Critters on the Cheap

A few years ago my 11-year-old nephew, who lives in Swaziland, Africa, sent me a cartoon he had drawn, poking fun at safari-bound Americans who flock to Africa each year. The cartoon shows a fellow standing next to a Jeep Cherokee. He is decked out in a safari hat and an Armani-labeled camouflage suit with a $300 price tag flapping from its sleeve. At his feet lies a clipboard with a checklist of Africa’s “big five” animals. The character is peering intently at a nearby bush through oversize binoculars, completely missing the lion quietly sneaking up behind him.

From what I’ve seen during my four visits to Africa, Americans do seem to overdo it. At least in South Africa, a visit to a game reserve is no more complicated than an expedition to one of our own national parks and, except for the air fare, no more expensive.

I found this to be the case at Kruger National Park, the country’s oldest, largest and best-known game reserve, which has an unjustified reputation as the priciest of all South Africa’s game parks. This, as I found out, is not true if you stay where the locals do.

Given that there are 24 camps in Kruger accommodating well over 3,000 visitors, and about a dozen private lodges with their own game reserves on Kruger’s periphery, it is not difficult to find a place that fits any style and budget. The lodgings range from $10 for a night of camping in Kruger to $470 per person per night at the exclusive and ultra-luxurious Sabi Sabi Game Reserve on Kruger’s western border. It is these private lodges that have garnered Kruger its pricey reputation.

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About 300 miles northeast of Johannesburg and bordering Mozambique, Kruger claims more species of birds and animals than any other sanctuary on the African continent. About the size of New Jersey, Kruger’s varied landscape stretches from granite hills, grasslands and thorn thickets at its southern end to woodlands and savannas along its length and sandy plains in the north.

Kruger’s vastness can intimidate the first-time visitor. But even on my first visit in 1986, I made my way easily, having the advantage of advice from the sister who lives in neighboring Swaziland. Yet the park is so well organized for tourists that anyone can make his way without booking an expensive safari. And the roads, both paved and unpaved, are designed for easy game viewing (four-wheel-drive vehicles are unnecessary).

On my most recent three-day trip to Kruger last year, with my sister, her husband and two boys, our sole guide was a copy of “The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals” (Chelsea Green Publishing Co., $25) that I had purchased at home before leaving. We used it in tandem with an excellent map, handed out at Kruger’s entrance gates, detailing the routes and describing the various ecological habitats.

Even without a licensed tracker to sniff out game, we encountered a pride of lions meandering down a dirt road, happened upon a family of elephants munching on greenery and came face to face with a white rhinoceros taking a turn around the park. We found a stunning variety of wildlife: from giraffes nibbling at the tops of acacia trees just inside the park gate, to a pregnant hyena lying beside an inside road, too exhausted to scatter when we approached.

Game is so plentiful that tracking experience is not required, although there is no guarantee you will see some of the more elusive creatures. But there is no guarantee with professional guides, either, although they may be more familiar with the animals’ territories. Traveling with a guide and a flock of fellow tourists struck us as unappealing. We wanted more natural, fortuitous encounters. As when we ran into lions our very first evening.

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We were inching along in my sister’s beat-up Mercedes on a dirt road in the park’s southern woodlands. The sun was sitting on the horizon, and the glow of dusk hovered over the bush willows and acacias. A hush was slowly settling on the dried summer grasses. We lingered, reluctant to leave the tawny landscape just yet. One has the eerie feeling in the African bush that the animals are all out there, silently watching . . . only you can’t see them.

Suddenly, my brother-in-law cried out. Ahead, just beyond a dip in the road, was a pride of lions on their evening walk.

We flew into excitement. My nephews clambered all over us to get a better view. My sister cried out in awe. I snatched the Nikon from my bag and hurriedly attached the zoom.

The telephoto lens, it turned out, was unnecessary. For when we dared to close in--we were afraid at first that the sound of the motor would chase the animals away--we found ourselves right in the lions’ midst.

There were five of them: females and young males just sprouting manes. One dallied in the grasses. Another peered in through the window and snarled, showing me his gleaming white incisors--just in case my intentions were dishonorable. One lay down about five feet in front of our car and rolled over on her back, reminding us of pets at home. Two others tussled in mock play, pawing at each other’s jowls. We stayed for the private show as long as we could, before the gates to the rest camp closed for the day at sunset. (Visitors must be in a rest camp or depart by that time daily.)

Since my sister moved to Swaziland more than a decade ago, I have made Kruger a regular trip whenever I visit. I usually choose September, when the winter has parched the vegetation, making it easier to spot wildlife.

Kruger is too vast to cover in one trip. So generally we concentrate on one or two areas, depending on which animals we want to see. This time, I desperately wanted to see a rhinoceros, so we stayed our first night at the Berg en Dal rest camp in the southern grasslands where the rhinos tend to gather. Berg en Dal is one of Kruger’s more modern lodgings. Its A-frame cottages with thatched roofs are charmingly comfortable and cozy, with plump cushions and rough-hewn brick walls, ample patios and brick barbecues. The porches overlook a landscaped garden of impala lilies and fan-shaped palms. Kudus, huge antelopes with fantastic horns, roam the grounds, and the staff advises you to bolt the doors at night: Monkeys are all too clever at opening them. Our one-room cottages, each with three beds, a private bath and a fully equipped, walk-through kitchenette, rented for $65 a night. (By comparison, a hut at the more luxurious Jakkalsbessie camp, near Skukuza, cost $190.)

The location was perfect. One morning as we were driving just east of the rest camp, we spotted a huge leathery animal that turned out to be my rhinoceros, right in the middle of the road. He trotted merrily toward us with a stiff-legged gait (rhinoceroses have very poor eyesight). But suddenly spying us, he stopped dead in his tracks not 50 feet away. We were quivering, wondering whether he would attack, wondering what we should do. We must have interrupted him on his territorial rounds. Rhinoceroses mark their land with sprays of urine and dung in self-made latrines, called middens. He seemed to be wondering too. We waited. He waited. Then he turned broadside to show us his bulk: a display of dominance, according to “The Safari Companion,” presumably to chase us off. We must have been a formidable opponent, though, for he tried another maneuver, a thrust of his horns. When that didn’t work, he scooted into the bush.

We were left breathless.

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It was a long seven-hour drive to Satara rest camp, our second night’s stop. But of course, driving is the thing, since tourists are not allowed out of their cars except in a few designated places. On the way, we saw great herds of dainty, nervous antelopes, called impalas--so many that my nephew, who was keeping track of the numbers, lost count and wrote, simply, “etc.” on his little chart. We ran into a troop of baboons and, wisely, shut our windows, as the park literature advised. One fearless youngster hopped on our car’s hood and taunted us, fidgeting with the Mercedes crest. An elder sat ministerially, his hands folded across his chest, keeping a close eye on his clan and occasionally bringing an assertive male to heel with a tart slap. Infants hitched a ride on their mothers’ bellies, hanging upside down.

At a watering hole, we saw giraffes walking with their legs out sideways so that they could reach down for a drink. And we followed a family of elephants padding quietly into the bush. The adults hovered around a calf, who peered out at us unblinking, no doubt curious about the intruders. The matriarch, with small tusks, was yanking at branches high up in the bush willows, but kept one eye on us and flapped her ears in annoyance. Elephants can be unpredictable, especially with a calf to protect. When we started up our engine, the old cow raised her trunk, screeched and came at us. It was a mock charge, but elephants have been known to overturn cars.

