Today it’s finally the start of what, to many, is the main reason for going to sub-Saharan Africa, off to a game park where we will go on a photographic safari. I will admit that this was one of my reasons, but not the only major reason. (And, if you want to know whether this was #1, #2, or #3 on my list of reasons, the most correct answer is it depends on when you ask me.) We were going to spend 3 days in what is sometimes referred to as “The Bush.” Indeed, Wikipedia notes that “Going to The Bush” (note the capital T of The) can refer to going to a game park or game reserve.
The term “game” is one fraught with potential problems. Traditionally game, especially big game, referred to (large) animals that were hunted – that is killed either for trophy or food. And if you went on a safari, you were hunting big game. Fortunately today, safari most often (but not exclusively) means photographic safari and the only “taking” of animals is the taking of their pictures. I’m not going to get into the debate about trophy taking of animals other than to note that I am generally opposed.
The term safari, by the way, comes from the Swahili language and means a long journey.
The fact that game on a safari used to be hunted does affect the current experience in a few ways – most notably in terminology. You hear reference to the “Big Five” animals as shown in the rather dramatic advertisement in the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport which is one of the three airports serving the Kruger National Park area.
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| The Big 5 Is Waiting |
The Big Five, which is a sub-Saharan African term, is commonly misunderstood to refer to the five most difficult to spot animals or the five rarest big animals. But clearly this is not the case given who the big five are: Cape buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and rhinoceros. The term originated with big game hunters and either referred to the five most difficult animals to hunt on foot or the five most dangerous animals to hunt on foot (perhaps the same thing). Certainly some of the Big Five are fairly difficult to find (leopard and, sometimes, lion or rhinoceros) and some are among the biggest of game animals (elephant and rhinoceros). And the success of your safari is supposedly measured by whether you saw the Big Five (we did). But we also saw hyenas, a much rarer animal.
Our safari took place in an area known as the Manyeleti Game Reserve, an area of about 90 square miles located on the western border of Kruger National Park. Now while this area is fairly small, the fact that it borders the huge Kruger National Park, with no fences between the park and the reserve, means that animals freely roam between the two places, as well as private game reserves to the north and south as well. On this map, look for the red asterisk that shows the approximate location of the reserve.
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| Location of Manyaleti Game Reserve (red star) |
Note also that Kruger National Park has a significantly sized park right next to it in Mozambique, called the Limpopo National Park. Kruger itself is over 7,500 square miles.
Manyeleti is not the only private game reserve abutting Kruger and the general situation now has every such reserve without fences between it and Kruger but rather the fences are between the reserve (or Kruger) and non-game-reserve land. The major difference between a private reserve and Kruger is which humans may use each -- only those staying in a private reserve may use its territory for purposes of safari.
The choice of where to stay when you go on safari obviously depends on various factors, including the amenities of the game lodge. the skill of the guides and trackers, the location within the greater Kruger area of the game drives, and the cost. In our case, the decision had been made by Road Scholar in setting up the overall tour and it worked out very well. We’ll look at the specifics of the Honeyguide Camp – one of three camps within Manyeleti – later. Let’s first look at Manyeleti.
Manyeleti’s website is quite upfront noting that “the chances of seeing large predators are slightly lower compared to [two adjoining] game reserves, as there is less water in Manyeleti. There is also a big upside …: it is much quieter in terms of visitor numbers.” I did not have a chance to compare directly but I also had no complaints in terms of the amount of game observed and I was quite pleased that we came across other game drives very rarely. In making a choice to go to South Africa rather than Kenya or Tanzania we had already decided that a smaller amount of game (although still a definitely adequate amount) was a preferable trade-off to avoiding “traffic jams” and “jeep races” to get the best observation points. We was also told there would be less opportunity for seeing kills by the big predators – I’ll leave to you whether this was a good factor or a bad one.
Another reason why Manyeleti has fewer visitors is that it is less well-developed in terms of tourism. And this is explained by history. The apartheid regime in South Africa restricted access to all places based on race. Kruger National Park, established in 1928, was not accessible to non-whites. Manyeleti, established as a private game reserve in 1963, was the only place in the greater Kruger area that allowed non-whites. I didn’t know this before making our plans but was pleased the area was chosen.
The nearest airport to Manyeleti that is served from Cape Town is the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport, some 950 miles by air from Cape Town -- a 2 hour, 20 minute flight in a generally northeast direction.
On the flight up there were clear signs that it was still winter, as shown by these snow-covered peaks.
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| Snow Covered Peaks |
The airport itself certainly seems like what it is – an airport in the bush country, complete with thatched roof and a statue of a rhinoceros (at the far right edge of the photograph).
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| Kruger "International" Airport |
After landing we then took a two and a half hour drive to the game reserve. In part of the land, there was some farming.
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| Farming Land in the Kruger Area |
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| More Farming Land in the Kruger Area |
And in another location there were a bunch of trees seemingly planted along the edge of the highway, whether to provide a windbreak for the car traffic or some other purpose is unknown to us.
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| Wind Break? |
Along much of the road there were settlements, not very high in density.
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| Kruger Area Settlement |
We never did see much in the way of significant industrial or commercial establishments and when some of our group asked our guides what the economy of the region was, they were unable to answer.
There were fairly basic commercial places here and there.
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| Basic Commercial Place |
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| Another Basic Commercial Area |
Eventually we got to the turnoff for our area.
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