This feeling of pure elation temporarily vanishes as I enter South Africa two days later. Off course, this being Africa, there are no proper lines at the immigration office, but it works on a shove-hardest-served-first basis. Some guys are asking weird questions, and I notice some dude pushing into me, but I don’t realise he’s taking my phone out of my pocket. Fucking bastard… it is so South Africa! Not even have I set foot in the country and my stuff is already stolen. Fuck that shit.
I don’t really have time though to deal with it properly though. I’ve already made reservations for car rental and camp sites in Kruger Park for the next couple of days. So I head to the nearest shopping center to buy a new phone, then to a nearby Decathlon for some cheap camping gear and then try to make to Kruger the next day.
Right from the start, I feel perfectly at home in the park. This time there’s no pressure, no difficult questions, no annoying instructor, no lectures… Just me and the African nature. And it feels really good.
And suddenly I realise how much I’ve learned during the course. I see waterbuck and think you drink 15 ltrs per 100 kgs of body weight per day.. and even more on a hot day..
I see a giraf and link it to NASA’s design of its space suits. Zebra will forever be associated with farting and when I see kudu I’m reminded of Zulu folklore storytelling used to teach children that fighting is futile.
The first morning starts off with a skittish bushbuck, a waterbuck and a journey of giraffes at a nearby picnic spot. It’s a promising start but for the next hour the animals aren’t too enthusiastic in showing themselves. Luckily I have newfound skills now, and it’s super fun to hear this many familiar (bird) sounds and to have a picture in my mind of what I’m hearing.
Seated at a little lake I recognise a male African jacana in mid flight, know chinspot batis, giant kingfisher and striated heron by their calls and identify yellow billed stork and African darter from 100mtrs distance. There’s one bird I don’t immediately recognise though and I’m tempted to run to the car to get my bird book… Luckily I manage to resist the urge. I decide I don’t want to be that much of a nerd.
It’s a futile attempt though, as I can’t prevent the newborn nature nerd in me from coming out. It happens especially whenever I see new animals, animals that weren’t present in Zimbabwe.
I see a steenbok and think what are you?
Then I see a grey duiker and think what are YOU??!
Then I see a Sharpe’s grysbok and think WHAT ARE YOU??!!??
Each time I grab my mammal book to read about these fascinating creatures.
At some point I’m staring in awe at three cute little klipspringers. And since I’m parked on the side of a gravel road, other cars stop as well, hoping for a spectacular sighting. I try to not make eye contact with them, since I’m only greeted with a mixture of utter disappointment, disdain, anger and disgust when they find out it’s not a lion or leopard but three klipspringers I’m looking at. If they only knew about their rumoured incestuous behaviour, they would surely find them more interesting… (or not, of course)
At another hide the first thing I notice are the terrapins resting and baking in the sun. Then three more beautiful little klipspringers catch my eye. I rejoice! Only after staring at them for several minutes do I notice the herd of elephant swimming across the river below. Dammit.. I’m turning into a David.
It gets even more bizarre at a leopard sighting. There’s a leopard hiding in a tree.. but I notice some birds making a lot of noise and flying around frantically. It’s typical mobbing behaviour, so I take my binoculars and catch a glimp of a boomslang climbing down the tree. Clearly the birds won this little battle. A car stops next to me and the driver asks me what I’m looking at. I’m rather proud of my situational awareness but nevertheless opt to only mention the leopard.
It’s definitely clear that I’m not a fully experienced guide yet though. For example, when I stop at a sighting of a fierce male lion it takes another 10 minutes for me to see the other male resting some 5 meters behind him. Then another 15 minutes to notice the three females and other male right next to the second male.
Also, I really do not recognise any of the trees here, except for the mopane, but that one doesn’t really count cause it’s too easy. But honestly, I couldn’t care less and feel no pressure to try harder.
Furthermore, I’m soon to find out that the elephants in Kruger are definitely less docile than the ones in S&L. They make their point on my first encounter with a herd when one of the younger females forces me to back up seemingly with a little grin on her face, as if she’s saying “nice try dude”.
All in all Kruger is way more spectacular than I imagined or remember from my last visit 20 years ago. I’m spending most nights in small satellite camps, keeping a respectable distance from the more massive camps. And even though some of the camp sites were fully booked, it doesn’t feel crowded at all.
And the wildlife is actually quite spectacular! The second morning I see a group of 3 female lions with cubs abandon a (mostly eaten) prey to 26 (!) black-backed jackals and 7 spotted hyenas, with buffalo, tsessebe and a fearless honey badger passing by.
I also, admittedly out of sense of boredom, randomly decide to follow a pair of jackal that I see around an otherwise unvisited waterhole, only to find them going back to their den, enthusiastically greeted by their three young in arrival. Such a cool sight!
And otherwise it’s still the small things that make my heart skip a few beats.. The sound of a tree squirrel marking his territory from a nearby adversary, the occasional leopard tortoises crossing the road, the pearl-spotted owlet being mobbed by a grey headed bushshrike, the lesser bushbaby jumping around the trees at Crocodile Bridge Camp, or just the simple beauty of your average impala or giraffe.
Luckily I’m still super excited when someone points out the white rhino walking in the far distance with its young. Clearly, I’m not completely lost… (yet)
** sorry camera battery had died, no rhino pics **
The Long Solo Down 
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