Journey Through South Africa: Jo'burg to Kruger National Park

In Jo'burg, we stayed at Gemini Backpacker, which did not quite live up to its reputation. It advertised the availability of meals and a gym, neither of which was true. Additionally, there was an ENORMOUS spider in our dorm the first night we stayed, which prevented me from sleeping at all even though someone killed it. I was quite convinced that its family had to be close by.

The next morning I went on a tour of Soweto, which stands for the southwestern township of Jo’burg, established during the apartheid years as a settlement for Africans. I found that Soweto has an even larger wealth disparity than the Cape Town townships, boasting a beautiful wealthy neighborhood that was much nicer than my neighborhood in the suburbs of DC. We also learned that crime within Soweto is very low, since criminals in the townships prefer to commit crimes outside of their own community, generally going into town to rob homes. As the crime rate is so low, these incredibly beautiful, fancy homes often had no fence at all, unlike every single house in Jo’burg, which is usually covered in barbed wire. 

The township contains the former house of Nelson and Winnie Mandela (before, during, and for a short time after Mandela’s prison term), which has since been converted to a museum, and the current Jo’burg home of Desmond Tutu, who was in Cape Town when we drove by his house. 

I had just read the night before the section of Long Walk to Freedom pertaining to 8115 Vilakazi Street, the matchbox house that once belonged to the Mandelas. When he arrived after his dramatic release from prison, there were so many people outside the house that they could not get in, and for weeks afterward they were kept awake by hundreds of well wishers singing outside the house. 

We also spent some time learning about the 1974 student uprising in Soweto, which left more than 600 students, teachers, doctors, and others dead after students began a seemingly peaceful protest against the use of a Afrikaans as the official language in schools. As we learned about martyrs such as young Hector Pieterson and others, it occurred to me that these children were so much younger than I am now, and the student leaders of the movement were my age. 

It’s incredible to think that they changed the course of their country’s history at such an age. We then moved one of the informal settlements containing shacks, where a resident showed us around and told us a bit about their living conditions. 

The shacks seems similar to those in Cape Town, but this particular neighborhood seemed more carefully planned out, with each shack having a yard and a fence (very rare in Cape Town townships from what I have seen). This is not only more comfortable for residents but also reduces the risk of death and destruction due to fire, which are enormous in the townships. Just last week nearly 100 people were killed, wounded, or left homeless by fires in Cape Town townships alone. After our walk through the shacks, we stopped at a local restaurant shack, which reminded me of a small and slightly fancier version of Mzoli’s in Gugulethu, and we had a delicious feast of ginger beer, pap, sauces, many vegetables and salads for only R30. Talk about low cost of living! 

I loved Soweto and didn’t want to leave. I told this to the tour guide, who said that I should move to Soweto later in life with my family—we would be the first white family to live in Soweto. I was surprised by this, but apparently there are fewer than 10 white residents, and they are all single members of primarily coloured or black families.

The next morning we were picked up at 5:30 AM by Livingstone Trails for our 4-day Kruger safari adventure. We stopped at the Hoedspruit Cheetah Conservation Centre, where we learned about their rescue and conservation activities for not only cheetahs but also many other animals that are threatened by humans (e.g. farmers who often shoot them because they prey on sheep). Cheetahs are not particularly successful hunters, despite their speed. And when they do finally catch their prey, it’s stolen 14% of the time by a stronger predator, such as a lion. Poor little cheetahs…

We then stopped at Thornybush Game Reserve which bordered our safari lodge for a private sunset game drive. The reserve was different from the previous reserve I visited, since the wild nature of the animals is preserved—there are no enclosures and the animals are still, for the most part, are afraid of humans. We saw many animals, including lions just a few feet away! 

We observed a herd of elephants, who were less than happy with the presence of one of the vehicles. 

We also saw one of the male rhinos, whose horn was surgically fused with poison to discourage poachers—the poison (used in other private reserves as well) has been linked to a few deaths of horn powder consumers in China. So far on this reserve, no poachers have been successful due to their particularly good anti-poaching patrols. All reserves have these patrols due to the incredibly high number of poaching incidents over the last few years. Both white and black rhinos are on track to be extinct by 2015 at this rate of poaching.

We learned the day after visiting the reserve that the week before we arrived, two of the patrols were not following procedure and had both fallen asleep during their shift (one is supposed to be awake at all times, but this doesn’t always happen because so few people are willing to do such a dangerous job, and therefore the few patrols have to work 48-hour or longer shifts). One of them had earbuds in and was listening to music (again, major breach of protocol—you must be aware of your surroundings at all times). The patrol who was listening to music was actually yanked out of his sleeping bag by a lion and eaten while his terrified coworker radioed for help, which came too late. The bartender who told us the story made us feel only slightly better by letting us know that the lion had been put down, and that it is rare for lions on a reserve to have a “maneater” personality. However, we already knew that there were many predators on the grounds of our campsite, and that there were holes in the fence that would have allowed the Thornybush lions to sneak onto our campsite, had they wanted to. However, in the 25 years of the lodge’s operation, they have never had a lion on the grounds. Leopards, on the other hand, are another story.  One leopard was spotted a few hundred feet from our tents on our first night by a motion censor camera—spooky! 

There were also many warthogs, who like to hang around the tents to look for leftover food, and other animals like impala, waterbuck, hyenas, zebras and more.

We could hear them all night long! I’m the first to admit that I was quite terrified and barely slept the first couple of days. We all went to the outdoor bathroom in packs for fear of a leopard attack. I always carried a hard object with me just in case I needed to scare an animal away. Aside from the constant fear of being eaten, camping was incredibly fun. I had never slept outside in a tent before, and it was incredibly freeing to sleep under the stars.

We left early in the morning to get to Kruger National Park as the gates opened. The morning started out slowly, with only a few sightings of common animals like giraffes and elephants (ellies, as the South Africans call them). 

But soon we had great luck! We spotted a honey badger (very rare, you can see it running away from us in the photo), dwarf mongooses, and then an entire pride of lions hunting around our car! 

We also saw large numbers of zebra, rhinos, and giraffes. Although zebra are commonly found in large numbers, rhinos and giraffes are usually found alone or in very small groups. We happened to run into large numbers of males who were vying for dominance.

 When we came back to the park for the second day, we found that the lion pride had not yet hunted. Lions often stake out their prey for long periods of time, formulating an attack plan, and these lions were particularly methodical. Later, we followed a long line of vultures to find a different pride of lions chasing what we believe was a leopard off of its prey. We watched the pride tear apart the waterbuck in minutes.

After a few minutes, the matriarch of the pride took off with one of the legs and left her cubs with the rest of the animal.

We followed the trail of the leopard they had chased off, but it soon became dark and we didn't find him.
On our way home the next day, we stopped briefly at Blyde River Canyon-- the third largest canyon in the world! The views were stunning.

And so ended our 10-day trip around South Africa. It was a whirlwind tour of a large portion of the country, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.  I hope I can come back someday and spend more time in different areas of the country.