Watch out!

The drive along the coast to the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost tip of the African Continent, has got to be one of the most beautiful stretches of road on this earth. The road winds along the side of a cliff with deep, long views of the ocean and occasionally the other side of the large bay. It features hairpin turns and a two lane road, with us on the left, adding to the danger. Along the road various signs alert you to hazards up ahead. We were on the lookout for falling rocks, springbok, leopard toads, golfers, penguins, and my favorite: "! Baboons"

Where the freak are we??!

Mom, trying to navigate from the left seat.

Eeeeeeew, it eats snakes?!

Imagine my delight to learn that the game parks we visited are home to some of the fiercest, nastiest creatures ever featured on you tube: the honey badger. I pestered our rangers and probably irritated the others on our safari with questions about where to find the honey badger. Unfortunately for me, the HB as I like to call him, isn't one of the tamer animals, posing along the side of the road for passing tourists (yeah, you know who I'm talking about cheetahs!). Few of the rangers have actually seen the HB themselves although their tracks are in abundance. Peace said the badgers, who come out at night, can stand by the side of the road and disappear into the darkness; you can pass right next to one without spotting it. Another guide, Ross, actually saw a HB (or two?) attack a lion. I wonder how that turned out.

Peace

Our safari guide was very definitely a highlight of the trip. While somewhat reserved, he knew so much about the animals, trees, and birds that he was excited to share and he has a wicked sense of humor. 

Peace has been a safari guide for more than 15 years and worked in Krueger before coming to Zulu Nyala. He obviously has a huge heart for animals and has found, or has had brought to him, orphaned cheetahs, cervils, giraffe, wildebeest, and even a python. Of his three children, two hope to grow up to be safari guides like himself (the third: a nurse).

His first career however was as a policeman in Johannesburg. Peace said his father was very opposed ton having a son work for the police. As a minister, he was worried about the violence and corruption that Peace would be exposed to. So Peace ran away from home, hid from his father, and joined the police force. And hated it. As an African, working in Johannesburg, police officers have a very difficult, very dangerous job. He must have been there soon before or shortly after the end of apartheid, which would have added to the dangers already posed in the huge city with massive unemployment and poverty. He couldn't leave the force though and explained that policemen can't quit - only a guardian can resign for you.

Peace's father didn't give up either. He looked for Peace for three years before locating him in Johannesburg. Without even talking to his son, he marched into the police station and resigned Peace from the service, much to his son's relief.

Peace returned home, with no job and no plans. A mentor, his elementary school teacher, enlisted Peace's help for odd jobs to keep him occupied and encouraged him to return to school and find a vocation. Peace enrolled in university and studied ecology and after graduation, he found his passion as a ranger.

What language are you speaking??!

Lucky for us, English is the official language of South Africa - along with 10 other 'official languages.'  Zulu, afrikaans, and many others are spoken everywhere and it's fun to hear although I don't understand. Most of the time, I'm not certain I understand the English here either. 

Many Afrikaans, British, Zulu, Indian and other words, phrases and idioms are part of the lexicon. Plus, pronunciation is very different. A bird is a 'bhuuuurd' and the 'ko-mun huert-a-beeyast' is a common hartebeest. It's actually fun to see other people on our safari trying to learn these new names - and then figure out what the American pronunciation is ('oh, for the last two days I thought we were seeing VELvet monkeys, but these are the VERvet monkeys listed in the guide book!').

Adding to that confunderation is the fact that there is no single South African' accent. By the time you figure out this person's Zulu accent, you have to switch gears to try to understand the guy with the Afrikaaner accent and so on. I think the South African word I use most is 'what?' 'what?'

Cheetah close-up

Mom and I went to a big cat rehabilitation center to see a few of the animals we were unlikely to see in the wild. There were civets and servils and African wild cats. The latter evolved after the importation of domestic cats to kill mice for the Boer (Afrikaan farmers). Left to their own devices, the mated with wild cats and became legitimately wild themselves. They look not too unlike a large domestic tabby, but distinctive markings, rings around their legs and tails, set them apart. And they look very mean.

The highlight of the visit was meeting two cheetahs, Juba and Moya. Peace found them as cubs and helped to raise them before they were sent to the rehab center to breed. Very friendly cats, despite the large teeth and claws, we got to walk right up to them and pet the cats, making them purr. Cheetah fur is more wiry than I might have expected. 

I was completely in awe, and not a little nervous, to be so close to the kitties. Mom on the other hand, dove right in. She was all over the cheetahs and in the next cage we visited, the civets liked her too. One of the civets (maybe Bennett sized), actually approached mom, rubbing against her legs just like a house cat might. Mom reached down to pet her, which the cat also liked, and the cat peed on Mom's legs,  'marking' Mom for her own.

