Three Weeks in South Africa

For my memory and possible utility to other travelers–here’s the story of our 3 weeks in South Africa, with whose varied and extraordinary landscapes I’ve long been in love. I’ve not explored the length and breadth of the country, but I have been to several places over the course of as many years of UX research and instruction work: Joburg (and Soweto), Cape Town, Mbombela/Nelspruit (and KaNyamazane), Ermelo. I got to love the light from this hemisphere, so different from the north. I learned to ask for extra avo, butternut, creamed spinaches and to go easy on the peri-peri chicken because it’s almost always a spatchcock. Pap, braai, chakalaka, rusks, none other than 3 Roses tea and absolutely terrible coffee. I loved the Afrikaaner accent, and the way everyone said ple-zhah in response to your “Thank you” or “is it” as affirmation, a derivative of an Afrikaans word, I was told. The softness of Tswana and Sotho. The gratitude of the one man in a training session because I came and sat to have lunch with them, how easy it was to get folks in my classes to laugh, the Soweto spaza owner who was convinced we were black sorceresses in disguise because we asked what Vodacom’s “Power to you” tagline meant to him, the driver who taught me a Shona lullaby and took me to see jacaranda trees in full bloom. The miles and miles of tin-can townships that break your heart, same as the electrified fences everywhere speaking of daily fears that’re some strange mix of of-course-real and larger-than-life imagined. Such a mixed bag, so apart from any world I know, and yet in some sense so familiar. Any wedge of time between interviews or on weekends, and my colleagues and I would be at Kruger, God’s Window, Boulder’s Beach, and Cape Point. But it was never enough. This time with family, I got to attend to all the longings I’d found and left behind.

Note that this post is a description of what we did, what corners, hikes, and joys we found, and what we’d do more or differently if we have a chance to go back. It’s not a definitive guide to visiting South Africa, though there’ll be elements of that in here, too. Find what you want in this, and then add your own story. Me, I had advice from Germina Mokori, who was for a while our super-patient Human Factors coordinator in Joburg; Marie Viljoen, Helen Walne, Linda Lee, and a few others who’ve each been kind and generous beyond compare.

• Our Itinerary
• The Practical Stuff: Renting a car | Money | SIM cards | Travel Adaptors
• The Fun Stuff: Where we stayed in Cape Town | What we did in Cape Town | 12 Apostles & Missing Loop Hike | Tranquility Cracks Hike | Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens | Everything else
• The Fun Stuff: Staying at Nature Reserves | Cape Point & Olifantsbos | Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve | Kruger National Park

Our itinerary

It was a done deal that we were going to South Africa this year when I stumbled on some ridiculously cheap tickets from Chennai to Cape Town on, of all carriers, Singapore Airlines. I lost no time in building an itinerary, and presumed I was being over-enthusiastically early. I couldn’t have been more wrong. March booking for November, and spots in some nature reserves were already taken. Those are not like hotel rooms, available by the dozen; those are special cabins and cottages in spectacular surroundings–and South Africans being quite out-doorsy folk, booking a year ahead is par for the course.

So, lesson #1: Book early, early, early. A year ahead is not too early. 

We’re a family that loves a good hike and we wanted to spend time at Kruger National Park. Knowing that Cape Town and hiking go hand-in-glove, we knew those would be our two main destinations. There’s Nelson Mandela’s house, the Hector Pieterson Museum, the Rosebank Craft Market (and other such weekend gatherings) around Johannesburg, but we gave all that a pass. So also with Durban, which for us would have been more of a historical or cultural visit. I was so tempted, just for the sake of a nice stay and a good meal, to get over to Drini’s elegant-eclectic Izimbali Lodge in Ermelo–she’s covered the walls with her mosaics and paintings, and I have such fond memories of gathering with our research group over her meals–oh and look-see, there’s me with Bulelwa and Drini from 2014 I think–but Ermelo was just out of the way for us this time. It got nixed, too.

Lesson #2: Be clear about what you want to do.

For us, this was a nature trip, to connect with flora and fauna in this strange far-off land, with such unique landscapes, plants and animals. Not about urban hanging about and cafes and such-like. I would have planned our whole trip around Cape Nature’s Whale Trail–but they were sold out for the year before I called to ask, which is why lesson #1 is book early, early, early!

