Time and Space

Day 2 - Kruger National Park

I've been to some unexpected places born of random ideas thrown into wine-inspired conversations. Istanbul and the Balkans, Rouen in search of Rollo, Amsterdam not Nottingham. I can't help but feel that the unpredicted trip begets the unforgettable experience. The joy of it will always stay with me I think even as the opportunity becomes rarer. And if this is a final hurrah then it is a good one. Our wider family crosses oceans and now stretches to the the Southern tip of Africa. Fifteen bleary hours had left time without meaning. Was this beer for breakfast or was it for dinner? I often enjoy monotonous transit for the blank page it offers my mind. For the space it creates between me and the often oppressive admin in my life. It feels my thoughts have been quieted of late, that the violent struggle to glean life's purpose has reduced to embers. A greater contentedness perhaps, if so I shouldn't mourn but if something of me has been laid to rest I'm a little sad all the same. Once words rhymed and ideas chimed, chords were struck and the salty tang of expression was on my lips. We shall see what is left of that.
The landscape to either side does not impede ideas with vegetation or undulation. It is dry and flat, the rainy season is weeks overdue. The guide taking us to our safari lodge says it is an increasing trend these last years. The thin veneer of green can easily be peeled away in my imagination to a dusty orange desert, a martian death. Great gouges in the distance suggest the search for coal and gold. Townships are scattered around this industry, a hinterland of impermanent but irresistible opportunity. And then we are back to featureless farmland and swathes of cattle feeding the meat-rich diet. The exoticism lies at the other end of this journey, nothing since arriving in Johannesburg has given that tingle of the 'foreign' as yet. It could be the strong Western influence in the country, be it Dutch or British. Natives were controlled and corralled here far longer than anywhere else I can think of. Maybe too little existing culture was left to seed a revival? Certainly their countrymen and women who were ripped from their world to service a new one experienced a cultural genocide that hasn't been reversed. There is much left of the country to see though. Our guide mentions that he came to this line of work after 1994 when, as he puts it, the future of white males in his original industry became much less viable. While it is hard not to imagine a note of bitterness in his voice it is also hard not to sympathise with him and the sudden 'corrections'. I agree with positive discrimination in the abstract but it must be a tough sell to the person forced out of a job. I'd like to know more about that time but it doesn't feel like the moment to ask. A petrol station breaks the sparse view and we stop to fill up. Around the back zebra, antelope, ostrich and buffalo casually stroll around a waterhole. There is even a rhino in the distance. It is surreal to have the utterly mundane next to these animals. Our first taste of the foreign. The land begins to rise as we drive on and the clouds get lower and more threatening, are the rains coming? Give us two more days! Trees begin to populate the hills and the carpet of green foliage is regularly split by a burst of purple from the jacaranda flowers. They too are invaders from abroad, brought from the Americas via Asia and now spread over the breadth of the country. We cross more creeks and rivers but the names begin to change from Afrikaans to literal english, 'Fish river', the less welcoming 'Crocodile river'. Baboons sit on the verges planning their next raid on the vast plantations of citrus fruits that the road cuts through. A giant many-spiked crown juts improbably from the wilderness as we approach the city of Nelspruit. A legacy of the 2010 World Cup, one wonders at the ongoing utility. The names of towns offer the familiar amusement present in many ex-colonial countries. Turnoff to the left for Belfast, continue straight on for Malvern or East London. In between the crack of another can of coke our driver Gert tells us more about regular townships we are passing. About the political structure - a tribal leader advising and presiding over everything from property development to marriage counselling. About the multitude of half-built houses and the incremental money-dependant nature of their construction. About the utilities therein - electricity yes, running water no. About how the local children fete him in all his strange whiteness, you'd have thought the novelty would have worn off after 200 years. Suddenly a sea of pine surges over the hill. These trees are thousands of miles from home yet the charred stumps of native flora sit defeated in their suffocating shadow. I hope environment and commerce are happier bedfellows where we are going. The tightly packed rows will brook no competitors in the lightless monoculture of their bases. The world's largest man-made forest we are informed. The forest is large enough for now and the landscape returns to a languorous scattering of trees and dessicated grasses, Kruger is near.
