First, I’d like to say sorry for not updating this blog in over a month. I’ve gotten a bit lazy. Anyway, I recently returned from a three-night trip to Kruger National Park, which I’ve dreamed of visiting for years. The managers of Lajuma, Oldrich and Judy, took me and three other research assistants. Oldrich actually used to work at the park, and they are both extremely knowledgeable on the wildlife there, so we were very fortunate to get to go with them. 

            We left Lajuma on Wednesday at 4:00 in the morning, because we wanted to make a couple of stops before Kruger: the Blyde River Canyon, and Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.  Blyde River is the largest forested canyon in the world, and was really beautiful. We drove around a bit and went for a nice walk by the river.

            Moholoholo rescues, rehabilitates, and reintroduces many different South African species (animals that have been caught in snares, animals that have been orphaned as a result of poaching, etc). We attended a short talk about their work, and went for a tour. We got to feed some vultures (basically, you hold a slab of meat, and they come to land on your hand. It was actually a bit scary, but also really cool). They also let all the visitors pat a juvenile cheetah.

            After Moholoholo, we entered Kruger around lunchtime. Kruger is a really huge park, and part of it is just a couple hours from Lajuma, but we drove to the Southern part of the park, since that’s where the best wildlife viewing is. We stayed at a different camp each night (Satara, Skukuza, and Mopani), and drove nearly from dawn until dusk every day to take full advantage of our time there.  Oldrich and Judy were not only able to rattle off a bunch of facts about every species we came across, but were amazingly talented at spotting far-away animals. By the end of day three, we had not only seen the big five up-close (lion, leopard, elephants, rhinos, and buffalo), but also jackal, hyena, and many, many birds and antelope.  The density of large animals in Kruger is pretty high. For example, I was able to get hippos, rhinoceros, and impala all in the same photo. We had a lot of moments that seemed like something out of a David Attenborough film.

            On the third night, we went for a night-drive. Oldrich and Judy told us to wear warm clothing, which we did, but none of us were able to anticipate just how cold it would be driving around in an open-top safari vehicle.  Even wrapped like a mummy in two blankets, I was still so cold that I actually purposely fell asleep a couple of times. It was great seeing Kruger at night, and we saw a couple of cool animals we hadn’t seen during the day (including a wildcat and a civet), but I think we were all pretty pleased to be in our beds at the end of the night.

            The next morning (our last day), we drove for several hours without seeing much of anything, besides a few impala (not that any of us were really complaining, as we had already been pretty lucky on the other days). Then, we saw a car pulled over, so we stopped to see if they were looking at anything interesting. It turned out to be a cheetah, very far away, lying under a tree. Maybe this doesn’t sound THAT exciting, but Oldrich said he had only seen one other cheetah in Kruger, and that was in 1995 (and he used to work in the park, and also visits several times a year with students). It’s not completely unheard of (a couple other research assistants said they had also seen a cheetah), but it’s pretty rare to spot them, since there are only about 250 left in the park. Keep in mind that Kruger is not an especially small park – it’s about the size of Wales (thanks for the reference point, Wikipedia).

            After we saw that cheetah, we knew we had basically hit the jackpot. We couldn’t stay super long to watch, though, as we had arranged for one of Oldrich and Judy’s friends to give us a talk on elephant management (basically, whether to use culling as a solution to the overpopulation of elephants in Kruger. It’s a really interesting and controversial topic, which I won’t get into in this blog post, since it’s pretty challenging to summarize briefly). Anyway, after the talk, we drove for another hour or so without seeing much besides Mopani trees and grass. And then, amazingly, we saw ANOTHER cheetah. This time, it was sitting on a boulder near the road, close enough to see the spots clearly without binoculars (though my camera phone didn’t think so, unfortunately). It was definitely a nice grand finale before we left the park.

            On our way back “home”, we stopped to see the world’s largest baobab tree. It’s so old that it’s hollowed out in the middle, and they have a little pub inside. It also happens to be an excellent climbing tree.

            Now, back at Lajuma, it seems that nearly everyone is leaving in the month of August, to return home in time for a final year of college, to begin a graduate program, or to enter the “real world”. I leave in two weeks, toward the end of the Lajuma Mass Exodus. It’s going to be really sad saying goodbye to everyone here, and to living on this mountain.