Scribbles Abroad

South Africa – Mozambique Border

Our journey through Mozambique was a crazy adventure and we loved every minute of it but it was time to cross back into South Africa.  Not knowing what to expect in Mozambique added to the experience but sometimes made things a little difficult.  We decided to drive through Kruger vs. going back down along the coast through Mozambique because we knew what to expect in both countries.  We chose South Africa to avoid the treacherous roads of Moz. plus, we were looking forward to the grocery stores, frequent gas stations, comfortable and readily available accommodation, etc.  Our drive to the Mozambique – South Africa border was not without drama, check it out  The Drive Across Mozambique.   We didn’t run out of gas, thanks to the nice policeman who hooked us up with a few liters of petrol, and were able to cross safely into South Africa.  We weren’t home free yet.  The Pafuri Boarder Post led us right into Kruger Park and not into a small town like we were expecting and the nearest gas station was still about 30K away.  The Border Patrol Officers gave us directions to the nearest gas station but it was crucial that followed their lead or we could run out of gas which would SUCK.

While driving toward the gas station we weren’t expecting to see much right away but shortly after crossing the border we saw a bunch of baboons, elephants, and all sorts of antelope.  We stopped shortly to take a few pictures but moved along in our search for gas.  After 10-15 minutes of driving we saw the Total Gas Station in the distance.  What a relief.  They didn’t take credit card and we had very little Rand on hand because we had just crossed the border and hadn’t gotten a chance to stop by the ATM.  We filled up with what we had then drove to the Punda Maria Restcamp which had accommodation, a small store, and a restaurant.  Their ATM was out of service but we bought a couple things from the store and they let us take out some extra cash.  We had a proper lunch consisting of massive burgers and ice cold beer, topped off the tank and made our way down south.

Lunch at the Punda Maria Restcamp

Kruger was in a sort of way, a bonus.  We hadn’t planned to go there, but we were so close.  Kruger Park is the largest game reserve park in South Africa and is about 200 miles long by 60 miles wide which also makes it one of the biggest in the World.  Over a million people visit Kruger each year so as you can imagine it can get quite crowded and accommodation in the park fills up quickly.  It’s recommended that you reserve your accommodation at least two days in advance, which we didn’t do.  Kruger has about 13 restcamps distributed throughout the park most providing everything a variety of accommodation, a restaurant, and a store, some are quite large and are more like small towns.  While trying to arrange last minute accommodation we realized our first choices were full but luckily we were able to reserve the last two places in the Shingwedzi Restcamp.  The accommodation was R130 per person per night which works out to a little less than $15.

The rest of the day we drove around looking at animals and were quite surprised by how frequently we saw something.  We figured that most of the animals would get scared away by all the cars driving around and we would only see a few things.  On the contrary, the animals didn’t seem to be phased by the vehicles.  It was like they viewed cars as some type of non-threatening animal that lived amongst them.  They would stop to check you out, but once they realized you weren’t a threat they would continue their business.  You could sit there and watch them for ages if you really wanted to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technically you’re not suppose to get out of the car because its really dangerous and you can get killed and it’s against the rules and what not, but hey……

Securing a place for the next day proved to be a little more difficult.  It was a weekend and we were further south where the majority of the visitors stay, needless to say they were completely booked.  The only thing we could hope for was that someone would cancel their booking.  We decided to head as far south as we could and try to make it out of the park then find a place to stay outside.  The park is only 200 miles from north to south and we were about a third of the way down, but the speed limit is 40K per hour (25 miles per hour).  You can’t get too far going 25 miles per hour in a day plus you need to be out of the park before 6 pm when they shut down the gates or you face paying a heavy fine.

Kruger is very different from Tembe.  The vibe at Tembe is more of a luxurious pampered safari experience.  Everything is taken care of for you and the safari guides know where to drive you around to find a certain animal.  The parks are so large that if you dont know the patterns of the different animals behaviors it can be very difficult to spot something specific.  In Tembe it was nice to sit back and have someone show you around.  We learned a lot about how to approach an animal in a vehicle, clues to look for when searching for something.  Tom, our guide at Tembe, taught us that if you want to see lions or rhinos you need to look for them in the morning because they sleep in the afternoon.  If we tried to drive around Tembe ourselves I don’t think we would have seen much at all.  It was nice to have  a guide.  It was nice that Tembe was smaller and had less visitors than Kruger.  There were only a two or three safari vehicles driving around the park at a time and it felt more private.

Kruger on the other hand felt like it had a much greater concentration of animals.  You could arrange a safari tour but I really didn’t think you needed one.  You could drive around the park and run into tons of animals, especially elephants, giraffes, zebras, hyena, baboons, and antelope.  Plus many of the roads were paved and as an independent driver you were driving on the same roads as the safari.  Just a different feel from that of Tembe.  We really enjoyed Kruger because of the nonstop action from many animals that crossed our path.  Keep in mind that didn’t put much effort into spotting animals, except for driving down the road and keeping our eyes peeled.  This is what we saw:

Hippos crusin’ by the river

Waterbuffalo enjoying his meal

Juvenile elephants having an afternoon drink

A hyena den only 2m from the road

Momma hyena carrying her new born baby

Kahi won our “spot a rhino” competition and enjoyed the prize of a free beer from each of us and he savored every drop of those beers

Heard of elephants crossing in front of our car

Southern Ground Hornbill

Pregnant hyena about to pop

Southern Kruger gate entrance/exit

Giant aligators taking a nap in the river just outside of Kruger Park

Kruger was an once in a life time exeprience.  The abundance of animals and the added freedom of driving on your own and spotting the animals was a treat.  Quite affordable too!  Accomodation ~$15 per person per night.  Entrance fee `$18 per day.  Car rental ~$25 a day +/- $10 depending on vehicle.  You dont need a 4×4 beacause most of the roads are paved.  Totally worth it.  We were stoked we decided to take the road less traveled across Mozambique in order to beable to experience this.  We hope to return someday to share the experience with our family.  Check our thier main website for more information Kruger Park.

Next stop Swaziland!