South Africa's Kruger Park:
"Hear Us Push Through the Deepest Bush"
By Christopher Kenneally
Photos By Derek Szabo

THE TRANSVAAL, SOUTH AFRICA -- As we glided east on a two-lane highway between Johannesburg and the Mozambique border, the road stretched straight ahead in a neatly ruled line. Among the several incongruous features of the Transvaal, South Africa's second largest province, were its remarkably well-paved roads. Africa's most developed country threw plenty of curves at us, though not many made with tar and broken white lines.

A South African friend had told me to "expect First World infrastructure in a Third World setting," yet even the fir-green Drakensberg range seemed out of place. Rippling along the horizon with a pale sky for a backdrop, these rotund Transvaal mountains might have been transplanted from the west of Ireland.

How Now Blue "Cow"?

A warning sign we passed in a blur showed a blue cow. That was the sort of thing I expected to see in Ireland, too. Photographer Derek Szabo wasn't sure about the "cow." Stands of tall marsh grasses at either side of the road didn't seem right to him as pasture. He threw the car in reverse on the deserted highway and we went back for a second look. The silhouette inside the red and white triangle--low-hanging belly, stumpy legs and ping-pong-paddle-shaped snout--was revealed to be a hippopotamus.

A mature hippo can weigh over 5,500 pounds and will eat more than 100 pounds of grass and plants daily. They are, by far the African animal most dangerous to human beings. In water, where a hippo can remain submerged for over five minutes, they have an alarming habit of surfacing underneath canoes. When out grazing at night, the bulky beasts represent terrifying four-legged road hazards.

Best Advice: Run

Hippo bulls mostly use their tusk-like canines and incisors on each other in ferocious territorial battles, but they will turn them on campers and other interlopers if provoked or threatened. Surprisingly fast on their feet, a hippo can flatten obstacles like a speeding truck. Playing amateur naturalist, I tried to collect tips on hippo behavior and what to do should I ever met up with one. "I see hippos sometimes. At night, but not very much," a local answered nonchalantly. His expert advice? Run uphill to avoid blocking the animal's retreat to water.

You Take the Highveld

En route to Kruger National Park, we climbed through the "highveld" where elevations rise up to a mile above sea level. Sweeping ranges of pine trees darkened the Drakensberg mountainsides and mesmerizing waterfalls plunged hundreds of feet from daunting cliffs. From there, we descended into the "lowveld" where the tropical climate of the Crocodile River Valley resembled Florida or southern California. Tomato vines and citrus tree groves were everywhere neatly arrayed on expansive plantations.

In Kaapmuiden, a market town and farming hub south of Kruger Park, I entered a grocery and short order kitchen set in a clutch of feed stores and tractor dealerships. An elderly, Afrikaans-speaking couple stood inside before shelves of canned beans and boxes of rice. It was an interactive version of "South African Gothic."

I Brake for Lions

Slightly smaller than Massachusetts, the 7,500-square-mile Kruger National Park ran for 200 miles north-to-south along the Mozambique border. "Kruger" is home to 1,500 lion, 1,000 leopard, 5,000 giraffe, and 3,000 hippo, to name but a few of the park's more than 130 mammals and hundreds of other species of reptiles, birds and insects. Kruger's stunning array of wildlife share alternating bands of bushveld, savanna and woodland forests in a territory drained by five major rivers. The park makes for one of the continent's most significant nature reserves.

As President of the independent South African Republic (at the time, an area nearly identical with modern Transvaal), Paul Kruger served his people from 1883 until his death in exile in Switzerland in 1904. The wildlife park namesake was no tree-hugging conservationist, but the George Washington of the Transvaal. "Oom Paul" (Uncle Paul) wore an imposing Brillo pad beard and stern, Calvinist expression into negotiations with Cecil Rhodes and numerous battles with British imperialism that eventually climaxed in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

Kruger called the Afrikaners, "God's People," and he embodied their determination to rule in their own house as they pleased. Paved roads alternated with winding dirt paths, all leading to numerous dams, watering holes and other wildlife viewing spots. Long stretches of Kruger Park, totaling over 1,200 miles, are open to private automobile (this is South Africa, after all). Kruger is by no means well-hidden or undeveloped, but it appeared largely unspoiled. Occasional rest camps and lodges were architecturally inoffensive. The park is state-maintained and commercialism has been kept to a minimum. Any of this may change if plans for partial privatization of park operations are realized anytime soon.