Game drive

Game drive
We've been lucky to go on game drives twice a day and see so many different animals - hippos, lions, cheetah, warthog, zebra, giraffe, bushbaby, rhinos (black and white), kudu, impala, jackal, baboon, leopard, elephant and on and on. The animals are so accessible and many so numerous that by the second day while driving in the truck, mom noticed some impala and dismissed them, saying 'oh, it's just the regular animals.'

The game park we're on is not small, but it is much different from the huge national reserves one would come across in Kenya or Tanzania or even at Krueger. It feels a bit like a zoo tour sometimes, but  without the bars or cages and way more dead animals. The trade-off though, is that the animals are very accustomed to the safari trucks and will allow you to get so so close.

We heard the elephants grumbling, rhinos chewing, hippos grunting, zebras...making whatever that sound is. Close seemed a bit too close a couple of times - we startled rhinos around a corner and sent them running and also made a very large lioness very angry when we awoke her from her nap. She got down into a pounce crouch and the lady sitting next to me - and closest to the lion - was suddenly in my lap.

Every day we see many of the same animals and I think 'well, this is going to be same as the last drive' but I am always surprised. The cheetahs sleeping in the grass last time are eating an impala now. The zebra colt is nursing. The hippos are walking on land, the baboons are mating, the rhinos are lounging in the mud with inyala and zebra at the watering hole. Bouncing in the back seat of the truck may be getting a little old, but watching the animals is endlessly entertaining.

Hypertensive giraffe

Sophie the giraffe is a frequent visitor at the Zulu Nyala game lodge. Accustomed to humans and a celebrity in his own right (he was in a French film named 'le Farm', helpfully translated by Peace as 'the farm'), he now stars in photos snapped by lodge visitors.

Peace found Sophie in the bush when the giraffe was just a few days old. The rangers saw a dead giraffe on their game drives, completing the 'circle of life' so to speak, circling vultures overhead. A few days later, Peace again drove by the dead giraffe, but noticed movement. On closer inspection, he found a very young baby giraffe, lying weakly by it's dead mother, with the vultures taking a few tentative pecks. Peace went and picked up the baby, took him home and hand fed the giraffe. 

Sophie's Zulu name means 'settle down' because he was very frisky in his pen and Peace had to say 'settle down, settle down!' The French film crew gave him the name Sophie after the giraffe toy that all of the babies play with (including many of my friend's babies!).

Sophie is obviously in love with Peace and treated him to a tongue bath one day as we all sat in the ranger vehicle. When not stalking our guide - and really, to see a full grown giraffe stalking is pretty crazy - Sophie walks around the pool, sits in front of guest rooms, and drinks water from the fountain outside reception. A number of times, mom and I have walked from one place to another and been startled by the giraffe nearby. What you briefly dismissed as trees in your peripheral vision starts to move, or you realize the lump in the garden has a head up in the trees.

It was interesting to learn that giraffes really can't put their heads down on the ground for too long and sleep for just 1-2 minutes at a time. They get very hypertensive when flat; you can imagine the amount of pressure it requires to pump blood to the head when upright and how that must all shift with position changes. There is a network of large veins in the tops of the head to act as a cushion when the giraffe does bend down to drink water, but it has its limits.

Sacrificial limbs

The fever tree stands out in a landscape full of interesting trees and shrubs with a very smooth trunk that has a distinct green color. The leaves, way up in the sky, are quite small. Unable to keep up with the energy needs of the tree, the trunk has also been recruited to the task and is full of chlorophyll.  

Mom asked to get out of the safari trunk so she could 'pet' the tree (reminding me of our drive through Death Valley when I was a kid when she talked me into 'petting' a cactus, leaving me with a finger full of spines). I tried to nix this idea -'you'll get eaten by an animal!' Peace was a little more accommodating - 'if an animal eats you, come talk to me.' He stopped by a tree and while mom got her touches in, he was chatting with another driver. Once Mom was safely back in the truck, he asked what she thought of it. 'wait,' he said, 'you touched it?' 
'Well yes!' replied mom.
'You TOUCHED it?'
'Yes!'
'Oh' said Peace. He picked up his radio. 'Peace to the game lodge, hello lodge, come in.' They responded and he said 'yeah, do you have any of the medicine there? For people who touch the fever tree? Yes, one of our guests touched the tree. She signed the waiver, so we're covered. But do we have any of the medicine there? We'll come up right away!'
By the time we were all sharing confused looks and mom was obviously starting to become concerned, Peace turned around with a huge grin - 'kidding!'

