Going bush...

Once Cape Town's journey came to a close, and I was suitably done with adventuring, I toddled off to places unknown (no, really -- the booking company told me on the morning of departure that I wasn't going to the place I'd booked at, rather at some other place 8 hours to the north-east, near the Kruger). Since I hadn't planned on going to any malaria regions, I was a little apprehensive, but some complimentary malaria tablets were shoved into my hand, my luggage squeezed into a car, and away we went.

The drive was uneventful for the first half as we traversed the upper veldt -- it's dry and flat and very much featureless -- so I slept for most of it, waking periodically as we were told to drink! Drink! Drink! They're big on drinking (water, that is) in South Africa. This, as I was to discover later, was not without good reason. At any rate, we soon reached the lower veldt, and that's where everything started too look pretty amazing.

It was all looking really green and lush, mountains sprouting up here and there, and great rocky cliffs lining the road. Ahead, a massive grey cloud hung over the Drakensberg Mountains, lit up every few seconds by forks of lightning that crackled through it. The other side of that, I was told, was my destination. Awesome.

The rest of the drive was beautiful -- a vastly different view of Africa than I'd seen in Cape Town and my brief overnight stay in Johannesburg. From green mountains to rocky gullies, where tree roots took hold of the outside of the rock and climbed for their lives skyward, to deep flat dry valleys, spotted with bush huts and where the roads were lined with children making their long, long, long way home from school. As we drew closer to the camp we passed block after block of private game reserves, and at one point, and a shout of "BABOONS!" we slowed to let this group of bare-backsided creatures gambol across the road, frowning suspiciously at as as we passed. Then, "GIRAFFES!" off to the left! Three of them inside the fence of the game reserve, picking at the high leaves of the acacia trees and eyeing us curiously. I felt like I'd really gotten into -- or at least closer to -- what Africa really was.

As the light faded and we dodged the odd rainfall, we made it to the camp, deep in the centre of a reserve, passing kudu and the ever-present impala (not the car), all the way up to the gates, outside of which stood a great grey rhino...I was to see more of him later.

Inside the gates I was met by the centre's "student" liaison, and a couple of bush pigs, Mona and Lisa, who quickly took a liking to my luggage. Apparently they're quite partial to it, as a whole, and so I trundled, first at a trot, then as my pursuers kicked it up a notch, into a full-blown run (which in hindsight was probably the dumbest thing I could have done), down the dusty path with my incredibly unsuitable wheelie-bag, to the safety of the cottages. On the way I passed three cheetahs (in cages) and a hyena (also, and thank heaven, caged), and some odd little guinea-pigs-gone feral that I would later identify as dassies. In my room there were four teeny baby rabbits and a couple of baby squirrels (of which I'll also speak later). It wasn't all going to keep being so amazing, but for now I'll leave it so.

The sun dipped over the mountains and twilight descended.