To go off-road in Kruger in order to search out and approach the animals, visitors can sign on for "bush drives" led by environmental education officers. The excursions cost a very reasonable 50 rand (about $15, as of this writing) for a three-hour night drive (a day-long Kruger cruise is just 150 Rand). Ngala Game Reserve, the only privately-run lodge inside Kruger (several others hover on the periphery), offers the same off-road experience as well as the up-scale comforts now common with high-end nature travel.

Our Own Private Africa

Ngala's owners, the five-year-old Conservation Corporation, espouse high-minded principles that seek to integrate tourism, wildlife protection and community development. Conscorp has overseen construction at Ngala of schools, health clinics and housing with running water and electricity for staff and their families. Employees with medical problems can choose to see either a doctor or a traditional healer. This progressive approach--unthinkable in the apartheid era--has placed Conservation Corporation at the front guard of South Africa's burgeoning eco-tourism industry.

A few drives in the bush and I felt as if I'd landed a starring role in my own private Wild Kingdom. The smell of diesel fuel and the constantly thumping ride gave me the sensation of riding a speedboat on dry land.

For the same reason a zebra has stripes, the shape of the Land Rover protected me and other passengers from becoming savanna snacks. In a nutshell, the physiognomy of a lion's eyesight favors identification of shapes over detail. A galloping herd of zebra thus appears to meld into a single mass, which the lion will not attack because it cannot pick out an individual. Likewise, passengers seated in the Rover become part of the vehicle and are all but invisible to a hungry cat's eyes.

Ngala means lion in Shangaan, one of several African languages spoken in the Transvaal, and in a short time, I grew accustomed to seeing the big cats just as they seemed blasé toward us. Nevertheless, an electric charge always jumped the short distance--sometimes, only a few feet--between me and the jaws of death. A message encoded deep in my personal genetics instructed me to flee, but my post-modern sensibilities overrode the command. My nostrils, however post-modern they might be, could not override the odor of putrefying wildebeest, item of choice at the buffet of the Survival of the Fittest open-air restaurant.

Welcome Back to the Food Chain

We roamed the park and collected the legendary safari animals known collectively as "the big five." Those who venture to Africa in order to see ngala, mkome, ikwae, ndlovu and nyare (otherwise known, respectively, as lion, rhinoceros, leopard, elephant, and buffalo), take note: the animals are said to be easier to spot in Kruger than anywhere else on the continent. We caught the most elusive of the big five napping, literally. In a tree limb at dusk, a leopard dozed like a kitten; its mesmerizing pattern of spots rose gently with each breath. The elephant we saw stomped off quickly like startled sheep; an infant the size of a compact car trailed its mother like a tiny lamb.

After dark, it was obvious that what mattered more was not what I saw but what I couldn't see (and was watching me). The flash of a powerful searchlight revealed the bush had a thousand eyes. The "big five" were exhilarating sights, but because I had never heard of either an aardwolf (it resembled a small hyena with stripes running down its side rather than the hyena's spots) or a civet (a cross between a raccoon and a large house cat), coming across such strangers made a chance meeting feel like a real discovery.

Throughout the drives, I wanted to feel my feet on the bush floor and we left the Land Rover at last for an early morning hike on the trail of a black rhino. Sunlight illuminated enormous spider's webs that would have been strong enough to use as laundry lines. A buffalo skull lay where hyenas likely had dragged it away from a lion kill. Dung beetles feverishly rolled balls of aromatic elephant scat.

According to anthropologists, Australopithecus roamed the landscape of what became the Transvaal over two million years ago. Those strange ancestors of ours--part ape, part human--watched and listened, constantly and fearfully, for the approach of great menacing beasts as they moved along the savanna.

Now, I did the same. With each step, two million years of evolution and civilization collapsed tightly together like a folding fan. I had returned to my species' rightful place on the Transvaal, savanna food. Re-awakened instinct and a degree of fear refreshed my senses like light and air rushing into a long shuttered house. Behind a line of acacias not far off, the elusive rhino caught our scent and bolted. I froze as the van-sized creature trotted off as lithely as a colt in a pen. The Ngala guide, Byron, had earlier taught me some relevant lines from The Jungle Book and I recited them to myself repeatedly like a mantra.
"We go here and there, it doesn't matter where.
"Hear us push through the deepest bush."

