Trip Report, African Safari, Kruger National Park.

Trip Report, African Safari, Kruger National Park.

The original purpose of this trip was to attend an international conference of The Competitiveness Institute, TCI, in Cape Town, South Africa, dealing with Business Clusters.

Dr. Lars Eklund, Vice-President of TCI from Sweden, invited me to give a presentation at the Cape Town Conference, on Climate Change, Climate Innovation, and the opportunities for using business clusters within cities to deploy alternative clean, green, emerging energy technologies and sources.

We flew Ottawa, Montreal, Amsterdam, Cape Town, and it took about 20 hours flying time, and about 24 hours travel time. The longest leg was Amsterdam to Cape Town, twelve hours, and we had to get up and walk around the plane to avoid sitting for prolonged periods and risk getting DVT, Deep Vein Thrombosis, blood clots in the legs, potentially deadly.

Mary had pre-arranged to organize the wives of delegates to the conference and took them on tours of Cape Town and made many new friends in the process. Mary is a very capable organizer and social networker, at home and abroad, with alumni associations, University Women’s Club, ladies golf association, etc. Everybody loves Mary!

The TCI Conference went on for about four days, with lots of meetings on the main subject matter, great speakers from all over the world, and great hosting by South Africa.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn on the main mall in town, with great adjacent restaurants with African foods. We toured the beautiful and diverse African Market on the next street over and saw all sorts of interesting crafts and carvings.

At the conference, I met a very intelligent professional woman, a university professor from China, who helped me set up a subsequent visit to Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, where I later spoke.

There were many mixers and social events, and many optional tourism events, such as tours of wineries and wild animal parks. We visited the well-known Stellenbosch winery and did some sampling. There were many occasions to sample the really excellent South African wines.

We also visited a wild animal park where I was able to put my hand on a live breathing leopard in repose, and felt its body vibrations, heartbeat, breathing, a totally amazing experience. We also went shopping at the very large and modern shopping centre on the Cape Town Waterfront.

The final conference dinner was an outdoor barbeque with African game meats and South African wines, and a spontaneous entertainment show put on by many participating delegates, with an African music and dance theme, and national costumes. We ate and drank well, and danced late into the night to African Music.

Tour of The Garden Route

Following the TCI Conference we opted to take a four day Garden Route Tour, to see the verdant and highly productive South African country side. This land has the richest soil, and grows immense crops, diverse grains, and is known as the Breadbasket of Africa. We visited many amazing places along this Garden Route, including a remarkable wild bird sanctuary, where we spent several hours and saw an amazing range of highly colourful South African birds.

One night we stayed at a traditional safari tented camp, where each “room” was actually a large canvas tent under a frame with a supporting base level deck, containing a a furnished suite with living room, bed room, bath room. We were warned not to go walking at night because there were wandering wild animals which might take a bite out of you! The rhinoceros might gore you with its horn, or trample you under one ton of weight!

Safari Tour in Kruger National Park

Mary is an excellent researcher and found us a five day guided Safari Tour in Kruger National Park, out of Johannesburg, organized by a Doctors Group, for just $500 per person, including guide, vehicles, accommodation, meals, a fraction of the normal cost of such a Safari tour. Tipping the guide was extra. The normal price range for African safaris is from $1000 to $2500 per day for five days. There are ranges of safaris available, from simple and economical, to luxurious tented camps with lions roaring nearby in the middle of the night that would scare the pants off any normal person, and posted armed rangers to guard the camps at night. Our safari was at the more economical end of the scale; less tented camp, same wild animals roaring. The male African lion has a roar box in its throat that greatly magnifies its roar in the jungle, day or night, and unequivocally proclaims its territory.

We stayed overnight in an adapted version of a rondoval, a circular African hut with a stone or cement base, about twenty feet in diameter, and with wood frame and thatched roof, a grain and crop storage outbuilding, adapted for tourist accommodations. We stayed in one half, and our guide stayed in the other half (separate halves of the rondoval).

The guide prepared all meals, and quite well-done. One dinner consisted of a half pepper squash hollowed out and re-filled with various small pieces of African game meat and vegetables and a cheese topping, then grilled in the oven, quite delicious. Another meal was African soup, a mixture of broth and assorted local vegetables, notably ochra, tomatoes, and herbs, also delicious! No alcohol was served, just local African fruit juices which were naturally sweet and totally delicious!