We settled on an itinerary that had us mostly in Cape Town and environs, with a week in Kruger, roughly like this:

• Week 1: Cape Town, Cape Point, and Kogelberg;
• Week 2: Kruger National Park
• Week 3: Cape Town, with the freedom to make day trips to Lambert’s Bay, Robben Island in Table Bay, or just take as many hikes up and around Table Mountain as we pleased.

The Practical Stuff

Before getting to all that delicious stuff, let’s get the basics out of the way first: car, money, SIM cards, travel adaptors.

Renting a car

Three things you should know: you’ll need to drive, you’ll need to drive a stick-shift/manual vehicle, and you’ll need to drive on the LEFT side of the road.

We were fine on all three counts, having only ever had manual vehicles and having made the right-to-left switch when we moved back to India years ago. But every rental agent remarked on how these driving realities are problems for most Americans–but if you have the stick and the left driving down, then getting around South Africa is an absolute breeze. The roads are wide, well-built, and well-marked like any in the United States. Google maps gets you just about anywhere you need to go. [In Cape Town, there’s a MyCiti bus that takes folks around to the main sights, but we didn’t use it.]

We booked cars directly with Hertz, not via the consolidators who offer free cancellations (but not necessarily better deals). My reason: when booking a car rental you really are hoping for the best but planning for the worst, and push-come-shove, I didn’t want to have to deal with middle-folk. The process was incredibly simple, from booking to renting to returning, but words to the wise:

• Do get Tire and Glass Insurance. I read on a few blogs about the importance of getting tire and glass insurance (for flats, windshield chips etc.) and got the impression that the rental rates are awful tight about covering these things unless you pay for extra coverage. So we paid for the extra coverage on booking, and that turned out to be a really excellent decision–a chip on the windshield appeared en route to Mbombela/Nespruit, somewhere while passing all those hundreds of mining trucks.
• Take photos and videos of your car before you drive it off the Hertz lots. If there’s anything significant, find an agent and insist on them marking it on your forms. Keep all documentation until you’ve returned the car AND verified with your Credit Card company that the withheld deposits have been released.
• Limited or unlimited mileage? I used google maps to compute most of our driving distances, and added a few more trips–and decided on mileage based on this. Bottom line: we managed easily within daily km limits for all our time in Cape Town, even including drives to Kogelberg and such, but a Kruger visit for sure needs unlimited mileage allowances.
• Tip the gas station attendants. The guys at the “garages” fill your tanks; this is not self-service. Tipping is customary and much appreciated; we wound up giving anything from 5 rand to 20, depending on how much car cleaning also happened alongside. There’s always a garage close to the rental car agencies at airports, so you can fill up before you drop off–but allow a good half hour for this.

Me to the Hertz attendant: So we calculated mileage and I think we’ll be driving only about 600km but the allowance is 1200 for our 6 days, right?
Hertz attendant: You calculated all that?
Me, puzzled: Yes…
Hertz attendant, looking over at my husband with a big grin, who was THE DRIVER (but not the trip-booker): Boss, I don’t know whether to be scared or impressed…
We laughed and laughed. Sexist, maybe, but gender attitudes are different in that part of the world, strong women who refuse to marry without the traditional lobola (bride price, which is considerable) are many, both alluring and threatening. So what if I sat on that cusp?

Lesson #3: Know where you're headed, use google maps to compute distances, and book the car last after all your other itinerary bits are set. And present your decision to the attendants with a flourish.  

Money

Most payments in South Africa can be completed by credit card. You really need cash only for tips, and that odd occasion when there’s load-shedding (a power cut! happened nearly daily, sometimes twice a day for 2-2.5 hours each time) and your credit card can’t be swiped. Plus emergencies and/or backups, of course. Commissions are high at Cape Town Airport, so we ended up getting our cash exchanged at the Travelex at the Waterfront.

Many online sources say it’s a good idea to get cash from the ATMs instead of the traders. But check on what your bank’s daily limits and charges are before going this route.

SIM Cards

Easiest to get these at the airport on arrival. In Johannesburg at least these used to be costlier at airport than in the city, but that seems to have changed or the convenience is worth the extra cost. MTN, Vodacom (the local name for Vodafone) have the best reputations and either might be fine — but many of our research participants from way back when always said that MTN had the better coverage. Since we were headed to remoter corners, this did it for us.

Read this blog post for the whole lowdown on choosing and buying options for SIM cards in South Africa.

