Up the motorway/highway, 160 miles to St Lucia, the country looks like England's Kent, without the traffic and with the occasional palm tree. The rain adds to the feeling of familiarity. From a distance the sugar cane looks like corn, the extensive eucalyptus plantings do not look exotic. I have to make an effort to remind myself I am in Africa. The clues are there though. People hailing taxis on the highway, pedestrians on the hard shoulder (breakdown lane), workers riding in the open backs of large dump trucks, small rustic farmsteads, the exotic Zulu place names (Pongola, kwaMbonambi, kwaMsani, Ntambanana), on one stretch a couple of dozen roadside stands peddling pineapples.
The side road to St Lucia presents a more compelling African scene. Rambling villages of small houses, goats and cattle roaming around, pedestrians everywhere, walking along the road side and appearing out of the bush from narrow tracks, children of all ages making their way home from school all immaculately turned out in in school uniforms.
St Lucia itself is a small tourist town. Souvenir shops, beach gear, a dozen firms offering safari tours, a burger joint and the firms offering jaunts up the estuary to commune with hippo's and crocodiles, which was what we had come for. Off we went on an oversized pontoon boat up the very muddy waters of the estuary several tens of kilometers long. In recent years the rain has been lacking and the water level in the estuary has dropped a couple of feet so it is now cut off from the sea by a barrier beach. It is now more of a fresh water lake than a salt water estuary. The mangos swamps have dried and large banks of reeds line the bank. The hippo's live in family groups and there are plenty of them; groups huddled around in the water, lolling about on the banks and one active group who eyed us with great suspicion and agitation. They are dangerous and account for very many deaths a year.
The crocodiles were thin on the ground, and do not grow to any impressive size. The few we saw were more cute than terrifying though we were told there are many more of them in the lake than hippo's and that they keep themselves concealed.
Hippo's and crocodiles now crossed off the list, we headed inland to the HluHluwe - iMfolozi wilderness park. HluHluwe defies pronounciation, and is usually rendered something like "shoosh-looway". The oldest game reserve in the country, it covers some 370 square miles of unmolested, uninhabited land. This was the Africa I had come hoping to glimpse. The country we saw is hilly and covered alternately in light scrub on the higher ground and dense undergrowth in the hollows and river valleys. It is very scenic and not wide open flat savannah grass land at all. The wildlife is unavoidably Right There. On the few miles of paved road to the lodge where we are staying for a couple of nights we saw White Rhino, Zebra, Wart Hogs a pair of lionesses, Buffalo and various impala, antelope and the like. The rather swish lodge is set on a hilltop and offers stupendous views over the country. Frome here we set out out for a three hour tour in the ubiquitous Toyota trucks fitted out with a rack of bleacher seats, added elephants to our haul and got a much closer look at the animals. We were fortunate to be shown around by the head guide, he has been at this for thirty years, was an inexhaustible fount of expertise and possessed eagle eyes; on our way back to the lodge he stopped to point out a chameleon in a tree, we were less than four feet from it and I could spot it at all.
Nighttime brought a moonless sky filled with stars, the southern cross and milky way clearly visible. As we drove we swept the land with search lights and sniffed the fragrant night air. Eyes shone back at us and plenty of wild life was on the move. It is early spring here, and we are a couple of thousand feet above sea level the evening air was pretty cool.
Tuesday had us rested and up for a trip to a big cat rehabilitation centre. A night in a soft and immobile bed was most welcome. The cat centre exists to breed four species of cat for re-release into the wild. The population is split into the permanently captive breeding stock, which we get to see, and the offspring bred for release which are kept separated from human contact as much as possible. The high point was getting to stroke a full grown cheetah, who deigned to put up with us. It is not something you get to do everyday. The smaller cats, ranging from housecat size to mountain lion size, were lovely to behold and very interesting to learn about.
Back at the lodge I got to spend sometime catching up on the blog on the hilltop veranda looking out over the reserve. Basking in the cool breezes and warm sunshine soon brought on a nap.
A less than awesome connection here, so photos to follow.
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