Kruger and Gomo Gomo

Nine hours into our drive to Kruger, we finally found them. Hippo warning signs! If the road hadn’t been even narrower and more winding than usual, I would have taken a picture. Early the next morning, we ate our favorite meal – peanut butter, crackers, and instant coffee – and headed into Kruger National Park through the Phalaborwa Gate. It didn’t take long to find impalas. Thrilled by our first animal sighting, we pulled over immediately and ogled the lovely antelopes for a good long time. As it turns out, impala in Kruger are a little like bunnies in New England. Everywhere.

We spend one night at a hut in Letaba Camp. The camps are more developed than we expected, each equipped with gas stations, restaurants, and shops. That’s because the gates close at 6:00 pm. You can’t leave, otherwise lions might eat you! Seriously. The real concern is not lions, but charging hippos and lone male buffalo. Eek.

We took a night drive that evening with a Kruger ranger, and found elephants, giraffes, a spotted genet, and wild dogs. Wild dogs are endangered and difficult animals to spot, and our guide was more thrilled than we were. The next morning we drove more through Kruger, spotting a huge family of giraffes and then headed to GomoGomo, a game lodge situated on private land adjacent to Kruger (with an unfenced boundary so the animals can roam freely). It was about as low key as a private lodge can be, with jovial rangers (all white, with trackers who spot the animals who are all black, but the race dynamics we’ve observed so far deserve a separate post) and unlocked huts. We spent two days careening around the park on an open, 4x4 safari Jeep, watching elephants and endlessly and fruitlessly pursuing lions. Elephants are amazing, and we watched a six-month-old learning to use his trunk, big sisters watching over their sleeping little sister, and adolescent males mounting each other as mating practice. So human!

We were sad to leave, especially without our lions, but were eager to get to Durban to start settling in. We arrived on Friday and are excited to be exploring our new city!