Kruger National Park

Zebra
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This is one of the best places on Earth.  Easily.  So much so that as I drove through Kruger, I thought to myself that there should be a sort of Birthright Kruger program to send every man, woman, and child to this amazing park for at least a few days.  With nothing better to do as I scanned the horizon for wildlife, I started working out how much exactly that would cost... six billion people times around $3,000 USD for flights, accomodation, food, etc.... it works out to a pretty high number, but if anyone sets it up, I'll send a check for my share.

Baboon
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But yes, Kruger is amazing.  I don't really know what I was expecting, but I got it and more. It's not like driving through that park in New Jersey at all: there's a real sense of wildlife here.  When you see a group of impalas or a herd of elephants, you're seeing these things in their habitat, without fences, feeding pens, or anything like that.  Since there are no cages or roped-off designated areas, every time you see something you feel like you won the lottery just to see it.  Roads in Kruger cover only about 2% of the park, so in reality you have to be pretty lucky to see much of anything.  Sometimes you can drive for an hour or two (at the maddeningly slow 50 kph speed limit) without seeing anything, and then all of a sudden run into a herd of a hundred buffalo crossing the road.

Lions at night
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I entered at the Punda Maria gate and did a long drive through the northern half of the park to Letaba camp for the night.  From there, I headed farther south to Skukuza for the second night, and on to Pretoriuskop for the third.  To see all these American and British tourists  with their cameras flailing and their sunscreen flowing was a sharp contrast to what I had experienced in Venda, and it was a welcome change.  I suppose for all the experiences I have in foreign cultures and circumstances, a part of me is still glad to feel like I'm in a safe haven now and again; a place where I don't have to triple-lock my car and only carry a quarter of my cash in my pocket.

Giraffe
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Another group of people I had heard much about but never met before were the Boers.  These people are intense.  Massive, massive men with short khaki shorts and khaki shirts, industrial-strength hiking boots and enormous 4x4s.  The way these people dress and comport themselves, you'd think they had been dropped out in the savannah, a ten-day hike from fresh water.  Instead, they pull up their 4x4s, unpack their huge tents, and cook themselves braais (barbecues) and eat boerewors (sausages).  They speak Afrikaans, which is sort of a Dutch-meets-English-in-Africa mix, and while they were all very friendly, there is no mistaking that these are indeed very intense people.  They're the kind of people who would go game hunting with their bare hands if only they could run fast enough.

The Mozambique Border
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So yes, another interesting cultural experience.  I took a few guided tours, one at dawn and another at night, which were both great.  Got to see all sorts of wildlife and learn things about what I was seeing that made them both well worth it.  Other than that, I just drove around myself, playing my iPod softly so as not to disturb the wildlife and looking for clues as to where I could see animals.  It really is ridiculous how quickly a squash-playing Russian major from Westchester can turn into a self-proclaimed wildlife expert.  By the end of my second day, I was slowing down at deposits of dung on the road to see if they were fresh or not, following rhino paths, and scanning the skies for vultures (if they nest in a tree with leaves, it means there's a predator like a lion or leopard nearby.  if they're in a bare tree, it means the predator has already left and the vultures have just eaten their fill).  I guess I could see how easily these Boers get swept up in the frontiersman mentality.  I guess it's fun for them to get up and "rough it" for a weekend or so.

I would say the highlight of the Kruger experience was the lion pride I came upon.  Now, we've all seen lions in the Bronx Zoo, futzing around in their cages and pawing at the steaks that the rangers are tossing them.  It's usually behind glass or bars, and you can't see much of anything behind the field trip sitting up front anyway.  On the night drive I took, however, we spent two and a half hours seeing essentially nothing, and then turned onto a road where there were literally fifteen lions and lion cubs just lying by the side of the road.  Upon our arrival, they got up and strutted around the jeep, kind of sizing us up.  Granted, we were perfectly safe, but it was an authentic bush experience, unfettered by fences, contrivances, or human interference.  It was exhilirating, not only to see the animals, but because of the privilege one feels when they see something rare and spectacular.  You could drive for weeks in Kruger and not see a pride of lions that big, so I felt very lucky indeed.

And in case you were wondering, yes, some of the lions become man-eaters.  That's not just a legend.  They get used to the taste of human flesh from eating some of the illegal immigrants from Mozambique who try to cross into South Africa via the park, and when they eat humans and realize how slow and relatively easy we are to hunt down, they'll eat nothing else until they're put down by the park patrol.  There was a pride of about 20 man-eaters in 1998. http://www.amazon.com/Man-Eaters-Eden-Death-Kruger-National/dp/1592288928  See?  Not kidding.

Oh, and P.S.: the last picture is from the Giriyondo border with Mozambique.  It was a turn-off the main road from Punda Maria to Letaba, and I more or less saw it just to be able to say fondly one day, "Ahhh... I remember Mozambique."  No passport stamp because it costs $100 each way and in any case I hadn't brought my passport anyway.