting up with our friends Ben and Mel, and reading up for the wild animals to come.

From Cape Town we began working our way along the east coast of SA on a route referred to as the “Garden Route”. This route heads up the coast from Cape Town and connects a series of important destinations along the way. Our first stop being the lighthouse at the southern-most point of the African continent at Cape Agulhas. There was a cool marker where the Indian and Atlantic oceans converged that provided a prime photo op for us with the folks. This was a big travel moment for us in that we had now been to the southern tip of all of the southern hemisphere continents: Stewart Island, New Zealand; Tasmania, Australia; Ushuaia, Argentina, and of course, Antarctica.
The Southernmost Point

We then visited our fist African game park, De Hoop National Park. As avid hikers, it’s a weird feeling to enter a national park and see signs everywhere saying that you cannot leave your car because of the dangerous wildlife. De Hoop gave us our first taste of African wildlife with various species of antelope including the bontebok, eland, and red hartebeest. Another highlight of the Garden Route was our day in the Addo Elephant Park, another SA Game Park. This park is most famed for its elephants, and we were richly rewarded. We quickly began to realize the process involved in South African parks basically meandering around the park roads in your car or in a game viewing vehicle run by the park, likely a Land Cruiser. Driving down the roads at very slow speeds (20 km per hour or so), everyone in the car (including the driver) scans the landscape looking for animals. Our scanning was rewarded immediately with a family of warthogs. As the hours passed, it kept getting better with our first zebra sighting (the endangered Mountain Zebra) and a wide variety of antelope species. A few hours later we came upon a water hole with a few elephants frolicking in and around the muddy hole. The first wild sighting of elephants is hard to describe. They are massive, quiet creatures that are unlike any animal that exists in North America. They can spend hours cooling themselves in watering holes, sucking water up with their trunks then shooting it into their mouths for a drink, rolling and playing around in the water and mud, greeting each other by putting their trunks in each others mouths, and all sorts of interesting animal behaviors. After a few minutes we saw a few more elephants approaching from a distance. We suddenly saw Africa as we always imagined, massive elephants lumbering out of the brush towards the oasis, slow and steady with intimidating progress, framed by scrubby bushes and sand... truly beautiful. After nearly an hour of watching them we moved on. As we approached the final water hole in our route through the park, we spotted an amazing sight, countless elephants cresting the horizon en route to the water. As they came into view, we realized it was a breed herd of females and their infants, over 45 of them. They descend upon the watering hole and overwhelmed it. Suddenly all we could see was their massive bodies drinking and the baby elephants trying to act grown up, but stumbling and frolicking as all little ones tend to do... once again an amazing display of nature.
Elephants Playing

After winding up the Garden Route and ending up in Johannesburg, we were giddy with excitement of the days to come. They next week would be South Africa at its best – big national parks and private game reserves.

A bit of explanation at this point. During the course of recent African history, most of the native animal populations have been decimated due to over hunting and human encroachment. Over time, national parks were established to preserve these dwindling populations. These parks provide safe havens for Africa’s famous wildlife. As the tourist industry flourished a new trend began with private reserves. These reserves are independently owned and managed as business ventures focused on conservation as well as tourism. As South Africa’s political and financial status fluctuates, the quality of their national parks and their services fluctuate as well. Private reserves tend to operate outside of these fluctuations, focusing on quality experiences from a business perspective. The end result is an upscale niche that caters to affluent clientele intent upon extraordinary game viewing experiences.
Storm Coming

We spent the next few days at a top private reserve called Entebeni. This reserve is situated in a remote area several hours from Jo’burg on a stunningly beautiful piece of land. It has a unique configuration as part of the park is situated in lowlands and part is on a high plateau. The plateau is by nature nearly inaccessible from the lowlands and has a few selected fences to completely isolate it. This provided them the opportunity to keep the plateau nearly free from predators and stock the lowlands with a healthy pride of lions. On the plateau, all of the species coexist as grazers and scavengers. Safe from predation and surrounded by very short grasses, the residents (from zebras and giraffes to antelope and rhinos) are abundant and highly visible. The lowlands are a different story, with a similar population as the plateau; they also have predators (lions and leopards). With the presence of predators, the animals tend to be much more skittish and difficult to see. But, with time and luck you can see lions – a very important goal of most people that visit. Once again, there is no walking in the park, only driving. The big difference here is that you cannot drive yourself. All of the roads are gnarly off road tracks that need serious 4wheel vehicles. All excursions into the bush are in the reserve’s customized Toyota Land Cruisers, burly 4-wheelers modified to seat 11 people and handle serious off road excursions. We spent three great days touring through the park in these Cruisers on morning and evening drives checking out the animals. During daylight hours we looked with binoculars or just the naked eye and on the night drives we used spotlights to reflect in the animal’s eyes so we could see who liked to come out at night. We saw countless animals that cover the African spectrum including waterbuck, zebra, giraffe, white rhino, black-backed jackals, wildebeests, and the list goes on.
Cruiser in the Mud

