Kruger

After Masai Mara, I thought Kruger may not really be that cool. I am so glad I was wrong. After an awesome drive through the most beautiful countryside we arrived at our lodge in Kruger late in the afternoon. After lunch we booked a night safari as that was something I had missed in Masai Mara. Till it started we had some time to kill and so I went exploring around the lodge which had a bunch of games, a pool and a humongous chessboard as an added attraction. Add to that the few deer and baboons constantly running around and a huge elephant hanging out close to one of the viewpoints I had enough entertainment until evening.

We started on the game drive watching elephants and a lion a few kilometers from the lodge. Kruger has the capacity for about 7000-8000 elephants. There are 12500 so they are everywhere. The authorities tried transporting them to other reserves but they always returned. So there are plans to cull them but that of course has been met with vehement opposition from the animal activists. Hippos generally come out to feed after dark so we saw quite a few of them as well.



Soon after sunset we reached a point where 5 lions were cleaning up a zebra they had killed earlier. Unfortunately for the lions, a hippo chose the same route. The lions did not want to leave the kill and they were too scared to attack it as well. The hippo did not want to take another route either. Add to that 2 hyenas behind our jeep and 1 in front wanted some of the spoils as well and were counting on the hippo to move the lions. This standoff stayed for about an hour as we stood watching. One of the cubs continued chomping down the little remains. We had to leave as it was getting late but the next day we found out no real fight had occurred. Guess the lions cleaned up and moved and the hippo had enough patience. The hyenas must have cleaned the scraps as well as nothing remained at that spot the next day. On our way back we saw a rhino with its baby and civet.

The next day we woke up to 3 zebras sitting a few meters away from the lodge's balcony. That day was a full day game drive. It started well with a few eagles, a tusker, deer, other birds, zebras and deer. Breakfast was at another lodge with our packed food in open grounds so the number of birds there were amazing. After breakfast we were stopped on the road by an extraordinarily large herd of elephants which took about 2 minutes for the entire herd to get across. However the best part was we caught 5 lions napping near a water hole. A few impalas came to get a drink there and the lions got planning. 4 of them flanked the impalas while one charged in to them. They hunted the last one down and we managed to see them making a meal out of it in no time.

The rest of the day as it got hotter we saw, giraffes, carrion birds, zebras, wildebeest, rhinos, crocs and water birds at another watering hole, hippos, dik-dik, eagles and a herd of buffaloes. I had still not seen a leopard and so I gave it one last shot at another night safari that day. Sure enough the first thing that we saw was a young leopard perched on a tree staring at us. We saw a few more buffaloes, hippos and elephants before we returned. The next morning we went out on a walk with a guide and later to a few areas at the edge of the sprawling lodge area. Managed to see quite a few birds, wildebeest, baboons, langurs, zebras and deer to end the trip.

As we got back to the airport at Johannesburg, we passed through the city of Nelspruit which had an unusually high number of car showrooms. There was Mazda, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Hummer, Chevrolet, Isuzu, Opel, Volvo, Peugeot, Gonow, Kia, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Freightliner, Lexus, Chana and others all along the same road. While taking the flight back the connecting flight from Nairobi was delayed by 8 hours so got to relax in the hotel for a while before returning.