"I went for a walk alone in the bush,"
Said the woman
To God
As they gazed upon her funeral.
- African proverb*
It was safari season in South Africa.
After arriving in Africa, I spent a week at my friend's parents' house in Johannesburg, pretending to map out a plan for the next five months of my life, but just mostly coming to terms with the 180-degree turn my life had taken, in that I had worked literally until the day that I flew to a new continent never to work again.
Well, not never – but I wasn't sure when I would, and it was the first time in my adult life – okay, my whole life – that I had ever taken a break. Let alone one without an end date.
I still had one more week until my flight to Uganda, and I was told that by the next time I passed through South Africa, "the bush" – I think this is British for "the outdoors" – would be, well, bushy, and therefore, not great for spotting wildlife.
So I booked a rental car, and decided to have a little self-driving safari in Kruger National Park.
Driving on the left side of the road is a lot harder than it looks.
I imagine it's kind of like writing with your left hand. You can do it, but it's messy. Every time you want to signal a turn you actually turn on your windshield wipers. I rudely flashed my brights with my bright thinking that maybe the entire mechanism was different – but no, it works the same, with a press down – just on the other side of the wheel.
I managed, but my worst nightmare was ending up in the right hand turn lane not behind another car I could follow safely to the other side. It's like a left, except on the right, I muttered to myself as I tried to trace with my eyes the forward path I was about to take.
Actually my worst nightmare was a roundabout, making sure I got off on the right side – I mean left side. But like the other meaning of "right" side. Ugh.
"In 300 meters, make a left." What's a meter? What's 300 of them? Remember a left is a right. What's the speed again? Am I going 60? 100? What's a logical highway speed here? I have no idea. Everything is in kilometers per hour. I go whatever the sign tells me to go, wherever the signs tell me to go. "Car park" this way. "Petrol" that way. Is it more expensive than in the states? What's the conversion from gallons to liters? I mean litres? Do we even speak the same language???
"No pin." The petrol – aka gas – attendant shook his head while he held the credit card machine like a waiter at a restaurant.
"It's a credit card," I replied.
"No pin means I take your card and I have money," he said with a sly smile, pulling the machine – and my inserted card – closer to his chest.
Apparently in South Africa, the credit cards have pins. Luckily for me, he returned my card.
Needless to say, I arrived at my first night's accommodation in the dark.
"You are alone," the woman at check-in asked concernedly. "A young woman traveling all by herself?"
Not this again, I thought.
"And you want to sleep in a tent?"
"Yes," I replied, "I brought it, if you'll show me where to pitch it?"
She shook her head.
"How about you just sleep in one of our big tents for the night. We have a few open."
She wasn't really asking, and I wasn't going to fight it. I was tired – and eager to get an early start the next day to get into the park.
Welcome to The Lion King.
PUMBA!!! I scream, slamming on the brakes. "When heeee was a young warth00000000000g!"
Is it cringe? Was it my genuine reaction? I had literally barely gone 5 – metres? Is that what they say here? – past the entrance gate and a black warthog strutted across the paved road. I lost it. I didn't know it was going to be this easy to see the animals.
Turns out, it was. The entire day I just drove around on paved roads listening to music and grabbing my phone off the dash to snap pictures and videos. It was like when we were kids and visited the Wild Animal Park (now known as the San Diego Zoo Safari Park). Except instead of the animals being kept in by the fences, we were.
There are "camps" dotted all throughout Kruger where you can rent rooms, pitch a tent, or pull up your RV. The camps are surrounded by wire fences to keep you in – and the animals out. Some of the more curious and sociable animals do come to the fences to interact with you, like elephants. I imagine that the experience for them is not too dissimilar to the experience we have at a zoo. 😂
Pictures from my two campsites at Kruger National Park, and my trusty little safari car. Click any image to view larger.
The fences do not keep the monkeys out, and in the morning, they come swinging through camp for breakfast.
I picked two camps some distance apart so that I could see more of the terrain of the park, and that turned out to be a move that paid off. Driving between the two was still part of the safari experience; I saw different animals as I passed through different landscapes.
