Is it because i is black?
Trip Start
May 26, 2004
1
15
20
Trip End
Ongoing
Pretoria,
South Africa
Monday, May 9, 2005
The ticket had reached its end and the time had come to leave Oz. Obviously we weren't ready for that so we decided to finish out the trip in South Africa and have some home time back home and catch the next freighter back to the colony. Now I have to admit I was a little anxious about this due to being as broke as a pikey in a social welfare audit (that's for the accountants out there!!) but I was persuaded by a mixture of browbeating and honest to goodness emotional blackmail.
We did some research and came up with a pretty good deal for a safari to take up the bulk of the time. We had to say no to a number of other packages and of course when I say we I mean me. We came up with a plan that due to work restrictions left us with only 5 days back in the sod after we had left South Africa. We had to fly to Perth first to before heading on to Joberg. We had found a cool hostel where if we stayed a night there and a night in their other place in Pretoria we would get a free lift to Pretoria. Considering that our safari was leaving from Pretoria that suited us down to the ground. When we landed in SA the owner came to pick us up and he turned out to be a Norn Iron exile so we had the banter on the way back to the guest house. On the way he pointed out the massive corn fields and also the "boys" who steal the corn and basically walk round the corner and sell the "mealies" or the stalks of corn on the side of the street. We got back to the house and got stuck into the Castle beer which was quality. The beer was flowing and the good thing was that yer man was so enamored with having fellow Paddy's around that he gave us more than one for free.
When we woke up the next morning we were ready for our trip to Pretoria. We headed out and when we got there it was much more of a hostel atmosphere. We were assigned a garden shed, literally!! We were very happy with this cos we were used to 5 star Asian hotels and it was so cool to just stay in a shed in the middle of South Africa. It was a little unreal. Also staying with us was a battalion of squadies from England and I swear to god it was like dropping into Ibiza. All you could see was fat, pasty, tattooed, fucked out of their head 20 year olds. Of course there was one poor 18 year old whose whole time there was spent being abused for being a virgin and as a consequence was the centre of a number of schemes to have him pop his proverbial cherry!! Thankfully we had moved on by this stage! The place was savage. Our little shed had everything you would want and of course when we go there and Fi saw the sheds there was no where else we were going to stay. They had a pool but cos we were still in the southern hemisphere it was the depths of winter which meant that the sun and air were nice and warm but the water would reverse puberty! We headed out into the main town that night. Pretoria is the student capital of the country and as such it is quite cosmopolitan. We went for a few beer and of course 8,000 miles from Ireland not only did we meet an Irish person, cos thats nothing interesting but we met a guy from the nure and to be more exact about 5 houses down from where Fiona lives! We had a beer or two or three and I had some Biltong, which is dried and smoked meat kinda like pepperami if anone has ever tasted it. I never have but I have to admit the TV ads did amuse me but if it tastes like Biltong I don't think I'm missing anything! M.......U........C........K!
The next morning we were picked up by our tour guide. We had picked a tour which included 2 national parks and a trip into another country. There was only one provision and that was you had to have at least two people for the trip so we were feeling cautiously optimistic! The guide showed up the next day with a nice little 8 seater VW van. Not the cool 60's one the more efficient 2000 one. The good news was that we were the only people on the trip so we basically had our own personal tour guide and van for around the same price as a trip to Galway for a long weekend so we were understandably stoked. The bad news was that he was roughly as old as newgrange. Once he opened his mouth our enthusiasm basically extinguished. His name was Gerrit Van Der something or other. I missed his surname in a tidal wave of saliva as he spoke his first name. O yes, I got the weather and not the news. Its not prounonced how it's spelt. It's Ghhheeeeerrrrrit so of course after a couple of tries he was christened "hey". We had a bit of a trip to the first destination so we had a bit of a chat and he openly admitted that he used to work for the government and even more interesting than that he was actually a foreign attaché during the apartheid years! So his job was to represent the worlds most racist and evil country since Hitler's Germany in countries which generally despised them. It was a very interesting conversation and he apologized a lot. An awful lot. Then we drove by the shanty towns where a lot of the black Africans still live. He started apologizing again surprisingly enough.
We reached the Kruger national park and got ourselves settled in. Apparently Kruger is roughly the same size of Wales so not only did we have a savage holiday but we also found, finally, a use for Wales, as a comparison to a national park in Africa. Well since the mines closed and they became shit at rugby they needed something!!
We got to Kruger quite late and we were staying on site actually in the park. We were brought to our accommodation and we were staying in huts called roundfelds. They are small round brick huts with high pointy reed roofs. So we walk in and are suitably impressed. It was a great little room considering we had paid about 450 euro for a 9 DAY safari but just as we were about to get settled in "hey" showed up and told us there was an issue with our room. We actually though that we were doing well and so we prepared to move and it actually turned out that the room we were in was the guides' room. Now South Africa depends a lot on tourism so if a guide shows up with 2 or more people they stay for free to keep prices down! So we moved into a great little room. The next morning we headed off into the jungle wilds. Now what happened after was both the best and the worst holiday we had been on. It was the worst cos spits couldn't organize a prayer meeting in a nunnery but the sights we saw will stay with us for the rest of our lives.
