First, we stayed for four days at Jock Safari Lodge, which, in my humble opinion, was the greatest part of the trip. Their compound is within Kruger Park (they've purchased what is called a concession there, and it allows them to run tours from their location). The room we had was really nice, with outside decking overlooking a dry riverbed (dry only because it was the end of winter and the rains had not begun yet). The entire compound is surrounded by electric fence, so no fear of finding a lion curled on your deck in the morning. :-) I loved going on the safari rides, held at dawn and dusk. The morning trip would require leaving before 6am and would arrive back in time for lunch, usually around 11am. The afternoon trip would begin around 3pm, but wouldn't end until around 7pm. I have some wonderful video, some of which I posted on a special "group" I made on Facebook, so that my friends could see. If you are reading this and want the link, just let me know. :-)
The second place we stayed was at Satara, which is a South African-run rest camp. Rest camps are necessary as you can only enter and leave Kruger Park while the gates are open from around 7am until around 6pm (times vary according to the time of year). If you are in the park when the gates are closed, you MUST be in the one of the Lodges or Rest Camps. I think the fine is 500 Rand if you are caught inside the park and NOT booked into a rest camp. And while that doesn't amount to much with the exchange rate of 70 Rand per US dollar, it is a LOT of money for the everyday South African to pay. Satara wasn't much. John only booked it for us as he'd never been that far north and wanted to see the difference between the northern and southern part of the Park. I should tell you that John was born in South Africa, but moved with his parents to England when he was very young. He went back there as a young man to study for an advanced degree at University, then returned a couple of times later, but he hadn't been in the park since the 1980's. Satara was very close to what American's would call "seedy". It definitely needed some TLC, which it wasn't getting. But the little huts were clean, and I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it was a nice area. But I'd never stay there again. The huts were composed of a bathroom and bedroom, with an outside porch with included your seating and your kitchen. To my American eye, this was very odd, but workable. One of the things I did not like at Satara was a lack of space. These little huts were tiny and not modern at all. There are far more modern "camps" up in that area of Kruger, so this wasn't a good choice, in my opinion. The second thing I really hated was that we were on our own as far as traveling around and taking pictures and spotting game. This is tough, because without a trained eye, I'm sure we missed a LOT. And on this kind of trip, you do not want to miss much, as it isn't like you're going to be back there next week.
We next went to a place called MalaMala Game Reserve. Their property BORDERS Kruger Park, but they are not held to following the park rules. One thing you cannot do in the park is go off the road. In other words, there are lots of dirt roads at Kruger and you can drive on them all, but you cannot just take off driving through the bushveld. MalaMala does just that. On most of our game drives there, we were cutting through the bushveld, rather than following the road. Makes for a very rough ride. I'm still not convinced that we saw more game by doing this.
They also did something at MalaMala that I strenuously objected to...they follow predators (such as leopard, lion, hyena, etc). If they spot a Leopard, they may follow her for hours through the bush. Granted the animals don't seem to notice that the vehicle is there, and they aren't "chasing" her (in other words, she continues doing whatever it was she was doing, and she isn't running away from the vehicle). But I'm a true believer that just the ACT of watching something will somehow change it. In one case, there were two couples (us and some very nice people from Australia), and both the woman and I objected to following one leopard female because she hadn't eaten for TWO days and we both felt we were warning her prey about her presence. Luckily our game guide agreed to stop, otherwise, I doubt that his employer would have approved.
MalaMala was just ok, in my book. The rooms there were furnished so as to be thought opulent. The problem is that the place is not fenced. So if you decide to take a walk around, you'd darn well better keep your eyes open and be paying attention, cause you have NO idea who or what might be around the next corner. If I wanted to stay someplace where I couldn't go outside my room at night, this would be where I would stay. Otherwise, no.
Here are a few photos we took (I promise, once you've seen a few of these, I'll go back to posting about sewing and school, lol).
In these pictures you'll see a young male elephant that came over to the vehicle to say hello. An African Hornbill bird (this one happens to be a Red Hornbill). A female lion returning to her cubs after a night of hunting (we'd watched her hunting the night before). Our "hut" at Jock Safari Lodge, with me just barely getting caught in the picture. And a baby Lion who gave us a little bit of a growl while we were taking pictures.
