We had an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Johannesberg, and got in about 6 in the morning. We had a little bit of adventure getting from Bali to KL as we had overstayed our visas and would owe some extra fees. This process was pretty shifty, with the desk clerk telling us one thing on the way into the country (we had declared our intented stay length) and the desk clerk on the way out something different. Once a supervising immigration official spotted us with a wad of US cash in line to stamp our passports we went into the office and got quoted a 3rd rate. Susan, ever the effective attress, put on her best “I'm about to cry face” and we got out paying the minimum of the three quotes. Next time I'll know to do exactly what the skeezy surf bums told me to do, which is slip a US fifty into your visa page before you pass it to the agent. It was quite apparent that this fee (for which we got no receipt and they filled in no paperwork) is keeping these guys in beer for a couple of weeks. Anyway, our tacit support of 3rd world graft (“Oh, you can discount for us because of the misunderstanding? Thank you very much!”) saved us $80 off the official overstay fee had we insisted on a receipt and everything above board. No worries, as we had expected it and set off for the airport with plenty of extra time.
It took us a few hours to get out of the Jo'berg airport. We had lined up a rental car, and also rented a GPS on site, but lovely-old Capital One again froze our cards. No matter how often we call them they seem to do this. Fantastically, the clerk at the GPS rental let us use her phone to dial the US, sit on hold and get the card unlocked. Hopefully her employer doesn't see the bill.
It's was early afternoon when we got to the gates of Kruger National Park.
We had carefully managed our expectations. We had only a couple of hours in the park this first day, and would need them to get to our Rest Camp, and so didn't expect to see much. We were thrilled to see a Giraffe about 20 minutes into the gates.
We were equally excited to see Impala, which is sort of funny now because the damn things are as common as flies and pretty soon you don't even stop for them.
We also saw three Rhinoceros as they retreated into the bush. All this in the first hour we were in the park. Our early success presaged what would turn out to be a fantastic week of game viewing.
We ended up staying at Kruger for six nights, and leaving at 5:45pm on the 7th day as the gates almost literally closed on our rear ends. The gates in Kruger (at this time of year) are 6 to 6. You either need to be out of the park or inside the fenced off camps except between these hours, and they mean it. The only exceptions to this are the ranger-driven game drives. Every camp has these and a 5 am departure means an extra hour in the park, spotting game with a spotlight in the predawn light. It means an outstanding African sunrise. It also means being damn cold, huddled under a blanket and inside all of your warm clothes as you are in an open vehicle and this is the savana in winter.
The good news was our jet lag put us 6 hours ahead, so the 4:30am alarm clock was far less terrifying a prospect than you might imagine. For the whole week Susan and I were up before dawn, and completely unconscious by 8, it was heaven.
Kruger was so fantastic that we ended up staying an extra day from our planned 5 nights. Susan joked with some locals one night that I'd spend the whole month there if she'd let me, and it is probably true. Up before dawn for a sunrise drive, then self-driving game spotting all day long, followed by a sunset drive - giving another extra hour in the park to ourselves, and more nightdrive-style spotlighting (hint – look for the eyes).
So, in 7 days we saw lots and lots of game. Tons of the prey animals (Impala, Zebra, Giraffe, Kudu, Waterbuck, the tiny Steenbock and Grey Dega etc.), more than a fair share of Lions,
lots of Elephants and luckily both White and the endangered Black Rhino. We saw 5 Cheetah, all at once,
and 2 ½ Leopards; one in a tree eating an impala, 
one very briefly in a gap in the grass, and one “flying impala” which a leopard dragged into a tree but for some reason left there. This last one we staked out for an hour, but never saw him come back. We figure he was spooked by the cars, and was waiting for the cooler temperatures and privacy of nightfall.
Having so much time we were able to relax and really soak up the experience. By day 3 we had seen everything (except the Black Rhino, which is seriously, almost never seen here). So we could do some really cool stuff at a different pace. One morning we basically stalked a family of Elephants for a few hours as they paralleled the road toward a watering hole.
There was also an evening when we skipped the sunset drive but just drove ourselves, and were able to basically park in the middle of a giant herd of Zebra (thousands, literally) at sunset, simply listening to them eat and play.
The frequent visits of car-encased tourists (and you are always in your car – no getting out except in designated safe(r) places) has made the animals pretty comfortable with vehicles. They basically regard you as especially mellow elephants – neither predator nor prey. They also have come to expect that cars stop for them, and so have no problem hanging out in the road, or crossing at a leisurely pace.
