They met up with Fred at the Rev Gooday's farm after lunch. There weren't enough cars so there wasn't enough room for all of us to go. Naturally, not being able to help the architect and having already visited the tourist shops, I needed to stay behind.
When everyone returned, they had had a good day. There were about 70 children at the Eukuphelani Care Point. Fred met up with a 17 year old young man named Thebo. He is living with his cousin, and lost both of his parents five years earlier to Aids. He hopes to go to med school so one day he can cure this disease.
We all spent a nice evening together for our last dinner in Swaziland.
Thursday morning Fred and I got up early and packed our things. Cindy and Paul were not leaving for Kruger National Park until the next day so Fred and I were picking up a rental car and driving ourselves.
Rental place-ugh-is it ever quick to rent a car? "What price were you quoted?" "Yea, we don't have that price anymore." Blah blah blah. We finally get on on our way. It is drizzling slightly. First rain of the season. It is welcomed as they have been waiting for the rains to begin. Hopefully, it will help to clear the air of all the smoke.
We drive through countryside. Swaziland is very pretty.
After about two hours, we reach the gate of Kruger National Park. Kruger is different from other safari parks because there are tarred roads and you do not need a game driver; you can drive yourself through the park.
It will take us about two more hours to reach our restcamp, Skukuza. The speed limit is 40 kilometers. We prepare ourselves to look out and try to see any animals if we can. I have my binoculars ready. Five minutes into the gate, a herd of elephants crosses the road in front of us. Then we pass a family of giraffes eating the trees by the road. I put my binoculars away.
About ten minutes later, Fred pulls the car off to the left side of the road-my side. I am fumbling with the camera. I mean, we just got here, and I am still not used to having the animals come so close to the road and being so used to the cars. Foolishly, my window is rolled up. Fred tells me to look out my window, and when I do, I am staring at a white rhino about 10 feet away staring back at me.
Now, Fred says I was paralyzed with fear. I most definitely was NOT paralyzed with fear. I was in slow motion from fear. I am afraid to turn on the camera because the rhino will hear it. I am afraid to roll down my window because, well, a white rhino is ten feet away from me.
My gut reaction to being this close to wild animals is to "Back up! We're too close!"
Fred's gut reaction is, "Let's wait and see if it kills you."
By the time I have the camera on and the window rolled down, I have taken an excellent shot of some tree foliage. The rhino has clearly tired of posing and I get a terrific picture of his butt, walking away from me. He becomes "the one that got away."
About fifteen minutes later, again on my side of the road, we see a mother elephant and her baby and a junior elephant munching on trees about 15 feet from the road. Now we haven't bothered to read the pamphlet we received at the gate, so we do not know we should give elephants a wide berth, about 50 meters or so and never get the car in the way of their crossing the road. I get some great pictures of them eating, and then the mother elephant turns her head and looks directly at me. You can see this clearly in the picture I took.
It's the next picture that you cannot see as clearly. This is where the mother elephant is not only looking right at me but starts to walk directly towards me. I managed to take the shot, but couldn't manage to do it without shaking like a leaf. I'm telling Fred to back the car up. Fred's telling me, well, I don't know what Fred was telling me because my life was passing before my eyes and my ears were filled with my head telling them that we were going to DIE!
About five feet away from me, she stopped and began munching on a tree right next to the road.
I had to take the zoom lens off the camera in order to keep taking her picture. It was an incredible experience but one that will repeat itself several times over the next three days. Wild animals get too close to us. I want us to back up. Fred wants to wrestle the camera from my wrist so he can continue taking pictures during my "unfortunate encounter."
We continue on the road and see more rhinos in the distance sleeping, and some wildebeasts, or gnus. Lots of impala and kudus.
We arrive at Skukuza and check in only to find out our safari game drive was leaving in ten minutes. We hurriedly throw on sweatshirts and run to the vehicle-an open Land Rover type of vehicle.
Our first night game drive. We've already seen elephants, giraffes, rhinos and deer. We can hardly wait!
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