Impala are sprightly creatures that resemble Bambi with horns. There are plenty of them in Kruger Park, about a half-day's drive north of Johannesburg. We saw so many that even the guide got tired of pointing them out.
--"Look! Impawla! ... Impawla ... As we round the corner ... Impawla ... more Impawla."Kruger is self-regulating, which means that there's no human intervention. As an animal, you eat and run or be eaten. Even so, your average impala's chance of becoming a lion snack is fairly low because of the high population. There's every chance someone else will get killed, so they bounce around with only mild caution. They're browsers as well as grazers - they'll eat branches as well as grasses. In fact, for every type of plant or tree, there's an animal that will eat it. From the giraffes who eat the high branches to the zebra who only graze on the low grass, all vegetation is fit for munching, which probably explains why almost every plant is thorny. (Not that that prevents them being eaten).
After a while, I grew to loathe impala. They're handsome creatures, but seeing more of them meant seeing less of any other animal, especially predators. (And I paid good money to see Lions, dammit.)
Like impala, Elephants both browse and graze. They eat anything, with the difference being that they eat truckloads more of it. We saw the devastation they wreaked as they laid a trail of desolation and (highly fertile) poo through the park. I saw one grab a branch as thick as my thigh with its trunk, snap it like a twig, and stuff it in its mouth.
Despite their power, Elephants are wusses of the jungle. They can't stand violence and will go berserk if they sense a kill made nearby. They're very sensitive. We had an elephant trumpet at us because we got too close to a calf. It was a sound not unlike Dizzy Gillespie blowing a wad of chewing gum through his horn. We backed off rather quickly.
--"Apparently," our guide Noel later remarked. "Illephants only bluff when they chawge at you. They never ictually hit you."If Elephants are the 'nice' police, then hippos are the fire wardens. They'll stomp any fires out with their huge feet. We saw hippo reclining with buffalo in the river (no chance of fire there) like rotund submarines coming to periscope depth.
They all look the same from the backside - elephant, hippo, rhino. The rhino we saw at a waterhole, along with zebra, wildebeest, and warthog. The rhino were wallowing in the mud and the warthog wanted a drink so they faced off for a few minutes before the rhino let the warthog drink.
The idea about animals putting aside their differences at waterholes to drink peacefully is just a myth. It was hot and wet at the time. The grass was high and although there were plenty animals about, many more had sought shade and water away from the man-made roads. But during dry months Lions will hang around the waterholes to kill ('mug', rather) thirsty animals.
I guess it's that sort of thing that makes lions the kings of the jungle. Or rather, makes them skanky kings of the jungle. I was most unimpressed as a pride sloped lazily across the road, one of the males barely bothering to whisk away the flies crowding about him. The cubs followed, trudging along as if crossing the road was like crossing the sahara. It was like watching the Royal Family in pyjamas and bad hair shambling to the shops for emergency milk.
We got to see lions close up and Rhino even closer up. We almost hit a Rhino. Our white VW van wouldn't have stood a chance against that six ton bully. It was his fault anyway. We were just travelling down the road when he pulled out of the jungle, no indicator, no insurance. Noel swerved to avoid him and we screeched to a halt just in front of a leopard, sitting in the middle of the road, probably pissing himself laughing.
That was how we saw the big 5 (Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino, Leopard) in one day. Yes it is hard to see animals. They tend to hide from man, their deadliest enemy. The only exception are the monkeys. They're not afraid of man and will try to get in through car windows because they know that there's usually food inside. We saw baboons constantly (though not as often as impala). They didn't mind our presence at all. It was business as usual for them. They'd be fighting, suckling, playing, and fornicating. It was like watching 'Baboon Big Brother'.
Animals in the wild are totally different to animals in cages. I was thrilled to see them interacting, not just with their own kind, but with other species'. In fact, the only animal that was caged in Kruger Park (and for good reason, too) was man.
I'm not complaining. We had fantastic cages. I got a chalet all to myself and lapped it up, but disgraced my family by stealing no more than two bars of soap when an assortment of towels was also ripe for the plucking. Kruger camps at Skukuza and Bergendal were luxury compared to the Hostel.
