We hopped into a tiny propeller plane at Nelspruit for a one hour ride south to Durban. There we picked up our rental car ready to plot through Durban rush hour traffic and scoff at the people who thought we were mildly insane to drive 3 hours to St. Lucia in the dark. Turns out we were mildly insane. Our 3 hour trip took 5 hours with a couple of detours. One detour to get burgers from a fast food joint (Steers) which is ridiculously good. The second detour was to get unlost. We missed the final turn sign into St. Lucia because we were distracted by the bright lights of KFC and missed the poorly lit road sign. By the way, KFCs are abundant here! We've seen maybe one McDonald's in the entire country. Sorry, tangent.
We finally arrived to the Santa Lucia B&B to the sweetest host Rika and a palatial, well stocked room (meaning they provided excellent sherry wine!). Rika and her husband Francois van der Mewre were a highlight of our time in St. Lucia. They pampered us the way grandparents do, and never let us leave without home baked muffins, allowed us to pack a lunch from their kitchen goodies, provided a cooler with ice, chairs, and towels and so on.
Our first full day in St. Lucia, we took a self drive trip through an ecological reserve and spotted more animals (we're pros now!). Highlights were the Vervet monkeys and their playful babies. These monkeys must be like squirrels to the locals, because nobody stops to look at them except for us Americans. Unfortunately there appeared to be considerable commercial logging in the area. As well as historic remnants of logging in the reserve as evident by many stumps amidst the grasses.
And that's about it. It was a warm and relaxing couple of days.
N&B
Hungry Hungry Hippos and more...
On our final morning in Kruger our hosts suggested we use the best of our time and take up another activity. We opted to stop by the touristy Swazi cultural center on our drive to the airport. The center's entrance is located just outside the Swaziland border, but the road on the inside curves past the Swazi border. SO we didn't need to get a Swaziland stamp on our passports (how convenient!), but technically we were on Swazi soil...so we're totally counting that as a country we visited!
The center's main attraction is the traditional village area set up behind the shops and restaurants. Our guide Mapompo took us on a tour of the dome shaped straw huts, talked about a few traditions including clothing and such, and reminded us that men are considered superior in Swazi culture. This meant I (Noosha) had to enter the huts behind the men and on the other side of the door. Bah! Additionally, men have multiple wives (but in reality the chief's mom runs the show). Anyway, the real treat of the whole thing was the music and dancing. The organization recruits talented youth from the local rural villages to be part of the performance group. The group consisted of single male dancers, married female dancers, ready for marriage female dancers, and adolescents with their tatas revealed. Powerful percussions were coupled with high kick and foot stomping dances. It was really enjoyable to watch! They made me (Noosha) get up and dance, and mom might be shocked, but I was a good sport. I danced and had fun! :) Here are some pictures.
For those of you who love dung filled facts, the floors are somehow made using earth, dung, and animal fat.
(We forgot to allow comments on the previous safari posts. If you have been burning to leave us a comment, and we must admit, we do love the comments :), you may do so now. Cheers! N&B)
For our third act we offer you a walking safari. Noosha was not feeling up to walking around the bush so early in the morning (out the door at 5:30 AM again) so I went solo. Ludovic drove me into the park before dawn to meet the guides and the rest of the walking safari guests. Turns out there were no other guests so I got my own private walking safari with two armed guides.
Chester and Isaac lead the safari. Shortly after sunrise we began our meander into the bush after a short discussion of the rules. The guides were to travel in front and in back of me. We were not to talk if there there animals around, only communicate with hand gestures or gain another's attention with animal sounds or clicks. If an animal were to charge we must stand our ground until directed by the guide as the animals 9 times 10 will mock charge (sounds reassuring ya?).
I was also informed that one typically does not see many animals on a walking safari. The animals in Kruger have grown up seeing vehicles. They see the vehicle as just another animal, one in which they have never been shot by. As soon as you step out of the vehicle, stand up in, or lean out of the vehicle you change the shape of vehicle/animal they will run. If one is walking they see you has a human and something that has killed them in the past. For instance you can drive within a foot or two of an Impala and they will hardly stop eating, walk within 50 yards of an Impala and they will dart off. Knowing all this I was under no expectation to see any large animal on the walking safari. This tour was to be about the more subtle things one see in the bush and how to read the environment, the dung, the plants, the footprints, etc.
On with the safari... Our first stop was at a dry sandy river bed where we looked at the difference between White and Black Rhino prints, Hippos, Elephant prints (both adult and youth and determine the direction of travel), and determine the difference between cat (plus cheetah and versus other cats) and dog.
Cat Versus Dog:
Within the main pad of both animals lies the difference. The cat has what appears to be three lobes where as a dog has two. So a Leopard will have three and a Hyena two.Cheetah Versus other Cat:
Most cats have retractable claws while the Cheetah does not. This allows the Cheetah to maintain better traction while running and turning at high rates of speed. One can see the difference between the two by the presence of little holes/circles/dot around the outer front edge of the print.White Versus Black Rhino:
Along the trailing edge of the print, a White Rhino will have a notch of sorts pointing towards the front of the print, which looks like a W, whereas the Black Rhino has a more oval pad. Each has three toes.
After moving on from the lesson on tracks Chester discussed dung, yes dung. One could spend hours discussing the finer points of dung. I must say it was very fascinating. We first stopped at a Black Rhino dung. The Black Rhino is a browser, meaning they eat leaves and branches as opposed to grasses. As such their dung is filled with undisturbed, undigested branches due to their poor digestive system. Additionally the branches are 0.5" - 1" in length and cut at a 45 degree angle. Next to the Black Rhino dung was an older Elephant dung. One can tell the difference between the two by the color (or colour for some), the Rhino is darker. The Elephant is also a browser and the dung is filled with undigested branches. Unlike the Black Rhino, the Elephant dung has longer branches which have been smashed by chewing. Up next we had an even longer discussion on the White Rhino's dung pile. The White Rhino pile is a large toilette used to mark the territory of a male individual. They will come back to this pile over and over again to mark their territory. The dung will get trapped in cracks within their feet and be deposited throughout their area, informing others who is boss. Female Rhinos will also deposit dung at the pile but around the edge of the pile. The White Rhino is a grazer, meaning it eats grasses and ground plants. It will have a wider mouth to help in this effort. And their dung will be filled with grasses. Within the dung we found a Dung Beetle (pronounced by Chester as Beet lee). The story of the Dung Beetle is a fascinating component of the ecosystem, which I will not go into but is worth researching.
White Rhino dung pile:
Black Rhino dung (note the small undigested and undisturbed branches):
The walking safari was an amazing experience. While the diversity of sightings was extremely limited to two Rhinos, the feeling of being untethered in the bush and unprotected in such close proximity to massive beasts is a once in a life time experience. I will tell my grandchildren about these moments. Thank you for reading through my David Attenboroughesque post.
