The Kruger National Park sits on the North Eastern border of South Africa and is a seven hour drive from Joberg on the national highway N1. It covers a huge area of two million hectares and is surrounded by zimbabwe in the north and Mozambique in the east. We started early morning and were soon whizzing past townships on the well maintained highway. As we moved away from the city the townships became poorer, the houses smaller. Sprawling bunglows turned to tenements. But unlike back home, all huts were made of concrete. Some just had one room, often round, with a thatched roof and whitewashed walls in bright colours. Needless to say the inhabitants were all black. Public transport is non-existent so we passed lots of people walking on either side of the road and huge trees with benches under them for resting. They are called 'tree stops' and there were signposts announcing the nearest tree stop ahead for walkers. The locals wear very bright clothes. Most men were in jeans or shorts but the women, especially young women wore skirts and dresses and braids in their hair. I saw some women walking with babies tied to their backs. No one wore hats even though the sun was very hot.
We zipped across at a fair speed of 100-150 kms/hour and it was almost 2 when we reached the huge imposing gates of Kruger. After the customary form filling and tickets we entered the bush and the first thing we saw within minutes was a group of giraffes. They seemed huge and a very dark brown, much darker than I ever remembered. They were four and looked like a family to me- nibbling at some tall branches after lunch perhaps. They barely gave us a glance. Hrumph!! We moved a little further and a herd of zebras pranced across the grass to our right. Wow! We exclaimed. This place was going to be awesome. I reached for the camera, then decided to leave it for later. Hunger and exhaustion was getting to us. On general consensus we decided to find our camp first. Surely, there would be lots of ops for clicking giraffes and zebras later....or so we thought!
The 6 lane highway
Rich (white) neighbourhoods
Dwellings of the masses
One roomed huts
We zipped across at a fair speed of 100-150 kms/hour and it was almost 2 when we reached the huge imposing gates of Kruger. After the customary form filling and tickets we entered the bush and the first thing we saw within minutes was a group of giraffes. They seemed huge and a very dark brown, much darker than I ever remembered. They were four and looked like a family to me- nibbling at some tall branches after lunch perhaps. They barely gave us a glance. Hrumph!! We moved a little further and a herd of zebras pranced across the grass to our right. Wow! We exclaimed. This place was going to be awesome. I reached for the camera, then decided to leave it for later. Hunger and exhaustion was getting to us. On general consensus we decided to find our camp first. Surely, there would be lots of ops for clicking giraffes and zebras later....or so we thought!
No comments:
Post a Comment