January 10, Tuesday

January 10, Tuesday  

My pick up was scheduled for 8:15 so was up at 7 am to have enough time to eat a quick breakfast and check out;  leaving my big suitcase behind once again. 

As I was waiting in the lobby for my ride to arrive, I read an article in the paper about a robbery that occurred the night before in the rich area of Johannesburg.  Two men tried to rob a house, which was occupied by two teenagers at the time.  The security system tipped off the police, who arrived to find one of the men trying to flee with a plasma TV.  They shot and killed him.  The second thief fled the scene in a white vehicle.  The police recovered the vehicle but there was no sign of the man.    I guess that answers the question about why some rich people live behind high electrified fences.  

Adam, the driver for this excursion was very nice.  I was travelling with an Asian couple from Brazil.  Father, mother, 11 year old son and a sister in law.   5 ½ hour drive to Kruger, with 2 breaks along the way.   There was some road construction that delayed us a bit, and the other travellers took their time at each stop, so we arrived at our hotel, just outside the Paul Kruger Gate, later than expected.  

Route we followed to get there:  N1, N12, N4 through to Nelspruit  then north on the R40 and east on the  R536.   Along the way we see a few shanty towns and Adam informs us that 30% of the black population in Africa still live in these.  The houses here are built of whatever the people can find for free or for very little money:  corrugated metal, plastic, card board, wood, cement blocks, etc. The government continues to build new communities to replace these slum areas under the Reconstruction & Development Program.  3 million houses have been built so far.    Sorry, pics of these did not work out since we were driving by too fast.

Corrections on earlier info: 

A     Those nuclear power plants were not nuclear !  Even though they have that funnel shape, they are coal generated power plants.   We saw many of them along the route, along with mountains of rejected mine output.  Adam believes that there is only one nuclear power plant and that it is located near Cape Town.  

         Yes, that is smog you are seeing.

B     To be politically correct, I should have said I was driving on the “other” side of the road, not the “wrong” side of the road !

Road signs along the way:  “High accident area for next 15 km”  I saw a lot of these while I was driving around South Africa.   Supposedly many people drive without a proper licence and they don’t necessarily obey the laws or the signs.  DRIVER BEWARE !      But the strangest sign had to be   “Hippo crossing”  !

A lot of the areas we were crossing looked like the Canadian Prairies, with fields of corn that went on for miles and miles.  Saw a lot of cattle, horses and goats.   Then the scenery changed a bit and we were driving through planted forests of pine and eucalyptus trees.

 Corn fields

 Flat land and huge watering systems

 Coal processing mill

 Mountains of mine residue

Boer war memorial

Adam:  Religion  &   9 11 Scriptures say that God will punish arrogance.   When I said that a lot of innocent people died that day, he replied that if they died, they must have done something bad ! ! !   I told him that the God I believed in was not a vengeful god.  After an interesting conversation we agreed to disagree on this subject.   He is a Christian by the way, not a Muslim.
We made one stop along the way (apart from the coffee and lunch break) to see some spectacular sites.

 Huge mountain ridge across the way

 We walked through this old car / train tunnel in the dark to get to the other side, but it was worth it

 This is what was waiting for us at the other end of the tunnel

 Paper mill

 Rolls of paper lying outside the mill, along the road, ready for shipping out.

 Reaching mountain country and wide vistas

 Soccer stadium used during the 2011 games.  Check out the giraffe like structures

 Planted Euchalyptus forests

 Planted pine forests

 workers fixing curbs on the highway

I asked Adam why they were still doing so much work by hand instead of using machinery: cutting grass and bushes along the roads, digging up the curbs and installing new ones (blocks about 2 feet long by 1 foot high). He indicated that the government preferred to have these job creation programs rather than just “paying welfare to lazy people”. Something our own government should implement as far as I’m concerned; if you are able to work, you should work !

  As we got closer to Kruger, there were banana plantations. 

Love those traffic circles !   They are the best at keeping traffic flowing smoothly in all directions.
Just before arriving at Kruger I saw a sign for the Sabi-Sands Private Game Reserve and was reminded of a story an American told we as we were leaving Victoria Falls for the airport.  They were at San Sami a few weeks before and their jeep was charged by an rogue elephant.  Although the driver tried to get away, the elephant kept following them for quite a while before finally giving up !  