So You Want to go to South Africa

South African Airways, 900 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022-4771. Toll-free reservations, tel. 800-722-9675. The 13-plus hour non-stop flight from JFK to Johannesburg (nearly 8,000 miles) is the longest commercial flight in the world. Departures are available from JFK and Miami to either Jo'burg or Cape Town. Visit their website at www.saa.co.za.

South African Tourist Board, 747 Third Avenue, 20th floor, New York, NY 10017. Toll-free information, tel. 800-822-5368. On the west coast, 9841 Airport Boulevard, Suite 1524, Los Angeles, CA 90045, tel. 800-782-9772. Visit their website at www.southafrica.net/satour.

Abercrombie & Kent International, Inc., 1520 Kensington Road, Oak Brook, IL 60521-2141. Toll-free information, tel. 800-323-7308. A&K are U.S. representatives for the South African-based Conservation Corporation which operates several Kruger Park area private game lodges including Ngala Game Lodge, Londolozi Game Reserve. Visit their website at www.abercrombiekent.com.

Christopher Kenneally Answers a Reader's Question about Kruger Park

Christopher Kenneally got a very nice email from one of our readers concerning his Kruger Park story. Here is the content of that email and his response.

Dear Christopher,

I hope you don't mind me writing to you like this. My wife and I are planning a vacation in South Africa in April next year. We are of mature age and would therefore like to have as much planning and detail down on paper as we can before we go. I was browsing the internet concerning South Africa when I came across your article about the Kruger National Park Called Hear us push through the deepest Bush. I enjoyed reading it and as we are going there one paragraph in particular drew my attention. We have to travel budget as best we can or our holiday will be too short. We need some information and hope you would be so kind as to help us.

I will quote the paragraph......... "To go off-road in Kruger in order to search out and approach the animals, visitors can sign on for "bush drives" led by environmental education officers. The excursions cost a very reasonable 50 rand (about $15) for a three-hour night drive (a day-long Kruger cruise is just 150 Rand). Ngala Game Reserve, the only privately-run lodge inside Kruger (several others hover on the periphery), offers the same off-road experience as well as the up-scale comforts now common with high-end nature travel".

We would like to know some detail about the 50 rand and 150 rand excursions, such as where they originate from and how we would have to book them. We don't know a lot about Kruger, so if you have any comments or opinions we would be very gratefull to receive them. Where in your opinion is the best budget place to stay near where these excursions originate? I hope you can find time (I realize you would be a busy man) to help us on this one. An unbiased opinion is always valuable. Hoping to hear from you soon,

Regards,

Ross & Ronda Duldig,
Adelaide South Australia

Christopher Kenneally Responds

Dear Ross

The internet certainly does make for a small world -- here we are corresponding by e-mail between the US and Australia about travel to South Africa! Here, then, are a few suggestions regarding budget travel in Kruger (based on my visit there in late March and early April 1995 -- a good time of year for game viewing, we were told), as well as where to go for further information. No guarantees, of course, but I feel pretty sure that you and your wife will have a fabulous time there.

My "Lonely Planet" guide for South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland (follow link for more info or to purchase through Amazon.com), proved quite reliable and includes a mini-field guide to common park animals with full- color photos. The LP series -- begun, if memory serves, by an Australian -- specializes in budget travel recommendations. I learned about the park drives at Skukuza, the largest of the so-called "rest camps" in Kruger. The facilities and infrastructure throughout the park is quite highly developed, and was built by the old SA government. I remember rumors that the park would be gradually "privatized" but don't know whether that has begun to happen.

For the latest prices and booking information, try to contact to the National Parks Board, PO Box 787, Pretoria, tel. (012) 343-1991, fax 343-0905. Kruger is a day's drive on very good roads from Jo'burg through the spectacular Drakensberg Mtns. We drove by rented car, then flew back on Comair from Skukuza Airport (as I recall the airfare was quite reasonable). This arrangement gave us more time in the park and meant we didn't have to back-track.

I am delighted you enjoyed my article. Have a great trip!

Christopher Kenneally
Boston, Massacusetts, USA

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