The fourth day we had to catch an early flight Hoedspruit (one of the airports that takes you to Kruger National Park). We flew out of Johannesburg Airport on South African Express. It was on a prop plane…which always make me nervous for some reason, but Zach reminded me that prop planes are just as reliable and jet planes….? And no offense to our local airlines, but South African Express totally kills it in the snack department! We were loving all the treats on our flight: especially all the dried, exotic fruit. Also, a highlight of my culinary experience in SA is that they have Coca Cola LIGHT. (Diet Coke’s better tasting cousin). We arrived in Hoedspruit, the tiniest airport we all had ever seen. It had one gate and one gate only. And technically, it wasn’t a “gate”. It was a door that led outside to the Tarmac to board your plane. We piled all our baggage into our sporty rental car and set off for the Kapama Game Reserve. Kruger National Park is the biggest game reserve in the world. There are thousands of places to stay and Zach and I debated for weeks what to do about lodging while doing the “safari experience”. Many people had recommended us not to stay in Kruger itself, but a private game reserve instead. This was the BEST decision we made the whole trip. Kapama Game Reserve is over 15,000 hectares (who the heck knows what a hectare is?) of protected land that is privately owned. Kapama technically owns the airport we flew into, which was less than 15 minutes away from the main gate of the reserve. When we arrived at the main gate we all were totally blown away by the security. There must have been at least 20 officers armed with machine guns waiting for us as we approached the gate. Apparently there had been a problem with rhino poachers, so security had been doubled the last few weeks. We had to sign in and security had to call ahead to our lodge to make sure we were really staying there (and not poaching rhinos, obviously). Once we had the go-ahead we entered into the reserve. I expected the terrain to be a little different. In my mind I pictured more of a desert landscape with few to no trees. But Kapama was lush and green as far as you could see. Red sand roads took us to our hotel. It was a 20 minute drive from the main gate to our lodge: Kapama Karula. On our drive we spotted a ton of animals. Warthogs (with tons of little babies), baboons, impalas. All roaming around free, crossing in front of our car, sprinting away from the road as soon as they spotted us. When we arrived at our lodge, right away we couldn’t believe the service. Our car was valeted, our bags were sent to our rooms, and we were each given a glass of leche juice.
The staff went over our schedule with us for the rest of the day and we had lunch in the dining room. Kapama has four lodges, Karula being the smallest. Zach and I and his parents stayed in two rooms of the 12 that made up the lodge. Meals, game drives, and activities were all included in our stay at Karula. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Wooden pathways led through the trees to each different building. Each room was like a private suite. The entire back wall of our rooms were glass and were open to the reserve, right up against a river.
There was even an incredible infinity pool that dropped off the side of the hill.
After our lunch and the tour of our room we had to hurry and change for our first evening game drive. Also, the door to our room had a handle made of a giraffe bone…
Something I loved about the whole experience at Karula was how intimate it was. There weren’t too many couples staying at the lodge. We were assigned a safari group with just one other couple – so just six of us to one vehicle. We also met our guide: Julius and our tracker: Excellent. They didn’t waste any time. We were off on our first game drive as soon as we hit our seats.
We had only been driving for 10 minutes when Julius stopped in the middle of the path. All around us were elephants. More than 20, a whole herd, surrounded us.
We watched them eat and move their way through the trees. For being such huge animals, they could disappear into the bush in seconds. One of the babies passed by us and was totally amused. Instead of ignoring us and walking on by, he walked right up to the side of the vehicle. Julius told us the babies like to prove to their older and wiser parents and siblings that they are not scared of us humans. He walked right up next to Zach and looked him square in the eyes. They had a real moment…
Then Julius got a call that the lions had been spotted in a field nearby, so we drove off to the field to try and spot them. There they were, just lying in the road.
I can’t explain how freaky it was to be in an open vehicle within 10 feet of a real lioness. Three, to be exact…and a little man cub. One was the mother, two of her older daughters, and the little guy.
They were watching a group of impalas across the field and suddenly got up and moved towards them. We stayed with them for a while until we made our way over to the group of grazers. There were impalas, water buck, and zebras all grazing together in the field nearby. As we made our way down the hill we spotted a large herd of water buffalo.
When the sun started to go down Julius and Excellent found a clearing where they set up a snack for us. They had a whole spread of dried fruit, jerky, and nuts along with drinks.
Our guides quickly learned that we didn’t drink alcohol and were already prepped with some Cokes and Coke Lights. We visited amongst ourselves. We learned a lot about our safari friends: Iric (a veterinarian) and Engrid (a teacher) from Norway. I also learned that Julius was on of 28 children (his father had four wives, a common practice in South Africa). Excellent was his nephew, one of his sister’s sons. He told us stories about how he used to hunt animals with a spear to help feed all of his family members. He is an expert tracker and would constantly stop our vehicle and tell us what animal (sometimes he could even tell the sex of the animal) that had just walked there. We were completely ecstatic that we had only been there for one night and had already seen 3 out of the Big Five. We told Julius that was our goal: to see all of the Big Five – the lion (check), elephant (check), leopard, rhino, and water buffalo (check). By the time we had finished our snacks the sun was setting. African sunsets are amazing. Then it got cold and dark. Julius rounded us all up in the Land Cruiser and we did a night drive. Excellent sat on a seat at the front left of the vehicle with a giant spotlight and looked for animals hiding in the bush.
We spotted a severt cat, bush baby, and antelope. When we made it back to Karula we were greeted with hot chocolate and flashlights. The separate buildings were really hard to navigate without flashlights at night. The paths were lined with lanterns, but still you never knew what was actually OUT there in the trees.
We changed our clothes and got ready for dinner. We ate in the Boma, a room made of stick walls with a fire pit in the center and lanterns hung all around. The food was a traditional African BBQ. Lamb, beef, starches, vegetables, cheeses, and salads. It was so fun to eat outside and apart from the occasional bizarre bug, we loved it!
After dinner, on our walk back to our room, we spotted a scorpion…and waiting for us at our front door was a snake! Not a HUGE snake, but a snake nonetheless.
Once we scared the snake and some beetles away from our door, we made it to bed. It made us both realize we really were in the middle of the African bush.