The plan was to move from one site in the park to another each night we were there, or for comparison move from Cardiff to Lynlatthlyhttylfidl to some mine some where with a choir of large men in red jerseys singing a chorus in the background. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out like that. We had 5 days in Kruger and we spent very night in the same camp. Thankfully it's not Disney land and the attractions tend to roam quite a bit and there's no height restrictions! We got our breakfast included as pat of the package and then we headed out. Obviously we saw a grand total of fuck all for the first couple of hours, thinking what did we waste the money on and then we came across a South African species of rat and straight away it was like "worth every penny". Seriously though we saw all kinds of antelope and zebra and buffalo which the David Attenborough fans out there might think was a bit tame but it blew our minds. When we saw our first elephant even though it was on the horizon it really was something else. I think there is still a couple of greasy spots on the windows of that VW van today.
We had to be back at the accommodation by 6 pm which was a bit of a bummer but in fairness it did get dark at that time so it was probably for the best. Part of the deal was a night tour where you went with a ranger at night on the tracks that you were not allowed travel down on you own. While we were waiting for the trip to start we were watching a Rhino beetle which apparently is the strongest creature in the world per body mass but like most jocks they are a bit light in the smarts department. Poor fucker basically hammered his armor plated shell off the lights 5 times before it knocked itself out! But the wonders of the natural world aside we headed out on the road. There were a couple of lights handed out and instructions were given to the most deserving people on the van, one of which was me! Fi was so jealous, she'll call me a loser, you know to my face but deep, deep, deep, down in her suppressed darkest recesses of her soul she was horribly, horribly, some might say twisted....ly jealous. Anyhoo I was sweeping my light like a legend looking for the reflection of light from the animals eyes when the ranger made a bit of a smart arse comment (cue the clarification from Fi) but as I said to the ranger I was looking for monkeys and not nocturnal leopards in the trees and he's being paid to give us a magical, memorable night of nature and not a half arsed stand up comedy routine. Pretty soon after that we came around a corner and face to face with two huge bull elephants. The biggest one head was about 6 foot wide and they were literally ripping the bark from the trees. The ranger said lets turn off the lights and get a little closer which considering the fact that we were already being hit by splinters already I was a tad worried but we got close enough that if we weren't attached to our limbs we could reach out and touch them! He also knew a lot about the stars and the constellations in the southern hemisphere which was interesting. It also game an amusing counter balance when later on in the trip Oldie McGee gave his best bumbling absent minded professor imitation remembering that he knew about the constellations and he was "supposed" to tell us about them as part of his tour guide duties.
One of the higher points was a river cruise included in the safari. We were assured that we would see plenty of Hippo's. We had seen a few from the safety of a bird hide a couple of days previously but they were quite far away. We saw dozens of hippo and crocs as well as a few sea eagles. It was a very relaxing experience and we had a few drinkies. Since our guide was only "the help" he was left behind and we got an hour to our selves!
After that the animals are pretty much a blur! I can't really tell you what we say on which day but in fairness it was almost two years ago so I'm afraid you may have to kiss my arse on that one. High points included seeing a lions paw. The rest of it was unfortunately hidden behind a bush. I saw a leopard, everyone else missed it, and we saw some wart hogs, a load of giraffes and some savage birds. I hope I'm not understating the amount of animals and the caliber as it was un- fecking- believable. Then we hit payload!! Rhino central baby!! We also saw some elephants crossing the road, one or two of them. I took a low quality video of them. No big deal. I may have sent it on to one or two close friends. I might have had it as my e-mail signature for a year or two but if you have missed it I'm sure I could hook you up. It wasn't all sweetness and light though. The highpoints I've listed, well as many as I can remember anyway. One of the more surreal ones was having breakfast under a canopy where there were dozens of bats roosting. The bad points were all linked to our geriatric guide. The main one was not seeing as much of the park as was planned. The other was the 6 o clock deadline which meant come 5 o clock to hell with the animals we were on our way back to the gaff. It's kinda difficult to spot the wildlife once you pass the 50 mph mark so this caused some tension in the van. Then we were supposed to be booked in for a morning walk where you walk of into the wilderness with an armed ranger and hope you don't get eaten or stamped on but it was never booked which gave us the shits (aussie saying, not what it sounds like). So we went on another night trip instead but it wasn't as good. The Kruger park part of the trip ended and it was fantastic experience full of amazing memories, most of which I basically couldn't be arsed sharing with you. Stop living your life through us!! Go on your own exotic African Safari damnit and get your own memories.