There were a few real highlights though. These started off with close encounters with zebras, giraffes, and rhinos on the first day. The first night held a real surprise, as Naomi walked outside after dinner she ran headfirst into two huge rhinos grazing on the front lawn. With only inches to spare from impaling herself on its horns, she jumped back into the dining room and we were treated to an extraordinarily close encounter with one of Africa’s mightiest creatures. The ultimate highlight happened on the second afternoon when we came upon a young male lion and a female relaxing in the afternoon sun. After a few minutes of our gawking they wandered off. Only meters from the sighting, our Cruiser got stuck in the mud. We spent the next hour trying to get it out to no avail. Knowing there were lions in the vicinity made this a bit exciting...especially when nature calls and there’s no telling what’s behind that bush. When a second Cruiser arrived to help, we struggled again to no avail and ended up leaving the first cruiser in the care of our guide, still stuck, waiting for a tow vehicle. It was now dark as we departed. Only moments after leaving the radio crackled to life with the voice of out guide left with the stuck cruiser saying “Umm.... those lions are back – you may want to come back here.” Thinly veiled as another opportunity at a sighting, we could sense the fear in his call. We went tearing through the brush back to the stuck cruiser only to realize the lions had left and were stalking through the woods. Off we went in search of them with spotlights blazing. It was a rush, tearing through the woods in the dark looking for the most dangerous creatures in the park. After an hour of searching another group found the rest of the pride of lions stalking prey. We met up with them and were treated to 6 lions including the massive alpha male meandering down a dirt track in search of dinner. We observed them as the female lions disappeared into the bush leaving the alpha male relaxing, waiting for his ladies to return with dinner. No more stunning animal can be imagined than a full grown male lion with a massive head crowned by a main of fur. It was an unforgettable night.
Alpha Male

After these stunning days at Entabeni, we made our way to our second park, Pilansberg National Park. This is a national park with several private hotels surrounding it. The biggest difference between the two is that Pilansberg is managed as a national park, meaning that the flora and fauna are primary and the guests are secondary. Because of this, the park has established roads and prohibits off road driving. This means that all game viewing occurs from the roads or from fenced-in viewing areas set up around the park. This keeps the animals wilder and the sightings harder. Now that we had some experience under our belts, we were getting pretty good at finding the critters. Three days at Pialnsberg yielded many more close encounters with animal we were already familiar with as well as some we had yet to see, including hippos, crocs, and black rhinos. The benefit of this park is that you can self-drive so we spent countless hours on our own driving through the park and hanging out in the viewing hides. The real highlight occurred on the last day, when we headed out to a particularly good hide for sunrise. After watching a beautiful rise, Brian spotted lions in the bush stalking a wildebeest. The next few hours were spent immersed in nature in its purest. A few hungry female lions were stalking this lone critter while a whole pack of impalas and wildebeests that were downwind of the lions watched, knowing there were lions and standing in fear. At the last minute the wildebeest made a dash to the safety of the masses of on looking animals and the lions were foiled. This was truly edge of your seat animal viewing.
Zebras

From Pilansberg, we sadly made our way back to Jo’burg for a last bit of tourist activities.  The highlight of this was a visit to a lion preserve.  Not only did we get to see lions and cheetahs feeding, but we got to play with baby lion cubs.  Before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to Brian and Anne Lynn. It was wonderful adventure to share with them and we were sad to see them go. However, it made us realize how soon we would be boarding a plane homebound, both a sad and exciting prospect. However, we have many more travel experiences ahead. For now, we are off to more African adventures in Namibia...