One of Susan's favorite things is when the animals cross the road, and we have a whole series of photos of this.
By far the most special “crossing the road” was the Black Rhino. Our last morning we skipped the ranger-led drive and instead were out of the gates at 6:01 in our own car. We'd seen some Rhinos in the distance the night before, near the Zebra herds, and Susan really wanted to see one closer. We did great, with a good view of two White Rhinos from less than a hundred meters for a long time before they snuck back into the taller grass.
We were on our way to a watering hole with a picnic breakfast so we moved on, and ten kilometers later among the Zebras again, we realized we still had the room key. U-turn, back to the camp, then retracing our steps. Susan had her eyes peeled in case our Rhinos had come out of the grass. Well, they hadn't but a big one was eating off the trees very near the road. We stalked him for a while, as he slowly meandered his way from tree to bush, closer and closer to the road. Eventually he was eating from the bush right next to the car, maybe ten meters away.
About this time he started giving us “the look” and I decided to get the hell out of his way. I started the engine (my fear of a Rhino horn coming through the drivers side door now exceeding my fear that the cough of start-up would scare him away) and reversed a good ten yards. This seemed to placate the big guy, and he then crossed the road, literally where our car had been thirty seconds earlier. This was the time we also saw the second one – Black Rhino number two, who had been quietly snacking in the grass to our left unnoticed! Tunnel vision anyone?
Susan finally got her “Rhino up close” after so many long distance spottings.
The photo from this episode actually kind of created a little photo series of it's own. I call it “Large Deadly Animals Yelling at Lars”. First in the series is the Black Rhino.
Here is the story of the second (though earlier chronologically)
Very near our camp the fourth night was a “kill”. Lions had taken down a young Giraffe.
The clever old things have figured out that the hoofed critters have a hard time on the paved roads, and so lay an ambush into which one Lion chases the prey. The consequence in this case was a Giraffe carcass five feet from the road, surrounded by a pride of nine lions (3 males, 2 females, and 4 cubs) sleeping, eating and pooping as they gorge for days straight. The little cubs were so full from alternately eating and nursing, their little bellies were distended almost to the ground. We got a brief view from our car, through the inevitable “Lion traffic jam”,
but had the good luck of being on a sunset drive that night, which meant our safari vehicle could pull up right alongside once the sun went down.
Being the hard-core game spotters that we are, Susan and I were also on the morning drive. We figured that by dawn we could see the jackals and hyenas scavenging the left overs of the lions. Turns out that two days wasn't enough, and the lions were still on station gorging themselves.
Also, since nobody else apparenty wanted to get up that morning, it was Susan, Lars and the driver on the kill for an hour before the gates opened, and nobody else. We just pulled up alongside, fired up the lights, and watched the lions and occasional jackal (who kept trying to get close, but not too close).
Now the night before I was a little spooked by the idea of being nine feet from a wild lion. But hours of proximity and observing the comfort of the more experienced visitors had calmed my nerves. “They never attack cars – it is perfectly safe” was the assurance of the ranger. So at some point during the morning, after hundred of photos, I tried to get a better angle when one of the lions wandered into a clear spot. Click click, then I sort of stuck my head out the side so I could stand tall and snap a few more. Instantly the half-asleep Lion started to growl and get up. Almost as instantly I retreated inside. “If you break the profile of the car, he can see you. They are very aggressive right now, to protect their kill and their young” explained the driver. OK, no breaking the profile; check. So here is my “Male Lion Protecting a Kill and Young; Lars get the hell back in the truck picture”.
Oh, and the best part was once I was back in, and Susan slightly less nervous I kind of moved back and forth inside the van, just to test. And though the big guy stopped growling, and lowered himself back into the grass, his eyes were tracking me left to right, left to right.
Damn, I am glad I am not a Giraffe (all height jokes notwithstanding).
The third and final photo in the “Big Wild Animal Yelling at Lars” series is a little less dramatic. A family of Elephants was eating the trees by the side of the road. We've been impossibly close to such pachyderms countless times, and so were pretty comfortable. This particular group had garnered their own little traffic jam, as the low grass and several young made for good photos and viewing. We had a nice angle, but a tree sort of messed up any photos. It was a really cute scene of mama with baby, so when the car in front of us moved on, we rolled up so I could get a photo of baby unobscured by Mama's legs. Of course this also meant that Mama was no longer between us and baby. Not something she was so happy about. Ears out, trunk up – I don't speak elephant, but this language I understand. “Keep going!” I entreated to Susan, as I snapped this out the window:
