We woke up in Johannesburg and were picked up at the hotel by our driver from Siyabona Safaris. His name is George, and he's a Shangan from the area around Kruger who has an easy laugh and a generous smile.
We loaded our mountain of bags (five extra bags with gifts for the children of Mhlosheni from their sponsors at Columbia Ridge) into the back of is Toyota van and headed north out of Johannesburg.
I left my camera-to-laptop adaptor cable at home, so I can't post pictures that go with this and subsequent posts until we get back, but I'll try to describe it:
South Africa has an incredibly diverse landscape. When you drive north / northeast towards Kruger the scenery changes dramatically. Generally flat plateaus give way to rolling hills as you move from farm country to mining country. There are acres of maize everywhere, and giant coal operations dot the horizon.
Purple and lavender jacaranda and bright pink bougainvillea start becoming more common. Both are in bloom down here in the southern hemisphere, though I'm used to seeing them bloom in San Diego and Santa Barbara in May.
The hills then give way to real peaks and valleys, and you begin to see bare rock thrusting up from the scrubland. Spires of granite called kopjes are common, and great leaning slabs that look like they might be Disney's inspiration for Lion King's "Pride Rock" set.
Kruger Park is massive and awesome. The area around the park is surrounded by sugar cane fields as far as the eye can see.
We had a brief lunch at the Siyabona offices outside the park. Most of us picked up a brightly-colored book with maps of Kruger, but put it back down when we saw that it cost 25 Rand.
Susan, however, missed the price tag and assumed it was a free brochure. We've now named her not only our official money handler but also our resident kleptomaniac. This seems like and odd pairing of traits but she pulls it off well!
George took us to our camp. We dumped our gear and loaded into a high lorry for our afternoon "game drive." Holly was our guide, and Ivenic was our driver.
I'm not even going to try to describe the game drive. You'll have to come back to the blog and see the pictures. To see a full-grown male lion lying on the road, so close you can hear his heavy panting from either chasing something or being chased was incredible.
Back at the camp it was dark, and we ate chicken, vegetables and mashed potatoes on real pates with real glasses and silverware, not the kind of camping that any of us are used to.
I think all of us felt our "real" lives gently sloughing away. These two days in Kruger will show us some of the wonder of creation, but will also begin to peel away some of our civilized calluses and prepare us for Mhlosheni
We went to bed knowing that we'd be leaving for a morning game drive at 5:00.
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