Early Morning Game Tours

Each morning our guide arranged for us to join a larger party in a collection of Land Rovers driven by Kruger Park Staff, and they took us on various routes through the park where other Kruger Park Game Rangers reported various large animals to be located this morning.

These included the “Big Five”, Elephants, lions, giraffes, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and a wide variety of deer, antelopes, zebra, wildebeest, Cape buffalo, occasional leopards and cheetahs. It is rarer to see leopards and cheetahs, as they are lone hunters, pursuing antelopes in tall grassy open areas, the veld, and they are very active during spring birthing season, hunting, capturing young antelopes and hanging them in trees in the bush to retrieve and eat later. Our guide said that when he was a boy, he would hunt the antelope with bow and arrow for a dinner meal for his family.

There is a significant feature of the local geography in the Africa bush that attracts all species of animals, and that is the watering hole, a river or lake. The animals come quietly at dawn and dusk to drink cool water. Predator animals know this and lay in wait. The exception is the hippopotamus which is large and dangerous, and virtually no predator animal will attack an adult hippopotamus. Ditto for an adult rhinoceros. We saw hippopotami in rivers and rhinoceros in the veld and each was totally safe and left alone by predators. We stayed in our Land Rovers.

During one of these escorted tours we passed a group of female lions hunting along a road. I was very careful to keep my arm inside the Land Rover window, lest a lion surge and grab my arm in its mouth! One female lion about fifteen feet away looked me very aggressively directly in the eye as if to say, “I could eat your ass if I wanted to.” Thank God there were protective bars on the Land Rover windows!

The Cape buffalo is a massive animal, and highly dangerous. The bull Cape buffalo weighs about three-quarters of ton, has a very mean temper, massive hooked horns, is unpredictable and absolutely deadly, will charge at anything in its vicinity.

Female Lions Attack A Cape Buffalo

On one of these escorted wild animal tours we saw a pride of lions take down a massive Cape buffalo in a very planned and co-ordinated manner. Our Land Rover stopped to observe a herd of Cape buffalo pursued by a pride of lions. A female lion jumped up on a Cape buffalo’s rear haunches, sunk in its long sharp claws, very painful to the Cape buffalo, and brought its body weight to bear on the buffalo’s rear haunches, causing the huge buffalo to drop its rear end. A second lion then sunk its teeth into the buffalo’s nose and held on tenaciously to isolate the head and highly dangerous Cape buffalo’s horns, very important to do since these massive curled horns can hook a lion and toss it over the buffalo’s shoulders, killing the lion with one horn hook. A third lion then grabbed the buffalo’s throat in its jaws, and held on, choking the buffalo to death. It was all over in a few minutes, the strategic, masterful, co-ordinated work of three powerful female lions, highly intelligent team players, expert killers.

Female Lions, Natural Leaders, Group Synergy

The female lions stood off to let the large male lion, the pride leader, have first opportunity to rip open the soft underbelly of the dead Cape Buffalo, and tear at the heart and the liver, two high protein organs. This was a sign of deference to the male lion leadership of the pride, and to the male lion’s need for essential protein for reproductive ability and stamina. This was instinctive female lion planning for the continuity of the pride of lions.

Lion Mating

This subtle female leadership and governance in the pride extends quite demonstrably to the protection of lion cubs from marauding male lions who would kill young cubs to force the female lions into estrus and for the male lions to enjoy breeding again. When the female lion is in estrus, the male lions dominate the mating activity with up to one hundred copulations over three days, and do a lot of growling, howling, and gentle biting in the process. Who’s to say that African lions do not enjoy great sex???!!!

Lion Mothers and Cubs

The second major female lion leadership and governance role is to train the lion cubs to hunt other game collectively, patrolling, scenting, staking out, one lion charging game into a waiting trap set by the other lion cubs. Then the kill is shared. The lion cubs learn obedience, collaboration, reward, survival. These are all important life lessons for the lion cubs.

Vigilant, Competitive Wildlife

There is an expression in Africa: Every morning in Africa an antelope awakes, watchful and vigilant, and must run faster than any lion in order to stay alive, AND every morning a lion wakes up and must hunt more intelligently and run faster than the slowest antelope in order to survive. Each species has learned to run like the wind to survive. Each species also wants to have lunch. The fastest of each species survive to breed and produce more very fast and intelligent progeny. It is the law of the jungle, survival of the smartest, the fittest, the fastest, and it improves the gene pool.