Safari 101: The Big Five.
Something that I learned at the camps while sharing "sundowners" – translation: drinks at sunset – with my fellow campers is that most people who go on safari want to see "The Big Five." These animals are:
- Lions
- Leopards
- Elephants
- Rhinos
- Buffalo
- Cheetah
- Wild Dogs
But wait, isn't that seven? Yes, congratulations, you can count. 😂 The first five originated as "The Big Five" because they were the most difficult to hunt on foot and bring home. Now, "The Big Five" are largely seen as encompassing animals that are hard to spot or less common to see due to dwindling numbers – which is how cheetah and wild dogs got added to the list, making it really "The Big Seven". Cheetah are about as hard to spot – pun intended – as leopards, and wild dogs are endangered. Whereas elephants are everywhere in Kruger, and a less coveted sight on safari-goers lists because you're pretty much guaranteed to see them.
A brief and incomplete list of all of the animals I saw on my first safari in Africa.
- Elephant
- Giraffe
- Buffalo
- Warthog
- Hyena
- Honey badger
- Lion
- Cheetah
- Impala
- Hippo
- Crocodile
- Zebra
- Kudu
- Wildebeest
- Waterbuck
- Tons of beautiful birds whose types I don’t know 🦤🐦⬛🦜🦅
- At least 2 or 3 kinds of chimps/monkeys, whose types I also don't know 🙈
The honey badger is absolutely everything you were led to believe that it is in that viral video from a decade ago. 🍯🦡
Any day is a good day to re-listen to Randall narrate a day in the life of the honey badger, so here you go.
My encounter in Kruger with the honey badger involved a traffic pile up on the paved road, while the honey badger decided that the day's mission was to f*ck up some cars. 🤣🤣🤣
It was darting around attacking wheels every time a car tried to move. I was laughing so hard until I started to worry that the honey badger would actually puncture a tire. The honey badger don't care, the honey badger don't give a sh*t. Eat rubber? The honey badger can eat anything, so why not?
Sadly, I don't have any honey badger photos or videos to share with you. I think I was too busy cackling in my car and then trying to avoid getting f*cked myself.
Even though Kruger is unique for its self-driving safari, you can still book game drives through the camps.
I never drove off of the main roads in my little economy car, because I never had to – yes, I saw nearly all of those animals listed above from the comfort of my air-conditioned car on the paved roads! 💅
Kruger seems to be littered with animals, as I had no trouble seeing them throughout the day, even on the morning when it rained. But generally, people expect to see the most animals at the beginning and the end of the day, as animals seek shade to avoid the midday sun. So, curious about what I might be missing, I booked an off-roading night drive with a ranger at my first camp.
And that's where I saw lions. 😝
Two lions sleeping bottom left, and hippo bottom right. Click any image to view larger.
I did, actually, go for a walk in the bush, but it wasn't alone – I had two rangers with guns. 🔫
*I made that proverb up, by the way, but it's a good one, eh?
While I enjoyed the experience of walking in the wild, and we did get to see hippos, I generally don't think that this is the best activity that you can do to see animals. Animals know you're coming, and they go the other way. But then again, I was already seeing so many animals, and part of the safari experience is just being in the bush!
Sound on for hippos breathing 🔉
Overall, Kruger National Park is an incredibly budget friendly, bang-for-your-buck safari destination.
When people think of safaris, four-to-five-digit figures come to mind. I think I spent less than $200 on my 3D/2N Kruger trip? That included the park fees, the cost of the campsites, the ranger night drive, my food, the rental car, and "petrol." And after doing safaris across the continent, I can say that Kruger was easily in my top three safaris for the sheer number and diversity of animals I saw. It was also the cheapest.
If I were to go back, I would spend a week in Kruger, and more than one night in a camp. There's things to do at the campsites, and with an extra night, you could get up for a sunrise drive when the animals are most active instead of having to spend that time packing up to move to the next destination.
