My alarm went off only a few hours after I’d gone to sleep. I bolted up and turned on all the lights to make sure I’d actually get up. Tania wasn’t there, so I had the room to myself to finish up packing and shower and get ready.
I went up to the union for 0400. There were a ton of people in there as a bunch of the safaris were leaving at 0400. They called off the names that weren’t there and had people go down to wake them up or locate them. A few people had attempted going out and pulling all nighters. After that experience in India I decided against it. I would rather get a quick nap in before the trip and not risk not making it back to the ship in time or waking up for my trip. A bunch of people were actually still drunk.
We were the last group to leave. We stayed around til about 0500, we were supposed to leave at 0430. But there were a few people they couldn’t locate. No offense, but if you couldn’t make it there in time it’s your own fault. Especially after they go to your room, knock on your door, and call your room. If you don’t wake up for any of that you’re kind of a failure at this. Eventually we had to leave. They couldn’t find one of the girls or wake her up. Oh well.
It was about a half hour ride to the airport. Since we’d waited around for so long we had to rush to get our tickets and rush right to the plane. Our tour guide was even late getting there. There was only one trip leader/teacher. I felt badly, he was the only adult on the trip and he really had no idea what to do. His daughter was on the trip. I was pretty stoked that there were no other teachers or Life Long Learners or adults. Honestly, most of the older ones just complain that something is wrong or things aren’t nice enough. These trips are designed for college age kids who can kind of do whatever and deal with whatever gets thrown our way. They are not prepared for that.
It took forever to get tickets and everything. I’m not totally sure why. We kept getting told to go somewhere different. Eventually we got them and had to run through security to our gate. The girl who hadn’t woken up ended up taking a cab to the airport and meeting up with us. It cost her $80. That sucks, but at least she made it. She had a major apology due to the trip leader for that. I wonder if she’ll end up getting dock time for that. She should. She almost made us miss our flight.
Our flight was full of a few of the safari groups. I was sandwiched between Carson and some girl named Ryan, who I have literally never seen before in my life. So I would rooming with one of them.
I fell asleep as soon as we got into the air. It was about an hour and a half flight of which I slept for the entire time. I was exhausted and I hadn’t even gone out. Everyone looked like death, whether they went out or not. We flew into Johannesburg and had a connecting flight to Hoedspruit. SAS had chartered a flight there. At the Johannesburg airport we had no idea where we had to be. It was so disorganized. We kept getting redirected as to where to go. For some reason we had to go through security again. I’m not exactly sure why. We were also starving. Luckily I got food as soon as we got to the first gate. I grabbed a sandwich and water. A bunch of people weren’t able to get one in time as we were rushed off yet again.
We were led downstairs and outside to two buses and were bused to our unmarked white plane. I’ve been bused to planes before, but the ride usually isn’t more than a minute and often you can even see the plane from the gate. We were legitimately drive about 5 minutes from the airport to our plane.
This time I had a window seat and was next to Carson again. It was only SAS people. We took off and immediately were fed a boxed snack with chips, juice, peanuts and raisins, a strawberry muffin, and a big kitkat bar. This airline, whatever it was really knew how to do it up. As soon as they passed them out to everyone they came back to collect them because we were descending. The flight was only about 40 minutes long. I did manage to nap for the 15 minute descent. It was good enough. I looked out the window to see expanses of green and trees. There were dirt roads carving through the green in some places. We must be landing right in Kruger Park. I didn’t see any buildings around, it was beautiful.
As soon as we hit the runway and slowed down the captain came over the loud speaker and stopped the plane to tell us that there were two cheetahs to the left side of the plane on the runway. We all jumped up to see them. That was the first sighting of wildlife on the safari, definitely a good sign. Apparently they’ve released several cheetahs around the airport to keep animals off of the runways. That’s so crazy.
We got off the plane and were greeted by a bunch of white vans and several green 4 by 4 jeeps. The jeeps had Kapama written on the sides. Yes! We were taking jeeps to the Kapama River Lodge. You could see the other safari groups looking enviously at our roofless jeeps. We handed over our backpacks to a guy with a trailer then climbed up into the jeeps. It was definitely warmer here up north than down in Cape Town along the water. We were actually hot in our pants and sweatshirts.
I got into a jeep with Carson, Amy, Melinda, Taylor, Greta, Simone, Claire, and Elena. Each jeep could hold 9 people, so everyone had a great seat. I think there were about 30 of us split amongst the 4 jeeps. We sped off out of the airport grounds. There was no airport building or anything. Just the airport on the runway was all we could see.
We drove out of the airport, crossed a road, and entered the Private Game Reserve that held the Kapama River Lodge. Apparently it’s only on the Private Game Reserves in Kruger that can use the 4 by 4 jeeps like what we were on. We drove for about a half an hour through the dirt roads and trees. We saw some impala and waterbucks and warthogs. It got us so excited for our game drive later in the evening. It was only about 1100 or so. It was so much earlier than how we felt since we’d been up for over 7 hours and some had been up for over 24 hours.