Travel Adaptors

Wall sockets in South Africa are as you see below (left). Universal adaptors will do the trick, but you can also get (at local hardware shops) these other intermediaries (left). Also see this guide.

The Fun Stuff

Where we stayed: Cape Town

Location, location, location is everything in real estate, right? Since we had 2 separate “episodes” in Cape Town sandwiching a cross-country trip to Kruger, we stayed first at Greenpoint (The Devonshire) and then at Seapoint (Pepper Tree), both booked via AirBnB. There might have been more scenic locations in Camps Bay or elsewhere, but these were far, far easier on the pocketbook.

• Greenpoint has great views of Table Bay, and a Spar a short walk down to the right (towards town) which was much better stocked and cheaper than the closer Woolworth’s to the left.
• Seapoint has a large-ish Woolworth’s plus a tiny Pick-N-Pay just down the street, no view really to speak of, but the apartment had 2 full bathrooms, and that long, lovely waterfront promenade so much like the one at home for leisurely walks or brisk runs.
• Note that the big grocery stores in SA are: Woolworth’s, Spar, Checkers, PickNPay.
• The Waterfront shops and restaurants are walkable from Greenpoint, a short drive from Seapoint.
• Both are also close enough to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, all of the Table Mountain hiking trails, and to the District 6 Museum and Truth Coffee. And that’s the Truth!

Keep in mind here that AirBnB bookings are now managed a lot of the time not by lovely couples in quaint neighborhoods (although Nelspruit still has lots of those), but Vacation Rental agencies. They’re swift, they’re responsive–and they’re impersonal. No chance of booking the attic of an old home and getting to have coffee later with the owners who live downstairs, and turn out to be translators and publishers of academic monographs–this was the loveliness and warmth we found in Cais do Sodré with Inês & António once in Lisboa. Just an apartment with self-catering hotel-like basics. That’s not bad, but it’s also ordinary. Be aware, is all.

What we did: Cape Town

Here’s what we did in Cape Town:

• Hikes: Platteklip Gorge (took the Cable car down), 12 Apostles & Missing Loop Trail, Tranquility Cracks (up Kasteelspoort & down Corridor Ravine).
• Get a Slingsby Map! We didn’t have one, and let me tell you navigating with what’s available online is a real pain, even when there’s connectivity, which there decently is.
• Platteklip gorge was a good starter hike to know the terrain and to have the chance to come down via the Cable car to your same starting point [3-4 hours to go up]. Navigate to the Table Mountain Cable car station and find the trailhead a short walk from there. Parking is on the roads, mostly, and there are usually some guys around to guide you to open spots. Be sure to tip them!
• The 12 Apostles & Missing Loop is not actually one that climbs up, but starts at the very end of Theresa Avenue and loops a little like the contour path/pipe track does elsewhere, giving you fine views of the Apostles but no serious elevation gain. That does NOT make it an easy hike though. Loose stones and full sun all the way and a lot of the up-down on the loop back make it tiring enough though there are a number of people with dogs who run along this way [about 4 hours].

"Visit Cape Town, they said," chirped a cheery man we met on the way up one hike while he was dancing down, "Climb Table Mountain, they said. It'll be fun, they said...." Puffing and panting, we laughed and laughed.

The 12 Apostles & Missing Loop

This is not actually one that climbs up, but starts at the very end of Theresa Avenue and loops a little like the contour path/pipe track does elsewhere, giving you fine views of the Apostles but no serious elevation gain. That does NOT make it an easy hike though. Loose stones and full sun all the way and a lot of the up-down on the loop back make it tiring enough though there are a number of people with dogs who run along this way [about 4 hours].

Tranquility Cracks

This one started for us on the Pipe Track/Contour path, went LEFT up Kasteelspoort, then RIGHT at the top [where the maps are], over to the “diving board” for those must-have Table Mountain daredevil photos, then continuing RIGHT from the main trail to find those famously elusive Cracks, and then back to the main trail continuing RIGHT, and RIGHT again at the pile of stones that indicates the start of Corridor Ravine, RIGHT onto the contour path/Pipe track again and out. It was a brilliant hike, made better by an encounter with some others along the path who engaged us in boisterous conversation and were kind and helpful, too. Took a full 8 hours–more than most locals do, said the folks we met.

I’ve posted the route, images and directions in detail here, since it was hard for me to figure out until we actually did this hike (and not just me, lots of others on the trail asking questions about the Cracks).

