Lions, Cheetahs, and Elephants, Oh My!

October 5, 2010

Kruger- we woke up this morning after another great night at Mitchells (the bar in port) and after about 4 hours of sleep to pack our bags and head to the best safari in all of Africa.  The plane ride was about 2 hours, just enough to get a big nap in.  Landing at Kruger National Park was pretty surreal.  I had a window seat and could not help myself from searching for animals.  I kept thinking if I looked hard enough I could see giraffes just wondering around minding their own business, but to my dismay, I was wrong.  It was strange to land at this particular airport because for the most part the area around it was undeveloped, making it seem like there was just a runway and a building plopped in the middle of the park to serve as an airport.  We then had a 45-minute drive to our hotel where we were greeted with orange juice, mixed nuts, and a buffet style lunch.  There weren’t many vegetarian options but I was able to managed by eating the quiche and veggie pizza.  After our quick lunch it was time to go on our first safari.  We saw giraffes, hyenas and a lot of antelope in the beginning and before we knew it there were elephants, buffalo, rhinos, and hippos too! It was so cool to see these animals in their natural habitats and not in the zoo.  They were completely different looking then at the zoo too.  We weren’t allowed to get out of the car because they aren’t official park people, instead they work for a private company, but we still got pretty close.  Ranger Chris was telling us stories about the different animals when we got close to them, which was really interesting.  He told us that there is a really bad problem with poaching in the park especially with rhinos.  Supposedly there were 13 incidents with rhinos being killed in the past few weeks in order to take their horn.  People come in and kill the rhino just to take the horn because they are so valuable and can be sold for $100,000 sometimes.  I thought it was pretty sad, especially since sometimes it’s the park rangers because they are allowed to have guns on them and aren’t usually suspicious. 

After getting back from our safari, we came back to the hotel and rested for a bit before dinner.  Dinner seemed to be a bit traditional, with at lot of different barbequed meats, porridge, potatoes, vegetables, salad and bread.  It’s not as hard as I thought it would be to be a vegetarian because all of the countries have vegetarian options or accommodate for vegetarians, which is really nice.  We decided to stay up for a bit at the bar where I met three South African girls from Durban who are about 22 years old.  I have really enjoyed the locals here because they are so open and willing to talk about anything.  These girls and I hung out for hours playing South African Trivial Pursuit, talking about apartheid, racism, education, sustainability and everything in between.  They were so great and I loved learning from them and they enjoyed getting to know Americans since they don’t always meet a lot.  One of the girls, Kerry, told me that meeting me made her change her outlook on Americans because I wasn’t fat and stupid and actually was open to learn about the cultures and lifestyles of the places and people I am going to be visiting over the next few months.  They taught me a lot of South African phrases and words and that I wasn’t in Kruger for a safari but instead a game drive.  They thought I was crazy when I kept using the word safari so for the rest of the time I referred to my trip the proper way as a game drive.  We talked a lot about the lifestyle of South Africa and how prevalent racism is still to this day.  Roxanne told me that when she was younger she wasn’t allowed to be friends with kids who were black because it was seen as taboo.  It has gotten better she said and now has many black friends but the racism is still bad.  I actually had noticed this a few days before at this restaurant I was at.  A white man in about his fifties came to talk to us about the football game that was on TV while a black waiter tried to get by him.  I have never seen somebody look at someone else with such disrespect and degrading eyes.  I was in shock.  When I told the girls this they told us it was normal and how although the apartheid was over many of the effects are still here.  With this, the girls informed me to make sure I treat everyone I meet with the utmost respect so they know I actually care about them as a person.  I thought this was something quite obvious but they told me as if it was normal for people to be disrespectful.  They started asking me questions about the United States, most specifically questions about our education system and stereotypes about Americans.  I had a lot of fun talking to them and answering their questions and learning so much from them.  Learning from the locals is such a different experience than learning in class.  Not that my professors are wrong when they teach me something, but there is always something a little different or more when you here if from somebody who has been through it or lives it. 

The next day we went on a game drive for the whole day, meaning we woke up at 4am and got back at 3, rested for an hour and a half and went out again from 4:30 until 8.  Literally the whole day! We saw everything but I had two favorites.  First we saw a leopard that had just killed an antelope thing and brought it in a tree where he was nibbling at it.  You could see the blood and the dead animal drooping over the branches.  I could not believe we saw that.  It definitely was something you would not see in the zoo, which made it so much cooler.  Obviously the park is so much better than the zoo and the animals are free and wild, but at times you have the feeling that its all staged because its just so perfect.  However, when I saw this it was absolutely crazy because that was definitely something I would have never seen if it was not for Kruger.  The second coolest thing we saw was a cheetah.  Our ranger told us that it was so rare to see cheetahs in Kruger nowadays and we were so lucky to see one.  I got some amazing pictures since it was about ten feet away from us.  We watched it for so long but it never got boring.  It was so beautiful and so strange to see in real life.  All the animals were like that though.  For example- my favorite wild animal is an elephant.  I’ve seen them in the zoo and on TV and I know how cool they are.  But in real life- Oh My Goodness! Its crazy! They are huge and so adorable! Elephants are one of the smartest animals and are very similar to humans.  It’s sad though because Kruger is starting to have a problem with overpopulation of elephants.  The carrying capacity (the number of something a certain area can sustain) for elephants in Kruger is supposedly 8,000.  However, right now in Kruger there are 16,000 elephants (according to the people from the elephant sanctuary which I will talk about later).  Therefore, there are people who come in planes and in 60 seconds with 60 bullets they kill 60 elephants.  Elephants almost always travel with their entire family, unless it’s a lone male trying to find a mate, so its harder to only kill one, making it easier to kill multiple at a time.  It’s so sad that this is happening because with the climate change occurring in our world today, it is estimated that by 2050 most of the megafauna in Kruger won’t be able to survive any longer.  Luckily there are some organizations near Kruger trying to combat these issues and protect the animals within the national park, but it’s not always as easy as it may seem.