I had met Taylor in Vietnam up north in Nha Trang, she’s from Wellesley and apparently spends her time on Martha’s Vineyard. So needless to say she knows Wellesley, Needham, and private school people that I know. We played the who do you know game. She’s definitely the person on the ship that I have the most friends in common with. She knew Tiff and Susan. So Sus if you’re reading this I met someone from the Vineyard. It was nice to meet someone from home who knows people that you know. That hasn’t really happened on the ship. Most people are from California or Colorado. The smell and appearance of the some of the bushes reminded us of parts of the Cape. We actually couldn’t get over that. It was wonderful to be out of a city and out in nature in the fresh air. Finally. I’m very much done with big cities. I don’t really enjoy being in big cities back home. I like them in moderation.
So Kapama was named after a Swazi king whose tribe inhabited the area in the 1880’s. The northern Drakensberg mountain range provides a majestic backdrop to the largest private game lodge in the Greater Kruger National Park region. The Kapama reserve is 13000 hectares. That is HUGE.
We entered the gates of Kapama. We hopped out of our jeeps and were greeted by a man with cold towels doused in a vanilla scent. We were led through the entrance through a walkway suspended off the ground by about 10 feet. These walkways were surrounded by trees and sunlight trickled down through them. We were led through the open-aired lobby/reception area. It looked like a very exclusive resort that prided itself on the peacefulness. Well good luck with us SAS-holes there. We sat down by an infinity pool and bar that overlooked the reserve. Actually the infinity pool overlooked the Kapama River, which was dried up at this time of year. This is what the animals used as a watering hole. That’s so awesome. Wildebeests strolled by down below. The animals were wild and could come and go as they pleased. So cool. Carson and I would be sharing a room together again. We were pretty stoked, I hadn’t seen much of her on the ship or in port since our China trip together. We headed out to the spa suites where we were all staying. These were different than the rooms attached to the resort. These were down a path, completely separated from everything.
It looked like a giant wooden ski lodge. That’s the only thing I can compare it to for people from home to understand. It was huge and beautiful. Our room had two comfy twin beds and had a private balcony overlooking another part of the reserve with lots of trees. The bathroom was about the size of my room back home. It had a tub that looked out over the reserve. You could leave the curtains and doors open because no one would be outside those windows. They were off limits due to the wild life here. The shower was bigger than my entire bathroom on the ship. The shower and bathroom were Real World style. The walls to these were clear with only a small strip of frosted glass. Very romantic. Wonderful for Carson and I. Haha. Then to separate the bathroom from the rest of the room was a giant wooden sliding door with panels of frosted glass.
Mom and Dad I would recommend this place to you, you’d both love it. The only problem I know you’d have would be with the fact that it didn’t have a tv in the room. After hearing your California story I think you might struggle with this during football season.
We dropped off all our stuff and I put on my bathing suit and headed back to the pool to meet up with some of the people. Lunch was being served at 1300, then teatime at 1600, then our evening game drive was at 1630. The whole middle part of the day was dedicated to resting, relaxing, and eating. On way down the path to the pool and bar area there were a few waterbucks just chilling in the bushes and trees. They were right off of the path, there was no fence between us and them. I can’t believe they can just roam free like that.
A bunch of people were already at the pool. I put my feet in, it was freeeeezing. So I decided to just lie by it with Tyler and Amy. The River Lodge offers a sunrise hot-air balloon safari and an elephant-back safari during the game drive times. A few people had already signed up for the elephant-back safari. They weren’t going to have the hot-air balloon safari while we were there because of the weather. It looked overcast and a little threatening. There were limited spots for the elephant-back safari so I signed up almost immediately for the last morning. The people at the reception desk, as well as a few of the guides who were standing around said that it was definitely worth doing. They had all done it and loved it. That sold me on it. It was a little bit on the expensive side, but when in Africa…
Amy and I ordered strawberry daquiris and chilled by the pool. It started to sprinkle so we put up an umbrella and relaxed. We went to lunch towards of the end of the time it was being served. It was buffet style. There were meatballs and cheeses and things like that. It was delicious. Breakfast, lunch, and teatimes take place in this giant open-aired building down one walkway. Amy and I hung out there for awhile.
On the way back from lunch I grabbed an internet card from the reception desk. It was about $12 for 48 hours of internet. That was the entire time we were there, so that was perfect. I hadn’t bought internet on any of the other trips I’ve taken at hotels. So I didn’t mind spending the money here. This was the only trip I felt safe bringing my computer on. This was a five-star River Lodge in the middle of nowhere.
So I went back to my room to get changed for our evening game drive and check out my internet. Simone and Carson were in the room. Carson’s debit card information had been stolen and her account got depleted. So she ended up spending over an hour on the phone with her parents and her bank making a claim and trying to get a card shipped to the port in Ghana in time. She managed to get it sorted out by 1620 so we could head back out to the front to get back on our jeeps.
Our driver was Richard. He was the one who picked us up at the airport. He asked us to stay on the same jeep because each jeep would be covering different parts of the reserve on their different drives. So in order to see everything it was best to stay on the same jeep. That was fine with us, we had a great jeep. Two of the girls changed jeeps and our tour guide, Pat, joined us. So we continued to have an all girl jeep with Richard and our tracker, Emmanuel. Emmanuel had a seat on the hood of the jeep and was constantly on the lookout for animals.
