You are reading the 2nd episode of the Round The half World story. Here’s the previous one!

I didn’t expect that but we managed to get up at 8 a.m. It was surprising , considering that we are one hour behind comparing to Poland. I’m guessing though, that after two days of traveling to get here, we have our biological clocks deregulated enough not to feel any difference.
Pieter, who usually gets up at 5 a.m., has also been up only for a few minutes.

We’re starting our safari today. We are less than 50 kilometres from Kruger Park, the biggest national reserve in South Africa – over 20k square kilometres (nearly the size of Israel).
I feel so excited about it. I still have memories from Kenya, Masai Mara and I can’t wait.

But getting ready quickly is not something we easily do. A trip to the grocery store, packing, breakfast, chatting with the host, sightseeing around the neighbourhood and before we know it, it’s 10 a.m.
Even Pieter says it’s about time for us to leave.Not because he is fed up with us, no. He just knows we will waste the day if we stay here longer.
And he keeps repeating “Elephants are NOT your friends”.

We manage to get on the road before 11 a.m..

We take the road to the Mozambique border.

Pieter suggested that we enter the park from the south side, through the Malalane gate. So we do.
I was convinced that all the bureaucracy (tickets, lodging, etc.) would happen at the entrance. But nope. We just register the arrival, get some documents and we are let in the park.

I am excited! And so are the girls, I think.

We’re driving slowly because of the 50 km/h speed limit throughout all the asphalt roads in the park (40 km/h on dirt roads). We stare hard trying to spot any animal.
Nothing. 15 minutes in and not even a single one.
At least we get to enjoy the views.

Well… What to do then?
I take out the map and gather my thoughts. We’re in the south, more west, than east. The road we are on goes north. It seems that there is a bit of (I hope) wilder area in the east, so let’s maybe take the first right.
That’s what we do. We’re coming up to the first crossroad and the road that goes right is… closed.
Second crossroad – the same thing. No entry sign, what so ever.

First zebras and impalas appear. Nice, but it’s not enough. Gimme something more!

Finally, we see an open road that goes east. A dirt one. We leave the asphalt.
Any changes? Not really. More birds perhaps. They are funny sometimes, especially when they try to race us.

And suddenly I hear a loud “there! look right!!!”
An elephant appears. One, then another, then ten more, then the whole herd, at least 40 of them.

Even my jaw dropped. Haven’t seen such a big amount at once.

A car stops by us. The driver tells that he’d just heard that somebody had spotted a lion quite near and that he was going there. We decide to follow him.
When we get to the right place it turns out that the animal is gone.
At that moment I realize the way the safari works: you drive by yourself, you look for birds and common grass-eaters, which there is plenty of here, and you hope you get some info about the whereabouts of the rare mammals, through the grapevine. Once you get that, you go to the place and watch the animal like in a zoo. There are no secret places, no special knowledge; all visitors are in the same boat.

So we move on.

We come across a huge herd of impalas; they almost got on our car. We stop there and watch them for nearly a quarter of an hour. The herd consists of one male and more than 30 females and kids.
Lucky guy.

What captivates me the most, are birds. It’s not like there are thousands of them – we are not in Papua jungle. But I am used to seeing only black-white-grey ones in PL. So any flying creature that is a bit more colourful makes me stop and watch.

And Magda is shooting pics.

We even come across the African cousin of our Polish national bird.

We take the road that goes along the river. I am guessing that’s where we’ll have more chances to spot something interesting, as water is always a meeting point for animals. The weather doesn’t really confirm the fact that it’s the dry season – there is a plenty of verdure, the sky is covered with dark clouds and a few drops fall from time to time.
Still, I have no better idea.

And suddenly I hear “stooooooppp!”. I brake immediately and look what’s wrong and I see an elephant nearly steping on the car. Magda yells to move back, so I slowly go back a few meters and stop.
Then we see another, and one more, crossing the road.
My sweetheart does not know if to sit still or take pictures. She’s petrified by the closeness of the animals. I’m also guessing that she took Pieter’s warnings to heart.

The elephants disappear in the bushes; we move closer and see their path. It probably leads to the river.
So, there is a chance that if a few animals went this way, others might as well..
I go closer to their path, despite my love’s protesting and we wait.

Indeed, 15 minutes later we see the rest of the family walking the same direction.
We keep a safe distance and sit tight with the engine off.
Suddenly, one of the young stops, looks at us and aggressively shakes his head. So much so that we thought he would want to attack us. But then he just moves forward.

Magda looks pale, I can feel the panic as well. My sister is in the back and keeps taking pictures.
The rest of the animals just pass by, as if they didn’t even notice us.

Now, that was something.