When I wasn't in Kruger, I shared a hostel dorm near Fourways, Jo'Burg, with a local named Paul, Scott (Scahtt) the Canadian, the guard dog that liked to sleep under our table, and a little frog that appeared in the shower at night and in my bag in the morning.
Scahtt left after a few days to go to Capetown. He was looking for work. And tail.
--"I can find a jahb here no prahblems. But transpourt is so expensive! There's no buses and I'm naht going to buy a car. What good's a jahb if I can't get to work?"Wayne, Paul's friend and business partner, had convinced Scahtt that the girls in Capetown were worth checking out. According to Wayne, the ones that didn't look like Claudia Schiffer looked like Halle Berry. Once Scahtt left, Wayne took over his bed. Wayne and Paul turned the dorm into a drinking parlour.
Paul was the rough, honest sort. He had a peculiar habit of getting absolutely malleted with Wayne every night and end each conversation with a reference to "Your fat awse."
He woke me up one night coming back from the bar:
--"How was Soweto, bru?"I took a day tour to Soweto (SOuth WEst TOwnship), not knowing what to expect. Our guide was Thebe who was a huge lookalike of 'Debo' from the negro movie 'Friday' (the one who got 'knAHckedthefAHggout'). He was nothing like the villain Debo. Thebe was gracious and friendly (in his own way). He knew Soweto and its history because he WAS Soweto and its history.
--"This," Thebe said, pointing to what looked like a primary school on a suburban street, "is where the July 16, 1976 Soweto riots took place. The police used real bullets and many people were killed."Soweto, I found, was contrast. Then again, it's hard to get a homogenous community with a population of 4 million. At the top end of the Soweto food chain you get Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, and Desmond Tutu, who have house-fortresses every bit as grand as the whites' homes in the posh area of Sandton. In the middle is no-nonsense lower-middle-class housing that you might have found in 1960s Malaysia. At the low end are the squatter camps.
I'd seen squatter camps on TV ads calling for donations to some charity. In my loungeroom, the images were disturbing but restricted to the screen. Besides, I could always switch channels. In real life the experience was worse. The crushing poverty surrounded me and slowly sapped away hope. And I couldn't switch channels.
I can't spell the name of the camp we entered. (It sounded like 'Mutual lady'.) We were taken around by one of its citizens, Dodozi, who said he was part Xhosa (the tribesmen that talk with clicks). The camp had high-tension power lines over it, but there was no power, water, or legal rights for the 'illegals' who stay there. If you aren't completely disillusioned by then, the statistics wipe you out. 9000 people a day in South Africa are diagnosed HIV positive. Violent crime will affect at least one person you know directly (if you aren't the victim). Still, I had the impression that in 'Mutual lady' and all of Soweto, Dodozi et al were determined to make things better.
Even so, I needed a denial fix. A smattering of unreality would do, and the closest thing to Disneyland was Gold Reef City, a casino and theme park rolled into one, built on an old gold mine.
I met our guide to the goldfields, Annette as she engaged in a mildly friendly debate with one of the other tour members - Hassan, an air steward with Emirates - about the sexes.
--"But Hassan, women have to take care of children, clean the house, do the cooking, and talk on the phone. Men can only do one thing at a time."Annette, a petite version of Mary Poppins, tapped her brolly and led us through a 225 meter-deep mine shaft. We saw gold being poured, and afterwards, witnessed a Zulu dance actually bring rain to the Highveld.
Hassan turned to me as the drums thundered and the dancers whirled in a frenzy.
--"I like theses Africans womens. Because they hev the beeg ... how you say in Ingliz? ... Boopies."On the way back to Sandton we drove past the daunting Johannesburg skyline. Thebe pointed out 'John Foster' (Johannes Voorster?) police station on the edge of the city. It's a big windowless building, exactly as I'd pictured a 'Ministry of Love' in my mind. In the past, black political 'activists' were taken in for 'questioning' and only 10% exited still standing.
I found myself hoping we'd see a herd of Impala around the corner.