The smell of ripe death, precedes the sound of bickering squawks, precedes the sight... Vultures wheel iconically overhead as their fellows on the ground tear decomposing flesh from bared bones and rip sinews from skin as an elephant is swiftly reduced to its constituent parts. A hyena burrows its way through the creature's sternum, the eyes have long since been claimed as particular treats. That awful stench that warns human noses to stay well clear has attracted a multitude of these scavengers from around the savannah. Most of the hyenas lie bloodied, resting their distended stomachs on the ground. Cape vultures and hooded vultures are left to fight over the corpse. Our guide is now Gregg and tells us that the scene was the result of this elephant getting on the wrong side of a larger bull elephant that is in the area. And this scene is also unfolding a mere 100 metres from where we'll be spending the night. We had also traded safari companions. The two other couples that were with us on the journey from Johannesburg had been left at the 'safari' camp outside the limits of the park. Shortly before the swap we had driven past a giraffe nonchalantly browsing just the other side of the boundary fence but only Sandra and I had seen it, too dumbstruck to pass on the information before it disappeared in the rearview mirror. I felt a little bad about that and wished them all great sightings in the days to come. We had picked up Mike and Bridget, a middle-aged couple who would be staying with us in the 'bush' camp. Our tented camp stands within the Sabi Sands game reserve which itself forms part of the wider Kruger. The only thing separating us from the stinking, visceral nature is a fence that Gregg has already cheerily informed us could be easily pushed over (and indeed had been) by animals like big bull elephants. There was also a structure that was less a gate and more a big hole through which anything could stroll. But given that customers getting eaten must be supremely bad for business I decided that none of this was cause for alarm. Mike was extremely keen on the birds and had a sharp eye for picking them out perched in the trees and identifying the species. It provided a pleasant interlude between encounters with the big five. These five animals are so named because they are the most dangerous top hunt and not simply the main tourist attractions. Hence lions and leopards make the list but cheetahs do not. Elephants and rhinos do not surprise with their inclusion but there is no room for giraffe or zebra. The five are rounded out by what is considered the most dangerous of all. The old males are massive and powerful but past their sexual prime, unable to attract any females but still coursing with testosterone that fuels their aggression. You do not want to be alone with one due to their unpredictability. While this description seems to fit many of the disgraced men outed in Hollywood recently is it in fact the cape buffalo that is the threat in these parts. Our first safari had begun immediately after dropping our bags at the camp and to be thrown so breathtakingly quickly into a scene straight from many of the nature documentaries I have watched over the years was awe-inspiring. Seeing these animals in their natural environment unrestrained by anything, their days unstructured by anything so artificial as meal times and sleep times was special. I believe the positives that zoos provide outweigh the negatives but can say, less controversially, that this is on another planet.
As the sun turned to burnt orange and hurtled towards the horizon we parked up at a safe spot (which looked like anywhere else) and broke out the drinks. We sipped on our sundowners and reflected on a great first drive and all the animals we'd seen. Reports of lions at the elephant carcass crackled over the radio but Gregg was confident that they'd wait for us and there was time to finish our refreshments. Alas, as we began to move off so did they and despite haring through the bush they had vacated the spot by the time we arrived, maybe it was the smell. Gregg was bemused and apologetic but such are the vagaries of nature. A guide can predict but he cannot control. We weren't here to see animals corralled into viewing positions and must accept these strokes of bad luck. We did get one sighting though as a lone lioness striding through the bush issuing low, gutteral sounds in the hope of a response from her departed pride. Sitting around the boma (Camp fire) that evening we could reflect on a day of wondrous new sights and to cap if off a bush baby decided to briefly swing by.