hluhluwe / umfolozi – day 1
a weekend with mr. pietrus venter, our stentorian-voiced, barrel-chested afrikaaner tour guide and good friend, is a trip full of unique memories, buckets of laughter, and enough secondhand smoke to incapacitate ones lungs. after only having gotten 2 hrs of shut-eye and waking up at 2am this morning, peet and i packed the van and headed to durban to pick up 2 other groups of dutch girls. 8 altogether. all volunteering for an orphanage through an organization called be-more. ‘lucky’ me?.
we drove about 3-4 hours into the heart of zululand, driving along the coast towards st. lucia to the hluhluwe-imfolozi game reserve, which is the oldest game park in africa and the only formal conservation in kwazulu-natal where the big 5 (lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant, rhino) occur.
we settled in the backpacker lodge at around 10 and after a quick lunch – met with our safari guide jeff, who drove us into the reserve for several hours of game sightings and exciting stories along the way.
we saw lots of impalas, kudus, white rhinos, giraffes, zebras, elephants, hyenas, baboons, a handful of beautiful birds, vultures, eagles and abundant plant and tree life (marula). towards the end, we were lucky enough to catch 2 sightings of male lions, a cheetah laying on the grass, and a small herd of buffalos. the only big 5 cat we missed was the leopard.
the most exciting part about the game drive was observing how these animals interact. from normal to aggressive behavior, we caught a pretty wide spectrum of life in the wild. jeff was an expansive wealth of knowledge and we all learned an incredible amount about the terrain we were driving through. he was also one hell of a grillmaster too – we all loved his ‘quick lunch’ scheme that turned out to be an hour of braaing medium rare steaks, sausages, pasta and beer at the rest stop.
shauna, one of the dutch girls, was absolutely frightened – and frightened like i’ve never seen before! by elephants and only elephants. it was quite the scene. terribly entertaining for us, dreadful for her 
on the way back to the lodge, we ran into a blockade of 2 elephants that put on quite a lengthy display of playful aggressiveness … the jousting lasted for a good half hour, and our vehicle – along with 6 others, had no choice but to just sit quietly and hope they move! an incredible sighting. i don’t think i’ve never seen anything like it, being in such close distance to untamed game.
an hour later, we were all finally home — exhausted and drained from the wee hours of the morning, from the long bumpy ride in the reserve, and from the wind burn harsh enough to make one’s face feel numb. to top off the night, we all sat around the picnic table enjoying the most delicious homemade macaroni and cheese dish and washed it down with cold beers. after a few round of amarulas and another spare hour of entertaining stories, laughter and learning enough dutch phrases to get me in trouble, we called it a good night.
looking forward to day 2!