It’s 4:00 p.m., time to head towards Lower Sabie, where we’re staying tonight.
But the ride is not boring at all.

We reach our destination minutes before the gate closes . They do it inall the camps in the Park – they shut the entrances around dawn (6.30 PM in the summer) and they turn the electric fences on not to let any wildlifeget into the park as to a “all you can eat canteen”.
Who arrives after the closing time either pays a fine (if the delay was minor) or spends the night outside, in his own car, at his own risk.

We made it on time. Barely, but we did.

We deal with the bureaucracy at the reception, so only here we pay the entrance and accommodation fees.

I know that in the parks they offer facultative excursions with a guide. You can choose night drive, morning drive and morning walk.
Morning walk is the only option that allows to walk outside the camp legally. And it’s the most expensive one. To do that you need to pay nearly €40. They also say it’s a totally different experience from sightseeing while in the car, even a convertible .
Unfortunately, all the spots for the night drive and morning walk have already been taken. We only have the morning drive still available.
However, it works for us well.
The cost is around €20 per person.
We have to be at the parking lot ready to go at 4.30 AM.
OMG!

The camp itself looks nice. Like a campground near a lake – everything is hidden in green, spread around the neighbourhood.
They have a shop, properly equipped (of course, the biggest section is the souvenir one – good thing is that they have postcards and stamps) and a restaurant. You walk into that restaurant and – what a surprise! What you find in the menu are chips, pizza and, hamburgers. Also steaks, but overall it looks like the menu would be mostly for European/American tourists, who take fast food over the local cuisine.
Prices are ok, like in PL – €4-10 per meal.

We won’t eat there then. We still have some food we brought with us from Poland. My sister, appointed as the party steward, buys some fresh groceries to enrich the meal and we are set.
I need to admit that she is really good at this. It’s a huge relief to me, because I really don’t enjoy taking care of food on a trip. I can organize the whole thing, like I have for this excursion, but when it comes to food, I get a thought blackout and it gives me a lot of stress.
Weird, I agree, but can’t help it.

For tonight, I have booked a standalone room, boisterously called a hut. In the picture it really looked like African hut, made of concrete and something similar to the thatch on the roof.
The reality looks a bit different. What we get is a kind of terrace rooms, finished off with something round on both ends that could resemble the hut from the picture.
It’s clean and tidy though, with a fridge, sink and three beds inside.
The AC is also there, which, despite the obvious pros, becomes my killer of the day: 5 minutes after turning it on I get a headache. Within an hour it turns into a hammer hitting my head every second. A kind of pain resistant to any painkillers. Only deep sleep can help, if I manage to fall asleep. Sometimes a hair dryer would work.
Shit. I knew I should have stayed away from any draughts and cold air, but I didn’t suspect that I would be down after only 5 minutes from the moment the AC had kicked in. Kind of exaggeration, even for me.
I feel sorry for the girls, as they will have to endure the night without it.

We wake up before 4:00 a.m.
The headache is still there, but I’m a bit better. I pop the painkillers, do a short session with the hairdryer and cross my fingers for this to be enough.

We leave without breakfast, I put some cakes to the backpack.
There is almost nobody in the parking lot, only one couple.
Then more people come. Then we see our car, Isuzu, a kind of bus with an open trailer.
The driver, Jason, if I recall well, goes through a short training, gives out the headlights (it’s still dark out) to spot blinking animals’ eyes and we head out.

We’re going and going, and what we see is a giraffe first (we stop by it), then a rabbit (again, we stop and we get a short lesson about it), then a small bird in the middle of asphalt (another stop) and then nothing.
WTF?
Where did I read that these excursions are so outstanding? Please, have mercy..

We drive around until the sky gets brighter over the Mozambique.
Still nothing. Just a few antelopes, elephants on the other side of the river. The only attraction is a lonely hyena walking on the side of the road and a piece of hippo sticking out of the river (they said so – personally, I spotted nothing).
Hyena really caught my attention – I have never seen one up close (it was about 10 metres away from us).

There was one thing that bothered me. Yesterday, when stopping at the bridge near our camp, I saw a bit motley bird sitting on the edge. It looked so sad and poor. He didn’t pay any attention to the people driving by and even stopping next to him. I had the immediate thought that he may be sick or dying since he simply didn’t care what was going on around him.
And now we see a similar bird sitting in the same place, in the same position, looking the same poor and sad.
– What’s wrong with this bird? – I ask Jason. – Because he doesn’t give a shit about anything, he just sits there like he were sick or something.
– He’s hunting – Jason replies. – The river’s here.
– But how come? – I don’t let go. – He’s been sitting here, absolutely still, for like 15 minutes and hasn’t made a single move.
– Patience, my friend. Patience is the key.