The tree received its name from people who slept under the tree at night and awoke covered in yellow pollen. They subsequently developed fevers and in some cases died. It's a bum rap - the malarial mosquitoes who came out at night were the real cause of the fevers.

The land here, specifically the salty soil, isn't great for the trees. Peace pointed out that many of the otherwise healthy looking trees had a brown, dead limb. These crafty trees have developed a mechanism to shunt the extra salt into a single limb, killing it, but sparing the rest of the tree.

Warthog timeshare

Peace stopped by a large hole in the ground, a few flies circling nearby. 'this is a timeshare' he announced. The hole was dug by anteaters who occupy the cave during the day and come out at night, at which time the warthogs take up residence, moving out again in the morning, before the anteater returns.

Dung beetles and cheetah kills

Safari, day 2. Mom and I arrived at our safari lodge yesterday afternoon with time to check in and eat lunch before meeting our guide and taking off on our first game drive. 

Our guide's name is Peace - which in his native Zulu, starts with an M, ends with an N and has a click in the middle. Side note: I'd had some preconceived notion that Zulu people were fierce in their day, and perhaps they were. The names of the two men I've met so far translate to 'peace' and 'comfort,' suggesting  a warmer, fuzzier perspective.

Peace takes us on game drives twice daily in a modified pick-up with seats in the bed, covered up top, but otherwise open to air. We drive down dirt roads and sometimes dry stream beds, jouncing along in potholes and scouring the bushes for animals. He has a fantastic eye and invariably spots animals long before we do. We've seen giraffes, warthogs, hartebeests, elephants, baboons,  rhinos (!) and cheetahs (!!) grazing, lounging, and jogging along.

We stopped by a large round red ball and Peace jumped out to confirm that it was the stomach of a beest of some sort, taken down by the resident leopard. A fetus was also lying on the ground, untouched. No other trace of the animal - no hooves, hair, hide or teeth - were there. Further down the road, 30 or so vultures (does that make a gaggle?) had congregated on the ground and in trees. While we snapped pictures of the big birds, Peace was scanning the nearby bushes and a few minutes later, directed our attention to a cheetah and four cubs, tearing apart an impala. Hours  later we drove by the
same spot and saw a few lazy vultures but not a scrap of the impala (RIP).

One of my favorite sites of the day however was a little less glamorous. The dung beetles are out in the morning, flying along with our truck and are huge, perhaps the size of a baby's fist. Peace pointed out one of these critters working hard in the road, rolling along a peace of dung bigger than he was. They're very pretty up close with a metallic, coppery glow. Not so pretty up close though as they seemed to dive bomb our truck.

Our evening game drive ended with the sunset, sending red light up the hillsides and making the fever trees incandescent, glowing green.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

SA

So it's back to the African continent and - as always - I wonder why it took me so long to get here and how soon I can come back. We arrived in Johannesburg after a very long and uneventful flight and the staff at our hotel here has been very kind. Altogether, I'm on my fourth variety of South African wine, all of which have been delicious! I may need detox by the time I get home.

Mom and I head back to the airport tomorrow for a flight and then a 2 hour drive to our safari lodge. We'll be at a relatively small private park with iffy Internet access so the blog posts may be a bit scanty.

I watched Invictus on the plane which has set the stage for what I imagine will be an unsettling travel experience. In Kenya and Ethiopia, poverty stared you in the face. My white skin generated curiosity, a desire to know more about me, my country, and maybe even a promise of opportunities ahead - how else could you explain all the marriage proposals?!

South African history followed a different course. Ethiopia was - quite proudly - never colonized. In Kenya, colonialism was eventually abandoned and many of the white rulers left the country when power was ceded. In SA, the Dutch colonists were driven inland by the British and both groups initiated a centuries-long program determined to marginalize and impoverish and enslave the African majority. Apartheid was the just the culmination. It destroyed the education system for Africans and took away the upper and middle class. By the time Mandela was released from prison and was elected as the first democratic president,  damage had been done that will take generations to correct. Apartheid may be over in name but it's effects are here and - most disturbingly - quite hidden.

So as a tourist, going on safari, staying at nice B&Bs, drinking my delicious wine, which South Africa will I see? Desperate poverty is here, but tucked away in townships, away from the airport and safari lodges. Great need is here, but not where a tourist could see. Rather than a curiosity, even in my lifetime, white skin has been the embodiment of oppression.

We're having a great time. People are so friendly. The hotel is really lovely. I'm very lucky to get to safari and take planes and enjoy delicious food. But I do feel the pressure of history, like a person watching me unseen, a subtext in all of my activities here. I wonder how I can pay tribute to the centuries of struggle and oppression that have occurred and shaped SA to the country it is today.

SA