India Venster may need a guided tour but not Tranquility Cracks! This is a straightforward hike, as long as you have some good directions.

Continuing with the What We Did list…

• We spent a day at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, on the East side of Table Mountain which is lusher, greener, more tropical-feeling, as all leeward sides are. Get a map of the treks and trails at the information booth at the entrance, do the Yellowood trail and then as far up Table mountain as you please. Kirstenbosch has some nice eateries in the park, so we did our hike part way up Skeleton Gorge but came down in time to come back for a lateish lunch.

Other things we did in Cape Town:

• Went to the District 6 Museum and finished with coffee and fab bread and pastries at Truth Coffee just down the street from there (a bit of a presumptuous place, but a good one nonetheless). The museum is interesting, a personal history exhibit really of the folks who lived in District 6, and how various apartheid policies and shifts as well as the inevitable processes of urbanization pushed and pulled these communities apart.
• Watched a cricket match at the very special Newlands Cricket Ground–some local teams, so it wasn’t ticketed and we got in for the price of parking
• Watched Wakaanda Forever at the Waterfront cinemas. Lord, what were we thinking? Two powerful non-white civilizations sitting on untold vibranium resources, who ought to align against former colonizers, somehow end up in an almost-to-death power-struggle with each other–leaving the nefarious and underhanded white powers that be just a bit role in the aftermath of colonialism? If it was non-white folks that wrote this script–it’s a copout. And why does Wakaanda have to defeat Talokan first before the two decide to get all collaborative–black power over brown, what? Outrageous, and waste of time.
• Boys went snorkeling with Cape Town Freediving on Windmill Beach for a few hours one morning, while we hung about mostly in the very charming Kalk Bay, exploring antique shops and bookshops like Quagga Trading and finding far, far more interest here than in Simonstown, on this side of Boulder’s Beach where the Jackass Penguin Colonies are.
• Went to see the penguin colonies on Boulder’s Beach–which have been in decline for some time now, I think there are only about 3000 left. A penguin breeding program over at De Hoop (managed by Cape Nature, and home to the 55km Whale Trail) recently reported some significant successes, which you can read about here.

• Went for long walks along Camps bay and the Seapoint Promenade.
• I wanted to do a foraging experience with Veld & Sea, but just couldn’t work it in. It remains on my wishlist.
• We also wanted to do the ferry trip to Robben Island in Table Bay, where Nelson Madela was held for so long, but didn’t.

Where we stayed & What we did: Nature Reserves

Just about all South Africa’s natural parks are managed by SanParks [Table Mountain National Park, under which fall Boulder’s Beach and Cape Point; Karoo, and Kruger are all SanParks] or Cape Nature [Kogelberg, De Hoop, Lambert’s Bay]. SanParks feels a lot more like a shabbier government department and their online booking process is so, so, so clunky (a UX overhaul pretty please!) in contrast to Cape Nature’s smarter, newer everything–but get ready to deal with both.

Some notes for the clunky booking and payment process, especially for SanParks:

• You may need a credit card that uses an OTP verification method to complete payment for online bookings; I tried a card that didn’t have this at first and the transaction failed repeatedly.
• If there’s a glitch in the payment and you don’t get the SanParks confirmation screen but your payment has gone through–just pick up the phone and talk to them. SanParks systems are glitchy, but the people at the other end are helpful and they’ll sort things if they can verify your payment has come in. This happened to me, twice, and both times (on phone and email), they were responsive. Whatever you do, don’t try to make a second payment until you’ve called; double-payments are messy and cause needless stress.
• All these parks and nature reserves charge a daily conservation fee, which is higher for visitors than for locals and which can quickly add up to a tidy sum. You can pay these individually, or you can buy a Wild Card that covers your entry most everywhere (Cape Nature and SanParks).
• At checkout, you’ll be given an option to pay the daily conservation fee or pay that later. Before you pay, do a calculation of the days you’ll be spending at the various parks. Note that conservation fees vary from park to park, so look them up. We found that it was cheaper to pay for the Wild Card than to pay individually–in spite of the fact that the Wild Card charges for Internationals are more limited in options and more expensive. But doing this ahead of time saved us money, time and effort while waiting in queues to enter.

We didn’t get ourselves to the Karoo [a very different landscape, I was told, and with the starriest nights], nor to De Hoop or Lambert’s Bay as I had hoped we would for reasons of both time and cost which add up very quickly when staying on the nature preserves. All on the list for next time.

