Maroela — our favorite campsite!

I guess I’m glad I didn’t know this was a spitting cobra when I leaned out the window to take the pic

We’re at the Maroela camp in Kruger now. We stayed here in November and this camp remains one of our favorites— it’s small with about a dozen campers; it’s quiet, and it sits just above a dry riverbed frequented by elephants. We’re on the perimeter fence and have a great view of the ellies when they come through. And apparently an elephant did come through — straight through the electrified camp fence, which appears no longer electrified and no longer a fence. 

Given ellies can smell water underground, I imagine they smell all of our fruits and sweets, as do many of the other animals. We just saw monkeys taking off with the neighbors gummy bears earlier this morning. It appears another monkey got into their camper. The poor people! They’re out for a game drive and have no idea the potential destruction. The monkeys have been on their awning, sliding down the awning poles, on the table, overturning buckets… Richard chased them away with the monkey ax (a wonderful deterrent, though they ignore me when I wield it). They didn’t give up, but Richard did get a bag of gummies back.

We’ve done several long drives — five and six hours— to explore the park in this area. We usually go mid morning & afternoon, which partly impedes seeing animals (they are out more often than not in the early morning and and again after it starts to cool). We have an ulterior motive though—air conditioning! It is incredibly hot right now, just blazing some days. I’m lethargic, gross, and sweaty, but still loving the beauty of this place. However, for me, there was a slight hiccup in enjoying that beauty this morning as I sweated over laundry (literally, so do I need to wash it again?), got chased by a monkey, and then stung by a bee. Now though, I have a cup of cold white wine and my comfort food of crackers and cream cheese. My feet are up and I’m back to satisfied, if still sweaty.

As a side note, I’m trying not to mimic the go-away bird each time it cries “wah” like a two year old, then “wah, go ‘way.” I find it oddly relaxing, but I think Richard finds it rather annoying.

More pics!

Bob the hyena at the fence making his rounds:

You can’t see me behind this bush

Is that steak on the braai that I smell?

Our cozy campsite overlooking the riverbed:

Laundry day! Yes, this bucket & a clothesline for six months!

We’re those crackers I heard?

More soon!

Kruger - part deux. Letaba

 After a few months in Botswana and Namibia we’ve returned to Kruger for 4 weeks. First stop is Letaba in the middle part of the park. It’s pretty quiet as most game viewing is further south which is fine with us. Our first game drive was uneventful for the first hour but then around a corner there were hundreds of zebra and wildebeest. A bit further was a watering hole with well over 100 elephants. Amazing. Being extremely happy with our good luck we headed back to camp. There were a couple of cars stopped in the road and my usually observant wife stated “it’s an elephant “ which was there but I suspect most people were looking at the cheetah perched upon a rock marker like a statue eyeing the nearby zebra and wildebeest for lunch. I’ve heard people speculate about the dumbest animal in the park such as the wildebeest or dung beetle but my vote goes to humans. The idiots in two cars were moving back and forward to get a better view and eventually were just a few feet away and one car did a U turn so the people on the other side of the car could see. The cheetah, clearly irritated, finally hopped down scaring  off the animals. I may have waved at them with a finger. 

Kruger is like golf - you should have to pass a test before entry. 

Involuntary donation

 We were driving a well established tourist road to Kruger when one of South African’s finest traffic officers stopped us. Usually there’s a tent and a radar detector along side the road and when they wave at me to stop I just wave back and keep going. It has always worked until now. Officer friendly stood out in the road making me bring this hard to stop tank to a halt. Big balls, small brain. Not going to end well. 

“Good day officer, how are you?” This was met with some niceties on his part followed by “driver’s license “. Then “you were doing 98 in an 80”. I informed him that this vehicle could barely do 98 downhill with a wind. He then pulls out a faded, wrinkled and shredded piece of paper that only has numbers on it. He shows me a line that consists of 80 100  1200 with no words. It could have been his kid’s homework with obviously bad math skills. He explained that was the fine I needed to pay. He wasn’t clever standing in front of a supposedly speeding tank and now tells me if I was doing 80 in an 80 I still must pay 1200 rand. I was tempted to point out he should have typed 81 on this phony document but let it pass. Never paid for extortion before and insisted he bring the camera over and show me. Instead he offered to make me a good deal By reducing it to 600 ($40 usd).  Bullshit. He clearly was getting agitated as the longer he argued with me the fewer tourists he could stop and his hourly wage would deteriorate. I was tempted to ask for his supervisor but that would mean two payments. He wasn’t going away. I imagined him asking to inspect the vehicle and demanding customs declaration for electronics only to confiscate them. He probably had another piece of paper done by a 5 year old. “Not paying 600 rand for something I didn’t do “.  “What would you pay?” Now we get to the point. He’s like the knock off Nike seller in Asia - asking 50% of retail for something maybe worth 10%. Tiring of Mr. big balls, little brain, I said “300 rand no more “.

I am completely ashamed and disgusted with myself for caving. I find some comfort in believing it was an involuntary donation to a policeman’s retirement fund but most likely went to a couple bottles of cheap whiskey. 

Food offerings for Valerie

Great for the kids. 

Not old crunchy balls  Ron? 😉

I really prefer italian polony. 

7 pounds of pasta? Really?

Steri-stumpie?  Could be a penis surgery I suppose. 

Just read the label. 

Anything named chakalaka should be eaten. 

 Our friend is quite interested in foods from various countries so this is for her. 

Marakele National Park — What an Amazing Place!!

Rhinos keeping an eye on their calf with a pride of lions watching

The journey— We’re back in South Africa from Namibia and have landed for a long stay at Marakele National Park. 

We had a lot of driving to get here. Well, Richard had a lot of driving. We traveled via Upington, Bloemfontein, Joburg and then northwest through Thabazimbi. We did an overnight in Upington and one more overnight just beyond Bloemfontein. We ran errands in Joburg, and now we have our sanctuary at Marakele. What a beautiful, peaceful place in the Waterberg Mountains. 

We camped in our rig for a couple of days in an open campground where all the animals just walk on through—warthogs, zebra, ostrich…

And now we have safari-style tent with an adjacent kitchen. We love this place so much, we’re staying another week. And wow have we got animal pics! 

Waiting to pass… 

The mating pair about 15 feet in front of us with another lion at the back of the rig watching:

And in the side mirror…

We’ve heard lions most nights, and we’ve found them almost everyday on our drives. We just follow the huffs, puffs, grunts, and roars. The sounds are unmistakable and will wake you instantly at night. I think we must still have some primal reaction to hearing these guys. It’s almost like half your brain is always awake listening for them.

Our camp: 

The kitchen and deck with the entrance to our main tent off to the left

Our tented camp from above

Our camp visitor

The sleeping juveniles this a.m. and

More lion and rhino pics:

More soon from Marakele!

THE FAN

 This fan has come to represent my few years of experience in Africa. The size alone could ventilate any gymnasium and the cost is exorbitant of which most went to somebody’s uncle. It also takes up a lot of real estate.  It’s clearly a poor choice for a tent. It has three options; off, power #1 or hurricane velocity, power #2 which I cannot describe as I dare not go there and risk all belongings being blown into the dam. It oscillates in a 180 degree motion which cannot be turned off. It sounds much like a Boeing 707 which I rode in Costa Rica many years ago. And, such is the case in South Africa, power is frequently off so if you did want to risk using this overkill of air movement, it’s  not a choice. It does have a function, if you note in the photo it being used as a hat rack. 

Africa - always entertaining.