We drove off into the reserve for the evening. The reserve was beautiful. It was so lush and green. We saw all sorts of birds and animals. The first big thing that we saw was a pregnant giraffe. It had a big scar across its neck and it looked slightly crooked. Richard told us that it may have been from a lion, but it had definitely healed. What a trooper. She was huge. We actually didn’t end up seeing too much during this game drive. We were in search of the “Big Five.” The Big Five are the animals that hunters used to try and get and they were difficult to find and kill. They are the lion, the elephant, the leopard, the rhino, and the water buffalo.
We cruised along through the dirt roads that winded around everything. If we saw something, like the giraffe, we’d stop or back up and Richard would drive into the brush. This jeep could handle anything, we found this out pretty quickly. We saw some warthogs running around and of course we yelled Pumba! Although they’re not quite as cute as him. I’ve seen them before in zoos.
The sun was beginning to set. As we cruised along we ended up in a field. In the middle of the field were two rhinos. They were smaller and were definitely young, but Richard told us that they weren’t related. He wasn’t sure why they were out there alone with no adults supervising them, but wondered if they had been kicked out for some reason from their herd. He was full of crazy information and we asked him all sorts of questions about the animals.
We saw impala and waterbuck and all sorts of deer/gazelle-like animals. We pretty much saw the sunset out on the field. It was beautiful. I got some crazy pictures out there of the rhinos and the sunset. This was about the time my camera became useless because the lighting wasn’t good enough. It was almost a relief to not have to use my camera and just take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the environment. As we crossed the field we saw a pack of zebra chilling. They’re so amazing to look at in person; I love them.
Richard asked us if we wanted to stop for some drinks or keep driving around. We opted to continue driving. We could tell he was a little disappointed by the lack of animals that we were seeing. We were so thrilled to be out there, it was hard to be disappointed. Plus we still had a few game drive left over the next two days.
It got dark quickly. We weren’t totally sure how long we’d be out on the drive for now that it was dark. We drove around until almost 2000. It was pitch black in some parts of the reserve when we drove through all the trees and vegetation. I don’t know how they could see anything. We drove straight up hills that looked impossible for any vehicle. We kept stopping to listen to the monkeys and the birds to figure out what animals were in the viscinity. I can’t believe how much they could understand from just listening like that.
Driving through the blackness of the night I felt like we were in some sort of horror movie. It was so awesome. It was like the Blair Witch Project of African safaris. When we reemerged into areas without trees overhead we got a great view of the stars. We had thought that the clouds during sunset would inhibit our view of them, but they were amazing. As the drive continued more and more came out. It was an incredible number of stars that we could see. We could see the Southern Cross and Orion’s Belt as well as Venus, I believe that’s what Pat told us it was. We could even see the Milky Way. It was amazing. I haven’t seen stars this awesome since I was in the Bahamas.
As we drove along the dirt road we saw a huge herd of water buffalo just chilling by the side of the road. We also saw more impala and things like that. Towards the end we ran into a few of the other jeeps along this road. There had only been one other jeep we kept seeing earlier. We must have been in the same area doing some of the same tracks. But now towards the end everyone was closing in on the River Lodge. That made us realize just how big this reserve must be. There were probably 9-10 other jeeps out there and we only ran into one during the actual drive. Wow. Our tracker was sitting out front with a big flashlight, or torch, and sweeping across our line of vision for animals. We didn’t see too much else. Our driver continued to be disappointed in this drive, but we were just happy to be out there. Plus we had no expectations for this; we’d never been on safari before. As we were driving back Emmanuel’s torch ran over two sets of eyes glowing in the trees. They literally glowed. We had been wondering how we’d spot animals in the brush. They were water buffalos. The drive and stars were so awesome for us. We finished up our game drive and Richard dropped us off back at the lodge for dinner at 2000. We went back to our suites to change into warmer clothes, as it had gotten a little chilly during the drive.
We sat at the tables with our driver. You could definitely tell that he was disappointed by our game drive. He answered more of our questions and dealt with all of us girls. Dinner was so good. We started out with tomato soup, which was amazing. There was chicken and kudu kebobs. Kudu are a type of buck-like animal. The meat was tough, but delicious. There were all sorts of rice and potato dishes, but the game meat was definitely the highlight. There was also some type of chip with fruit chutney, which reminded me of a dish from India.
We were all exhausted as we ate dinner. Claire and I had ordered some red wine. It was so good. We all talked for awhile before deciding we should probably go off to bed since our wake up call would be at 0500. So we all walked back to the suites. I got ready for bed and used the internet for awhile. I took a quick shower in the massive shower. I probably went to bed some time after midnight. Somewhat of a fail, I definitely could have used more sleep. But I haven’t legitimately been on the internet in so long, it was so nice. I had to clean out my inboxes and spam and all that. Plus I needed to attempt to put up some pictures on facebook. As soon as I got into bed I passed out and was done for the night.
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