Day hikes around Table Mountain need no permits and incur no charges, but staying overnight in any of these reserves will need booking.

1. Cape Point: Olifantsbos

At Cape Point, we stayed at Olifantsbos on Marie Viljoen’s recommendation. You’ll be all alone, she said, right on the beach, with miles and miles of trails. She had me at “alone,” and in truth we have stayed in almost no more beautiful places in this world, even if the Atlantic waters were much too cold to touch, let alone swim.

The cottage at Olifantsbos is large, and there’s an annexe (which we didn’t use), but costs a pretty penny to reserve and it has its share of quirks.

• There’s no electricity–a solar battery provides lights, but there are no plug points for devices of any sort (bring your own charger packs!).
• Everything else runs on gas–even the icebox and the fridge. Hot water comes, but in an odd hot-cold flow. [Why don’t people just provide buckets and mugs? I wound up using a large kitchen basin with stove-boiled water to bathe].
• The water is potable, but there’s no-one around for miles, and the nearest grocery stores are way off in town, so you do need to have literally everything you need for the duration of your stay. “Self-catering,” it’s called.
• Think your meals through, bring wood and charcoal (there’s a braai area by the deck outside, and a place for a bonfire), and disconnect yourself as there’s no signal here either.
• You can charge your phone in the car and there is a good MTN signal down the road but really, all that defeats the point doesn’t it?

Go for endless walks; you’re right on the shipwreck trail. Stay quiet in the company of those you love; read a book or three; bring movies on a pen drive to watch together, crowding around a single screen to conserve battery and keep close; absorb the magnificent sunsets, and retire early because it’s surprisingly tiring to walk for that long on soft beach sand. Awaken to the sound of the crashing waves, shore birds feasting and foraging, and a shy Bontebok antelope with its unique markings grazing by the back door. Ostrich families may happen by. The Cape’s endemic Chacma Baboons are around (keep your distance! They’re aggressive). Sand whiter than you can imagine, lichens yellower than you thought possible, a sky with more drama than an Indian soapie–such are the treasures of Olifantsbos. Quirks or no, we absolutely loved it here.

Take in the uniqueness of the Cape Floristic Region. Vegetation is largely sclerophyllous, which means it’s adapted to Mediterranean climate thanks to the cold Atlantic waters, poor soil, long periods of dryness and the whipping wind. Fynbos or “fine bush,” bush too fine to harvest for timber or other human purpose, is comprised of three plant types: Ericas [the heath-like shrubs which make up most fynbos species], restios or wiry Cape Reeds, and proteas [larger-leaved, taller, with some of the showiest blossoms around]–Ericaceae, Restionaceae, and Proteaceae.

Fynbos gets far more attention than the other vegetation type that comprises the Fynbos Biome: Renosterveld. These are plants that grow in somewhat richer shale-derived soil, many of them daisy-family, bulbs, orchids, and others, and in environments that were once home to larger mammals: the black rhino, the quagga, the blue buck, all of which have been hunted to extinction. Animals gone, all fertile land taken over by agriculture, and what’s left of the Renosterveld is precious little indeed. I’m not even sure we saw much of it at all. [Read more here]

We drove down to the Cape of Good Hope and trekked up to the Lighthouse (there are restaurants here, if you like). Since our boys were keen on finding some spot–any spot–where the Atlantic waters may be a touch warmer or gentler, we tried Buffels Bay (which has a pool cordoned off from the ocean), but with little swimming luck. Those waters need thick wetsuits to dare enter. Then to enjoy unfailingly brilliant sunsets, and followed the Elands and Ostriches around a bit. Curfew is at sundown–for us in November, half-seven. So then we had the whole evening to read, cook, and bum around.

Had we had more days I’d have loved to get over to Poison Cove, or do a guided something with The Fynbos Guy. But this time, Olifantsbos just stood in for everything.

2. Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve

Over on the other side of False Bay from Cape Point are the Kogelberg mountains and the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve. Managed by Cape Nature, they have some very smart new cabins which (especially compared to Olifantsbos) put you into the lap of luxury in the middle of some of the most remote, spectacular, and special floristic landscapes of the Western Cape. Is there a better combination than that?