We meet first Pumbaas.

Suddenly Jason gets excited and a minute later he tells us that somewhere close somebody had just seen a lion.. Off we go.

Finally.

But we got excited too early. Yes, there are lions here, even three, young and eating, but 50-100 meters from us. In the grass. And the grass is high.
If Magda didn’t have her zoom lens, all I could see would be a brown stain on the green background.

If you have big cats eating carcass, those guys are their feast’s best friends.

We’re surrounded by a bunch of cars. Apparently everyone wants to see the animals.

5 minutes later an elephant appears. He passes the Simbas. He couldn’t have been farther than 5 meters from them. Having the big mammal nearby, the cats don’t move at all. But only when the elephant moves away a bit more, one of the lions gets up and walks towards the giant, like he wanted to yell from afar “yeah! lucky you went away! otherwise we would be talking differently!”, pointing out who’s the real boss here.

The elephant strides along the road. And we witness this funny situation – a car gets in his way and the tusker seems not to mind. The vehicle backs up while the animal just keeps on walking, minding his own business . We just wait and bet how long the car will be forced to use the rear gear.
As the jumbo gets on the road, it goes off it casually. And disappear in bushes.

We see another Polish symbol. The one that Polish government program 500+ wouldn’t exist without (to all unaware readers: Polish government pays 500 PLN/month per each second and posterior child in the family).

It’s nearly 7:30 p.m. Time to go back to the camp.

We are nearly there when we stumble upon such a view.

For me it is a big FUCK YEAH!!
I didn’t make it in Kenya, I make it here! I get to see a rhino for the first time!

I just sit and watch, my face is grinning. Magda is shooting photos.

So, the end of the day made up for the poor beginning . At least as much as it could.
We’re going back.

At the camp I talk a bit with Jason and ask him for some hints of how to and where to look for animals. He advises stopping at the bigger camps as they have board maps with spots from yesterday/today. There is also a website where they put such info online, but considering nearly no cellular service around, it’s not an option.
But the map info should be valuable.

Funny, but you can see the nature inside the camp as well.
This is what we see from our place.

We checkout at 10 a.m.
Next to the reception desk there actually is a map, where I can see the markings of yesterday’s animal spotting. I get a bit upset, as the most of the African Five are marked around the place I wanted to go yesterday, namely the Crocodile Bridge. Cheetahs, leopards, lions, buffaloes, shit! If only the roads were open…

There is a small chance we might see there something today – another map shows that out.

Notice, that no rhino places are marked on the map. But we saw a couple in the morning, right?
I got the explanation from one of the rangers. It’s all about the info. There are not only tourists in the camps. Sometimes the bad guys are there as well. Since the pulverized rhino’s horn is still a wanted good, the location of the animals could be valuable info for poachers and a headache for the park. So, someone clear-headed just did the wisest thing in the world and removed all the orange dots from the board 🙂
Simple solutions are sometimes the best.

Anyway, it seems to be the only direction for us today – we’re heading to Crocodile Bridge.

It’s way better than yesterday. We experience a kind of elephant Eldorado. We constantly see some and, at some point we almost hit a herd occupying the road.

They are big, they are close, but they seem not to see us – just passing by and eating no more than 5 meters from us.
I watch Magda fights her own fright. But she looks like she’s got it under control and shoots with her camera, one picture after another.
(later I sent some pictures to Pieter and he replied “so close! you’re crazy!!”)

Now this is what I call a safari!

Minutes later we see another rhinos. This time it’s a couple with a brat. We spend another quarter of an hour just staring and taking pictures. Magda and her zoom lens are priceless .

We’re approached by a car and asked if we had seen something interesting. We share the elephants and rhinos location and get in return some info, that they had passed the places with lions and cheetah and it’s quite close. I check it with the map we photographed in the camp (the one above) and it seems it’s marked.

We see the lion place almost immediately, a bunch of cars are there.
But the cats are almost invisible. There are two of them, very young and resting after the meal probably. They are closer than the ones we saw in the morning, but they are lying on the grass behind the tree, so we see only one head.

10 minutes is enough. Nothing happens, so nothing to wait for. We go for the cheetah.

A few kilometres later we see the road totally jammed. We stop to ask what was up and realize that they’re all here for cheetah. So, where is the animal? ”Somewhere there” – they point a side. Nobody has seen it yet, lol.
We start to laugh as it reminds us the lemming-like rush and an old Polish joke about queues in the communist times, when we had nothing in the shops: “hey mister, what is this queue for? I have no idea – but it doesn’t matter”
The attitude “if others are staying, it’s surely worth sticking around, too”.