The roads in Kruger are well laid out, crisscrossing a range of ecological zones, each with its own complex of plant and animal life. We rode past classic African vistas of open grasslands, their flatness punctuated with umbrella acacias and herds of zebras and ugly wildebeest. There were thickets of thorny bushes, lush strips of riverine forest, where we spied tiny vervet monkeys grooming one another, and, in the distance, rocky outcroppings. The roads take you by dams and watering holes for a better chance to see wildlife.

Attractive snack bars are well spaced along the roads. At one called Tshokwane we sat on a veranda built around a huge sausage tree, while glossy blue starlings vied for scraps.

We generally stopped at the snack bars in the afternoon for light refreshments (drinks, chips, beef jerky). To save money, we brought basic food supplies (cereal, bread, peanut butter, chicken) with us from a grocery store outside Kruger. The first night we barbecued chicken on the patio grill in front of our hut. Barbecue grills are available at all the rest camps. Food supplies can be purchased at shops in the rest camps, although the cost is a bit higher than in grocery stores outside.

The lodgings at the older Satara rest camp are the more traditional cinder-block rondavels (round huts with thatched roofs) and have more of a safari feel than the brick cottages at Berg en Dal. Ours, costing $150 for the night, was a giant two-bedroom, two-bath hut with a kitchenette and a large living room furnished in wicker. We dined in the restaurant on oversize portions of hearty nyala stew (about $10 per person) and delighted in the night sky, pinned with a thousand stars.

If time had allowed, we would have driven along the Nwanetsi River, which flows past the rest camp. Leopards lounge in the tree branches along the river, and if we had spotted one we could have boasted that we saw all of the big five: lion, rhino, leopard, cape buffalo and elephant.

But the area around Satara also is known for lion. And we had a treat. Before dawn, we heard its roar--more like a great heaving sigh from deep down in the diaphragm. At first, I thought it was the old bathroom pipes groaning.

At dawn, we lined up with others at the rest camp gate, hoping to catch the lion before it retreated deeper into the bush. A ranger said it was likely to be nearby.

And so it was, half a mile down the main road and nearly disguised in the tall dry grass. He was quiet now, in the company of two females. He yawned and diffidently tossed his mane.

In front of us was a line of cars with zoom lenses perched atop sunroofs, children leaning out of windows, women in floppy sun hats, fingers pointing, everyone gaping. This is what it must be like, I thought, when the safari guides radio each other or set out a carcass to lure a lion, and the outfitters’ vans and jeeps converge. We might as well have been in a tram car at Busch Gardens.

We eased our way out of the traffic jam and headed west toward the Timbavati River road. We would pass a lone male elephant out in the plains, flapping its ears to keep cool, giraffes feeding on a cluster of acacias, herds of kudu and waterbuck. These were the more solitary encounters we preferred, the private discoveries--even if we couldn’t tick off the big five.

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GUIDEBOOK / Wild Kruger

Getting there: Between LAX and Johannesburg, South Africa, there is only connecting service, with one change of planes, on American, Delta, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and Swissair. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $1,050.

Kruger can be reached by car from Johannesburg. Go north on N1 to Pretoria, then east on N4 to Nelspruit. Continue on N4 for about 40 miles and take a left turn (clearly marked) into Malelane Gate. The entry fee is $3.30 per adult; $1.70 per child. A fee of $4.50 is charged per car.

Where to stay: Berg en Dal, $65 a night for a maximum of three people; Satara, $150 a night for a maximum of six. Other recommended rest camps: Lower Sabie ($27 to $145), in a prime game-viewing area beside the Sabie River, east of Berg en Dal; Olifants ($62 to $140), overlooking the Olifants River north of Satara; and Skukuza ($25 to $165), the largest camp, which has a bank and a post office. Reservations should be made several months to a year in advance for peak periods (April, July, December). Contact the National Parks Board: from the U.S., telephone 011-27-12-343-1991 or fax 011-27-12-343-2006.

For more information: South African Tourist Board, 9841 Airport Blvd., Suite 1524, Los Angeles, CA 90045; tel. (800) 782-9772.