Kleinmond is nearby, so although these units are also remote and self-catering, it’s not a terribly long driver over to a grocery store to pick up something missed. We had the Marsh Rose cabin [in the Oudebosch Eco Cabins group] and it was perfect–at one end, so it was like having a corner and a mountain to ourselves. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a deck and braai area, a lounge-kitchen-dining area, doors that open out completely, even the bathrooms have a view and each a dry toilet which made converts out of all of us–it worked beautifully and reduced our water use so much, it was practically a comfort.

Genets came by at night, as did Yellow Bishops during the day, Cape Spurfowl couples, and some kites. King Proteas were blooming everywhere, so we could walk out at sunset and watch the Cape Sugarbirds feast away on their large heads. Watsonias were plentiful, alongside just about all the other special fynbos flowers you can imagine. The Palmiet river runs through Kogelberg, red-brown because it’s iron-rich and perfectly safe to drink (in the short term, anyway). The riparian scrub vegetation is soul-soothingly beautiful, and there are three patches of relic indigenous forest: Louwsbos, Platbos and Oudebos, which include yellowwood, stinkwood and boekenhout trees, and which you will encounter if you go on the right hikes.

We went on two:

• The Palmiet River trail which is easier and very picturesque [about 4 hours roundtrip], and the
• trail to the Harold Porter Botanical Gardens, which passes through the relic indigenous Oudebos forest, out into brilliant views of False Bay, then gets tougher by half especially on the decent to the gardens. Once there, you can walk around the gardens themselves, get a drink at the cafeteria, and have a shuttle come take you back to your cabins [arrange that ahead of time so you know someone will come]. This was a full-day hike, out after breakfast back for a late tea. The trail is one-way: it’s ok to go down into the Botanical Gardens, but a risky climb back up. Hence the pick-up.

3. Kruger National Park

If the Western Cape is much more about the flora, Kruger is all about the fauna. It is an incredibly special place. Nearly 20,000 square km, a third of the size of Sri Lanka, a vast and varied landscape, rich with life big and small, Kruger takes time, teaches patience and brings wonderment.

Getting to Kruger means either flying into Johannesburg and driving 4 hours to Mbombela/Nelspruit, which acts as something of a gateway to Kruger, or flying directly into Mbombela. We did the latter as researchers, but when I checked for this trip, the ticket prices from Cape Town to Mbombela were prohibitively expensive–$1000 for 4, compared to a third of that for the same 4 on Lift. So, Lift it was, into Johannesburg and Hertz it was to carry us to Mbombela, about a 4 hour drive through Gauteng and Mpumalanga province’s mining territories.

[Lift turned out to be a nice experience: the first airline whose staff are entirely casually dressed in sneakers and black pants/shirts–an idea Indian airlines could take inspiration from, instead of making all these young female flight attendants wear such short and tight uniforms–and which deplaned passengers by rows. And you know what? Nobody moved until it was their turn. Such a refreshing change from the public-bus-unloading-experience that otherwise happens on most planes, not just the Indian ones.]

Now the best and most driving-efficient way to experience Kruger is to stay in the park, at one of several rest camps that are scattered all through. You’ll find innumerable guides online about how to pick the best vantage point. For several reasons including ease of booking and convenience on a short trip like ours, we settled on the Lower Sabie camp, picking cabins with a view of the Lower Sabie river, where hippos and elephant-sightings are common.

If we had to do this over, however, we’d move from rest camp to rest camp: a day or two at Lower Sabie (for leopard sightings), a day or two at Satara (lion country), and another day at least at Olifants (for a taste of the more northern reaches of the Park). Skip Skukuza–as one of our sweet Afrikaaner hosts in Nelspruit quipped, “that’s like a little Joburg inside the park and who wants that?” Berg-en-Dal is an option (rhino sightings), but only if you stop there first or on your way out through the Malelane gate.

Kruger park will take as much time as you choose to spend in it. The absolute best way to experience Kruger, as several of our hosts told us, is to be there for a length of time, out each morning when the gates open, back during the hot hours when animals retreat to the bush, and then back out each evening. Rather than move-move-move, which is the compulsion of shorter trips, go to a watering hole and hang out quietly. That takes longer. We’d have loved to do that, but maybe on another trip when we have more time (and better camera lenses).

Every season is different, too. We had clearly arrived just after all the babies. We saw the cutest, most curious hyena pups, baby zebras (below), elephants (with very protective mothers) and lots of little pumbaas (warthogs).

