Johannesburg - The elephant is so close we can feel the breeze from his flapping ears. He’s in musth, his legs wet with a pungent combination of urine and semen leaking from his penile sheath. Hot to trot but at least one female short of a happy ending. As he approaches the open vehicle, trunk at half-mast and ears akimbo. I think: “So this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a trample.”
For once the three British damsels in the seat behind us are silent. And that’s saying something. Much of the game drive had been punctuated with bird-startling shrieks every time we drove through a spider web - of which there were many - followed by endless sotto voce post mortems.
“Ohmygod, it touched my face! Wait! It’s still on the floor of the vehicle!” “Nooooooooo. I’m so like ready to jump out of the car!”
“We can’t! You heard Matt tell everyone not to stand. We might be attacked.”
“I know but I’d rather take my chances with a rampaging elephant!”
Really? I spare a fleeting thought for Isaack Nkuna, our tracker seated on the bonnet of the vehicle - talk about vulnerable - and peer through my fingers at ranger Matt Roberts in the driver’s seat.
He’s acting suitably respectful, doffing his hat, which he waves high in the air. He may as well be waving a chequered flag in front of a runaway bulldozer, I figure, but to my astonishment, the elephant pauses and takes a step back.
“Keep going, big fellow” says Matt, politely adding… “Please.”
Some believe you get further with respect and a rifle, than respect alone but Matt proves them wrong. To our relief, the elephant, with a disparaging trumpet, rips up a small tree and ambles off in search of better entertainment. That’s when everyone in general - and the arachnophobes, in particular - realise modest Matt, the alpha male, is sexier than Johnny Depp. What use would he be in the face of a 3m black mamba that strikes at a tracker’s bare shin? But the excitement doesn’t stop there.
We head over to Jason’s Dam in the Kruger Park’s 60 000 hectare Klaserie Private Nature Reserve to find around 300 buffalo drinking and cooling off in the water some distance behind the wide nostrils of a hippo bull, a cow, and a calf.
Do the two species get along? I ask Matt.
“Not so much,” he replies. “The hippos don’t really appreciate the buffalo defecating in their water and kicking up the mud.”
Right on cue, the bull lets out a roar of rage and arises like Neptune in a flurry of white spray, cavernous jaws and glinting tusks, surging towards the herd at the speed of a tsunami. He bites at one buffalo’s hindquarters but miraculously it manages to scamper up the banks with the rest of the fleeing herd.
Clearly aroused by his own alpha powers, the bull then turns his amorous attentions to the cow. A 15-minute marital scuffle ensues - much to the joy of the buffalo that venture straight back into the water while the hippo’s attentions are focused elsewhere. The hippo cow, still suckling her calf, is so not in the mood, which makes for another spectacular display of physical coercion. Eventually the bull wears himself out and leaves the cow in peace, but it’s truly the stuff National Geographic dreams are made of.
I’ve been on many safaris, but this was my first time at the wild and remote Klaserie, north of Sabi Sands and west of Timbavati. Nearly a third of the price of some of the better-known private lodges in Kruger, the two Sun Destinations camps we stayed at - Africa on Foot and Nthambo Tree Camp - offered great value for money. Better still, their rangers and trackers were as good as any I have encountered anywhere, including Botswana.
Here, from your stilted Nthambo balcony you can see lightning skitter along the distant Drakensberg range as the air vibrates with the trilling drill of a black collared barbet. You can lie under your mosquito net and listen to yipping silver-striped jackals, count shooting stars from the boma, or tiptoe with pounding heart to watch an elephant feeding off a marula tree.
Walking in Big Five territory is a visceral experience.
I’m grateful our Africa on Foot Rangers Mike Beard and Enoch Ngwenya have extensive training in approaching dangerous game.
We see hornbills, European rollers, and a suicide bird that tries to impress the females with perilous falling displays. A hot wind in the whistling thorn sways a red-billed buffalo weaver’s multi-chambered nest. The tantric maven of the avian world, the polyamorous buffalo weaver takes two and a half minutes to mate with each female in his harem, compared with the mere seconds of most other birds.
We focus our binoculars on a hammerkop nest and a ground-nesting Blacksmith Lapwing - their calls reminiscent of a blacksmith’s anvil hitting metal. Mike tells us they lure predators away from their young by feigning a broken-wing injury.
On other game drives we see lion, giraffe, white rhino and two buffalo head butting each other.
In the end, though, it is not so much the rampaging buffalo or hippo that spark me. It is the heady smell of the wild aniseed and elephant dung, the melodious bubbling sound of the Burchell’s coucal, determined dung beetles, golden orb spiders, and buzzing cicadas. Such a pristine paradise helps you forget for a minute, the other South Africa, the one rife with poverty, load shedding, potholes and traffic jams.
Accommodation
Camp Africa on Foot’s five chalets include two family units. More info from http://www.africaonfoot.com/
Nthambo Tree Camp’s five chalets on stilts offer unspoilt views. Both camps have a lounge area, library, bar, sundeck and plunge pool. More information from http://www.nthambo.com or phone 021 421 8433 for reservations
Getting there
From Durban, it’s about a 10-hour drive on the N3, N11 and R36. You can also go through Swaziland, but you will need passports. You can also fly to Hoedspruit Airport, which is a 30-minute road transfer away from the lodge.
Caroline Hurry,
Saturday Star