Trip of a Lifetime (Kruger National Park)

Member Name: yahoo2003

Product:	Kruger National Park
Date:	14/08/09 (45 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Seeing animals in the wild, learning about SA, unique experience

Disadvantages: If you expect to see animals left, right and centre you may be disappointed

I had an absolutely fantastic time when I went to Kruger National Park (and to South Africa in general). This isn't going to be a particularly succinct review because I want to write about my experience in SA as a whole in case it's useful / interesting for anyone who is planning on going, and also because I think that it puts the trip to Kruger in context. Hopefully if you don't want to read the whole review you can skip to the bits which are relevant for you. I should also point out that there are obviously hundreds of facts that I could give about the square footage, the history of the park etc, but this is better googled as I want to focus on my personal experience which I guess is more the point of a review. There also seem to be another few interesting reviews on here which might go through details that I haven't covered.

********** Why I visited South Africa + Journey Details **********

I have an old school friend who was living out there on a monkey sanctuary called the Vervaet Monkey Sanctuary in Tzaneen and though I would take advantage of this and go to visit her and see a bit of South Africa at the same time. I actually ended up taking my mum with me who loved the idea of safari, and I was ecstatic when she had the time of her life and has been talking about it ever since and I was so glad we got to do this together.

Tzaneen, where we stayed for the majority of the trip, is in the Letaba District, Limpopo, about 1.5 hours drive from Kruger National Park. It's a very very green, agricultural place with a tropical climate. We went for 10 days in the middle of November - 3 days safari, a few days in the hotel, and a couple of days in Grasskop which is a scenic place near to Tzaneen. It took us the best part of 24 hours to get there. Depending on your budget, you can normally get a slightly shorter flight but for more money, and of course if you're staying close to Jo'Burg there aren't the extra couple of legs of the journey at the end. Altogether we paid around £500 for our flights.

The highlight of the journey there was definitely the flight from Jo'Burg to Polokwane airport which was the final airport we flew into. It was a tiny plane which fitted about 20 people in theory, but there were only 5 of us on the flight. The funny thing was that the air hostess still acted in the same way as she would have done with a flight of 150, sticking to a strict process when handing out the snacks (which was a bag of crisps) and giving instructions. When we arrived at the other end our bags were plonked on a platform in the middle of the 'airport' which was tiny, more like a local train station if that.

When we weren't on trips, we stayed in The Old Coach House Hotel in Tzaneen which was absolutely beautiful but I won't go into more detail about the hotel as this is not what the review is mainly about.

********** Basic Details of my Kruger Trip **********

Length - 3 days 2 nights

Location - From our hotel it was around 1.5 hours and normally people will stay in one of the neighbouring areas like we did

Cost - £200 which is an ABSOLUTE BARGAIN in comparison to the amount you have to pay when you book from the UK. Luckily my friend knew an extremely experienced guide who we booked directly with. I will go into more detail about this in a bit. The cost of this included petrol, 2 nights accommodation, the entrance to the park, and the company of the guide. Also occasional food and drink.

Temperature - We went in the middle of November which in theory is their summer season but also their rainy season. I think in general we were fairly unlucky in one sense with our weather as throughout most the holiday, apart from when we were at Kruger, it rained and was fairly cold. From what the locals were saying though it's normally a good temperature and decent weather most year round, but then everyone seemed to have different thoughts. The fact that it wasn't too hot was actually good on safari, because when it's hot the animals are lazy and hide in the shade so you don't see them as much. When it rains they also don't come out though so it's difficult getting a balance. Because we were there in low-season the park was not full of tourists which was good. I think whatever time of year you go there are pros and cons.

Type of Safari - Our safari was fully experienced from the car. You can choose an on-foot safari where you go off into the bush and camp, and may wake up in the morning to see interesting looking footprints next to you!

********** Our Guide **********

Our guide was one of the things that made this as fantastic as it was. Because he wasn't too busy it was just me and my mum in the car with him and so could tailor the trip to exactly how we wanted it which was absolutely fantastic. It also meant that he was our own personal guide for the whole trip and while we were driving along we could benefit from all of his knowledge about the animals but also South Africa in general which was absolutely fascinating. We learnt so much on that trip about many of the different aspects of South African and also about animals.

********** The Accommodation **********

On the first night me and my mum stayed in a little chalet-type / hut place on one of the camps. It was extremely basic (two beds, very basic bathroom with shower, a small kitchen) but all that we needed as you spend very little time in your accommodation on safari. It was surrounded by other huts and even had a little swimming pool nearby that I took a dip in, but was also accompanied by a couple of frogs which I found quite funny. The camp you stays in depends on what route you are doing around Kruger. The second night we stayed somewhere different as we had travelled through to another part of Kruger. It was very similar. I can't remember the names of the camps but I think unless you specifically want to pay extra for somewhere more fancy with jacuzzis etc (which you can do!) they are all similar.