Kruger has paved roads and gravel roads, but lower speed limits and the natural limitations of moving on gravel roads slow you down–and you really want to be at the best viewing spots in the early mornings and evenings, which are the best times for the best sightings. Staying in Lower Sabie means you can never be near Satara in the very early morning because the rest camp gates only open so early and it takes over an hour to get up there, so that’s time and driving wasted. Staying in the different rest camps gives you those right-time-right-place coordinates perfectly.

Lesson #4: If you're going to Kruger, stay in Kruger long as you can--but keep moving and re-locating at different "bases" in the park to minimize driving and maximize sightings.

In sum:

• Fly into Johannesburg, get a car (if you can, something with height like an SUV), drive to Nelspruit
• Stay in Nelspruit or White River on your way in and out to save a bit of cost [SanParks are PRICEY!].
• If you have extra time in the region, drive the Mpumalanga Panorama Route, climb the surprisingly short distance to God’s Window and find the fantastically beautiful “Three Rondavels” above the Blyde River Canyon at Graskop.

• Spend as much time as you can inside Kruger, but move from rest camp to rest camp (Berg-en-Dal, Lower Sabie, Satara, Olifants–in some order that allows you to get to Olifants and work your way back to Berg-en-Dal)
• Get the Kruger Park: Map & Guide book, with tips, routes, maps and animal identification pages from the Park shops. They’re each hugely helpful.
• DO take a pair of binoculars with you, or buy a pair in the park. Our telephoto lens had limitations, so the boys took to using the binoculars and phones to get binoc-phone images, not a half-bad work-around.

• Be prepared to be out each day when the gates open, as early as 430am and come back in time for a late-ish breakfast.
• Get books, games for the daytime hours in between the morning and evening drives, when the animals go deep into the bush and you really should be deep in your cabins because the sightings are least exciting in these hours.
• Make sure you’re back by the curfew! It’s not fun being out after dark (and it’s pitch dark), and having an elephant or a hippo walk out in front of your car with only minimal reaction time to stop/swerve.

We lose track of time and direction one evening, waiting for a leopard to pretty-please raise its head. It’s 645pm by the time we reach Lower Sabie: 15 minutes past curfew, but really still in the last light of sunset. The large-bodied guard at the gate must teach us a lesson.
“I know why you’re late, you were with the lions,” he says.
“But no…” we protest.
“See, I have photo,” he says, pulling out his phone. We are trying not to laugh.
“We promise, we just took a wrong turn and had to come back…”–truth, after all.
“I must call the ranger,” he insists (persists?), “I don’t know but he will spoil your vacation with a ZAR1000 fine.” We gasp and protest, we have never been late coming back before this.
“Can you not forgive us?” This is me talking, and my accent has gone from being what my boys think of as “normal” to entirely Nigerian-inflected and surprisingly like the local accents at Kruger. I feel their bemused glances on my shoulders.
A little more back-and-forth like this, and finally: “I know I don’t want to spoil your vacation,” he says, and lets us off for a ZAR100 which “you don’t have to pay.”

• Do go on the morning or evening drives organized by the Park and with rangers accompanying–they’re pricey, but entirely worth it.
• The morning walk is hit or miss. The rangers follow you with guns they call “guitars” and you feel like Shikari Shambu of the old Tinkle comics, but you may see little or nothing. I enjoyed walking around because so much of the Kruger experience is car-bound, but then that was really just a long walk in the bush and not more. We’d hoped to see matabele [Megaponera analis] ants, but learned halfway through we were in the wrong territory for them.

Although there is some satisfaction in being able to say that we saw “THE BIG FIVE” at Kruger, we learned quite fast it wasn’t just about them at all.

Think for a moment about how you know a place, not just by sight but by smell and sounds. That one koel that calls every morning. Those crows. Those roosters! [who woke us up unfailingly early in Kauai once upon a time]. Same-same, you know the foreign-ness of South Africa and the specific foreign-ness of Kruger by its birdsong. That more than any thing makes you sit still, become invisible, and listen. And although it was lovely to spot jackals, see a family of baby hyenas, hear hippos grunting hilariously, watch baby elephants and zebras sticking close to their mothers, lazy lions, and that character of a flap-necked chameleon dancing across the road–the avian diversity of Kruger was beyond compare. I don’t have the photos to prove it, but Kruger birds made this trip special for us. Look out for them!

Lesson #5: There are worlds beyond the ones you think you know. Give yourself time to find them.

And don’t worry, whatever else you do or don’t see at Kruger, you will always see impalas!