We let them stay. For us there are nicer things to watch. Really.

Near Crocodile Bridge, very unexpectedly, as it was on the crossroad of the two main asphalt roads in the park, we meet a hippo. We are surprised, because we are a bit far from the river and the animal is alone.
Anyway, it looks adorable.

It’s quite close from Crocodile to Mozambique border. I have a thought that we could get there – I don’t know why I fancy such visits – but we decide to skip it after all. It’s 2 p.m., we have around 130 km to Pretoriouskop camp, where we are to sleep tonight, so it gives us at least 3 hours of constant drive. It leaves only 1,5h for watching the nature. Besides, we wanted to visit Skukuza, the biggest camp in the park to see their map – maybe they’ve seen a leopard there.
Not enough time.

We take the other way, back to Lower Sabie. I find the route way better than the yesterday’s one and I still feel pissed off that we couldn’t get here then.
We finally spot a buffalo.

Soon after Lower Sabie we feel the safari has just ended. Why? We see almost no animals. Even the birds have vanished.
To be honest, we are not into looking around any more. We start to feel tired. The early wake up is taking its toll. The atmosphere in the car has also gone down, as we’d had some family altercations. Actually, we knew before the trip that at some point the tiredness and the pace would get to us. Now we just have to wait it out, so nobody is pushing too much.

Skukuza looks empty. I guess everybody must have gone to see the animals, because their map looks so much poorer comparing to what we saw in the morning at Lower Sabie.

We’re short on time, as we have a 1,5h to drive 50 km and stop to see the places they marked black (cheetah) on the map.

We leave Skukuza.
The road goes straight on, down the hill first, then up. I take my leg off the brake, letting the engine maintain the speed. And we are in the middle of the hill when I see a man jumping out on the road and waving his hands. And next to him a car with flashers on.
Fuck…
I have just got pulled over for speeding. And they didn’t catch me on some shitty equipment like they have in PL, which I have some experience with. Here they have a decent laser gauge connected with the camera, so all was clear, visible and recorded. And the couple – there were two of them – chose a perfect spot to hunt down the drivers. Long, straight way down, where you’d have to brake hard not to go over 50 km/h speed limit.
I had 65 km/h. No place for discussion with the authority. The fine is inevitable. But the lady who showed me my fault is very kind and she even apologizes for the ticket.
My wallet will be lighter by R500, which is a bit less than €40. I breathe easier though, because I wasn’t sure what the fine rates here are and, for a moment, I suspected the Norwegian amounts.
I also wanted to understand how the system of paying for the tickets works here and if the rental company would know about it – they surely give a fine for being fined 🙂
Luckily, all is good. I get the ticket into my hand now and will square it away at the first convenience, meaning, when I’ll be paying for something park related. Like the accommodation in Pretoriouskop, for instance.

By the way, the lady says that the road we wanted to go on was closed. It was raining last night and they haven’t fixed it yet (it’s a dirt road).
A blessing in disguise, because if we went ahead, got to the turn and found out that the road was closed, we wouldn’t make it to the camp before closing the gates. And we’d face the consequences (as I aforementioned) So, we’re going back.

On the way we have an incredible meeting! At some point I see two small hyenas walking slowly by the roadside. Seeing us, the puppies jump immediately into the bushes, but after a while, as we stop and turn off the engine, they have the courage to come out. They cross the street passing by us and just lay down on the roadside. But how! They look like two sick and frighten dogs. So sweet that you’d want to go out and pat them a bit.
But none of us would take the risk of a possible meeting with their mother, who may be nearby.

We reach Pretoriuskop a few minutes before closing.

The ladies at the reception are not too kind this time, at least the one I’m paying for my the ticket to.
At least the hut looks like the hut from the picture. It’s round and has something like thatch-roof. AC is also there, but this time we are wiser and turn it on when we are not in the room.
We are not making dinner tonight – we decide to eat European food at the restaurant. This also lets us have the “difficult” conversation, as the atmosphere needs to be cleared out. Each of us vents and gets some things off our chest . We don’t come to an agreement , but everyone has something to think about.

We go to sleep quickly. We have to leave around 4 a.m. to see all we’ve planned for tomorrow.
And we have a lot to visit – the whole Panorama Road, then Swaziland and we need to reach Johannesburg airport at 7 p.m. at the latest to catch a plane to Cape Town at 8 p.m..
We’ll have to keep it up tomorrow.

Good night!

P.S. 99% of the images here were captured and processed by Magda. It kicked my own personal ass out absolutely, seriously.
Hence, a request from my side – please, give Magda some appreciation and a motivational kick! Just go to her photo profile called NOSFOTOS on FB and Instagram and leave a sign there!