 Entrance to the Protea Hotel/Lodge at Paul Kruger Gate

We only had about ½ an hour to settle in before we left for our first game drive.   So I checked in, get my room card and make my way to my room.   This is a lodge, comprised of about 8 different buildings, connected by raised walkways.  {Yvette:  Something like our lodge in the Amazon jungles of Peru.} And as luck would have it, the building I was in was the second furthest from the reception area.  I hurried over to my room to drop off my suitcase.  The card key would not work ! ! !   I rushed back to the reception area to have the key reprogrammed; and they sent someone with me to ensure I could get in my room.  We get back to the room, and now the key works, so I enter while still speaking to the porter, to find that there is a man in one of the beds !   He is as surprised to see me as I am to see him !   “There is a man in my room” I tell the porter, I apologize to the man in the bed (who is very handsome by the way !) and get quickly out of the room.  I return to the reception area with the porter, and am assigned a different room.  Despite being a bit put off, I manage to joke with the staff that this was the first hotel I had gone to that provided “a man in bed” with their rooms.   {Claude:  Can you believe this after our recent e-mail exchange?  Too bad I couldn’t keep the guy!}    The new room was in the furthest building from the reception area, so by this time I have no time to freshen up, just enough to dump my back-pack, stay in the clothes I travelled in, and head back to the reception area for our 2 hour game-drive.

I was with the same family from Brazil and it is very difficult to understand them since their English is limited and heavily accented,  and I don’t speak Portuguese.   Our driver & guide is named Vusi and we quickly leave for our excursion.  

  Vusi

  Items for sale along the road between the hotel and the entrance to the park at the Paul Kruger Gate.

 Statue of Paul Kruger

 Paul Kruger Gate

Kruger National Park is the size of Portugal.  No kidding !  It is shaped somewhat like a very tall boot, and we are at the top of the toe part.  I’m staying at another Protea Hotel, just outside the “Paul Kruger Gate”.  There are multiple gates entries to the park obviously due to its size.  The main roads in the park are paved, but there are many other unpaved roads that intersect the main ones; somewhat increasing the odds of spotting some wild life.   Kruger Park is not fenced in either, the animals are free to come and go as they please.  

 One of the paved roads in Kruger Park

 African Giraffe

 Leopard lying down on a branch.  Very far away and without the zoom, he just looked like a brown lump.  Kind of disappointing.

 Game path through the brush

 Cheetah !   There were 3 of them together, 1 male and 2 females.  They layed around for a bit in the brush, then decided to wander off.  I've got great film footage.

  Distinct disdainful gait for these beautiful cats. 

 Tiny baby with mama

 Slightly bigger baby crossing the road

 Big elephant with scar on its face

 Male warthog strutting his stuff

 Beautiful group of male impalas

 Check out the horns

  Young impala with a male.  They reproduce like crazy.  At the age of 3 years, a female can bear a baby.

 One of the dirt roads we were on

 Hidden in this brush is a kudu with the beautifully twisted horns.   Can you see him ?

That was it for our first game drive.   Very impressive for just 2 hours.

We were back at the lodge/hotel by 6:30, just in time to shower and go for dinner.  I’m still digging out grains of grit out of my knees, elbow and wrists !   Dinner was served in a beautiful outdoor area.  Unfortunately there were no stars to be seen because it had been a very cloudy day.   I finished my meal and went back to my room and 10 minutes later the storm hit.  Huge electrical storm !   It knocked out the Cable for the TV so I decided to call it a day and shut the light.   5:30 departure for our all-day animal drive tomorrow.  That means I have to be up by 5 am.  No coffee or breakfast !   OK you guys at work.... Can you believe how early I'm having to get up !

They are going to provide us with a boxed breakfast somewhere along the way.   They are predicting electrical storms for the next 2 days !   Wonder if you see more, or less, animals when it is pouring rain?  Luckily, I brought my rain gear with me:  coat, umbrella and safari pants that unzip into shorts.   Should be OK.