********** The Food **********

The first night, our guide cooked us a traditional South African Brai - in fact this is just the SA word for a BBQ! We had picked up lots of nice meat from the supermarket before we got into Kruger and I think the only thing different from English food was the Pap that our guide made us. Pap is a traditional SA food which is like a maize porridge which he added a few other ingredients too. It's very fulfilling and tasty from my point of view, but as usual I'm not sure everyone would like it. It was lovely eating outside our hut with all the bright stars above us and every now and again a South African deer (have forgotten the name of the one I mean!) would hop past or we'd hear the sound of birds, it was lovely. The funny part of the story is that when we were eating on the patio it was difficult to see our food so me and my mum kept backing our chairs back into the light but our guide would try to subtly encourage us to stay where we were. When we were all friends a few days later he admitted that this was because it's not uncommon in SA to be happily munching away at your food only to look down and see a couple of bugs in it! So instead of trying to avoid this I think they often just go with it and try and pretend they aren't there - I'm not overly squeamish so although finding this pretty disgusting I moreso just found it funny.
The second night we just grabbed some fast-food from one of the camps fast-food restaurants - I think this is mainly the other option.

********** ANIMALS **********

So here I am at the most important part of the review!
If you want to make the most of your time on safari in Kruger, you should get up at about 5am. At different times of the day and in different parts of the park you are likely to see different animals. A huge misconception that a lot seem to have of safari is that it's like the Lion King where you see hundreds of animals hopping around everywhere you look, and that lions will commonly hop in front of you or stroll along next to you. If this is what you want, you 'could' be disappointed. I actually found it a lot more exciting that you don't see animals everywhere you turn because when you see one it makes it more special, especially if it's a lion or a cheetah. Let me go into detail about some of the animals I saw to help:
Cheetahs. These are very rare, only about 200 in the whole of Kruger. We were extremely lucky and saw two sets of two during our 3-day trip and it was fantastic and a really special experience. They were beautiful.
Leopards. Also very rare, we saw one from a distance stretched out on a tree.
Lions. These are also fairly rare and we saw a family of lions from a distance but not close up - it was still quite exciting! When there are viewings of the more rare animals like this you normally get a small (or large in high-season) crowd of cars gathered around so you know something is going on. It can sometimes be difficult to see. In a typical 3-day trip you would hopefully see a couple of lions but not much more than that.
Elephants. You will hopefully see quite a few elephants (more than a few a day) like we did. They are so impressive and absolutely huge and often walk across the road and you need to keep your distance in case they want to charge you!
Zebras. So pretty! You should see quite a few of these too.
Warthogs. So ugly but adorable and nutty in their own way, we saw more than a few of these on our trip.
Ostrich's. So much bigger than I imagined! We saw about 4
Various birds including eagles and owls
Snakes - we just saw one long green snake in a tree
Crocodiles - we saw one, on our night trip
Hippos - you'll see a fair few but normally just with their ears and back poking out the water, so unsociable!
Lizards - lots of different kinds including a huge scary one which looked like it was out one of those bad 80s reptile horror films!
Deers - Various kinds. If you are like me and you get one of the guidebooks which have the pictures and names of all the different varieties of animals, you may even just get excited about ticking off all the different types of deers and birds you see, I really did!
Insects including dung beetles pushing dung across the road, very funny!
Monkeys - lots and lots. Vervaet monkeys are the most common. They're very playful and you are likely to come across a huge gang of them lying in the road playing and as animals have the right of way in Kruger you have to just wait until they decide to move on. They are also soooo cheeky so watch out - when we stopped at a cafe for lunch a money ran up and tried to grab my mum's cake out her hand. The funny thing is she wasn't having any of it and grabbed onto it and eventually the monkey gave up - this may have not been the most sensible decision on her part as apparently they can get quite aggressive.
You'll also probably see a few baboons.
Giraffes - a good few a day probably. They're so elegant and absolutely huge.
Buffalo - loads, often in big gangs around water
Hyenas - just once we saw some baby hyenas lying by the side of the road. They were absolutely gorgeous. Then on the night drive we saw a grown-up hyena and it was so ugly (sorry hyenas)

I mentioned the night drive a couple of times. It was very windy when we went on our night drive (not with our guide but with a big group of people, it was still free though) so we didn't see a lot. It was then that we saw the crocodile and the leopard though. Even though we didn't see much it was still very exciting driving around the park at night.

********** Be Careful **********

I won't harper on about the dangers in South Africa, especially as on safari there's no reason you would come into any danger as the park is safe and full of tourists and is surrounded by gates. However I should mention that South Africa, as everyone is aware, can be a very dangerous place so you should always stay with your guide or at least be properly informed about what you are doing and where you are going as if you end up off the beaten track you can get into a lot of trouble.

********** The Summary **********

Do you need to love animals to go to Kruger? Hard for me to say, as I do like animals, not that I particularly watch a lot of documentaries or anything like that, but I do find many types of animals beautiful and fascinating. If you are expecting non-stop drama you may be disappointed. In fact our guide said that this happened a couple of times with him. If you can appreciate everything - talking to your guide or the other people you're with, appreciating the drive and the scenery, ideally getting interested by animals + birds, and enjoying the experience as a whole, you will absolutely have the time of your life and remember it forever.

Summary: An absolutely amazing experience that you will remember forever if this is for you