African Elephants

African elephants are herd animals and love and protect their young calves. We saw many occasions of smaller herds of elephants gathering for mud baths and dust baths with their young. The mud baths, at watering holes, are essential meeting places, particularly in hot weather. The elephants use their trunks to cover themselves with water, and then they will roll in the mud to coat themselves with mud, which helps to protect themselves from the burning sun. The adult elephants will devour significant branches of trees to get at the leaves to eat.

Elephant Mating

When it is elephant mating season, the female comes into estrus, the scent of her pheromones on the wind will attract many bull elephants, sporting immense two to three foot erections, and will pursue the female until she lets one of the bulls mount her. THEN, after the mating, all the bull elephants will run in a herd, displaying their erections, and trumpeting loudly, to celebrate the mating, that there will be another baby elephant joining the herd in a year’s time. Who’s to say that African elephants do not enjoy great sex???!!!

Opportunity For A Bush Walk, Life on the Edge

On another day we were invited to participate in a bush walk to see a variety of wild animals up close, with armed guides front and back for protection, a dangerous thing to do in lion country. We were told the story of a previous bush walk that had gone awry. Generally, there are six to eight persons in a bush walk, in linear formation, with an armed guide in front, carrying a heavy bore gun, loaded, with a round of ammunition chambered, ready to fire at any dangerous charging wild animal. There is a second armed guide at the rear of group, also carrying a heavy bore gun, loaded, with round chambered, ready to fire in case the first guide failed to stop any dangerous charging wild animal.

If a lion were to charge, it could be a real charge or a false charge, a bluff charge, hard to distinguish at close quarters….. the lead guide would know, and would have to make a split second decision.

On the particular day of the story told, a large male lion appeared out of nowhere and it did make a surprise charge. It looked like a high bluff charge, BUT THEN the lion unexpectedly followed through and came directly at the first armed guide! The first armed guide raised his heavy bore gun rapidly and got his chambered shot off quickly, hitting the charging lion in the lower jaw, but did not kill him.

The massive charging male lion, BADLY WOUNDED, and MAD AS HELL, continued his charge at the first armed guide, grabbed the guide with his massive left and right paws and mauled him with his ripping sharp claws.

Meanwhile, the second armed guide, seeing the lion attack and the first guide being mauled, instantly raised his heavy bore gun, and in a split second aimed at the first mauling lion, and shot the lion in the head, just missing the first guide’s head by inches, but saving the first guide from certain death by severe mauling and blood loss.

The first guide was bleeding profusely from head and shoulder wounds from the large male lion’s savage upper canines, powerful muscular arms and gripping claws. He was rushed to hospital, was saved by emergency surgeons, given multiple blood transfusions, and sewn back together by a team of plastic surgeons. This guide eventually returned to work the next year, but looking badly scarred facially and in his shoulders where he had been mauled by the charging lion’s ripping claw attack and upper canine teeth, but had been patched back together by very capable plastic surgeons. After hearing this story, we declined to go on the bush walk that day! Discretion is the better part of valour! Better to survive and live another day!

Legendary Game Ranger Harry Wolhuter

It is impossible to tour the wild animal rich Kruger National Park without hearing about the legendary Game Ranger, Harry Wolhuter, who served over forty years, patrolling on horseback, with rifle and knife, in the South African veld and in the bush, observing and monitoring the wild animals, particularly the ferocious and hungry lions, always waiting to attack, looking for lunch.

One day while out on patrol on his trusted big horse, Harry Wolhuter was attacked by two large male lions which waited stealthily in the bush for lunch to come by. One huge lion attacked, jumped on the back of Harry Wolhuter’s horse, sunk in his claws, and the big strong horse bolted. The other male lion attacked Harry Wolhuter from the side, grabbed him with powerful front arms and claws, and dragged him off his big strong horse.

Large Bronze of Game Keeper Harry Wolhuter (my collection)

Game Keeper Harry Wolhuter was attacked by two very large lions while patrolling on horseback in Kruger National Park in the early 1900s. In this graphic depiction, Wolhuter’s horse is being attacked from the rear by a very large male lion, while Wolhuter is being violently attacked and pulled off his horse on the other side by the other very large male lion. Wolhuter was subsequently bitten deeply and aggressively by the second lion in his right shoulder and dragged off to be eaten alive. Wolhuter had the incredible presence of mind and personal courage to use his free left arm and hand to pull out his hunting knife from his right hip, and then stabbed the lion, twice in the heart, and then slashed the lion’s throat and jugular. The lion dropped Wolhuter and slipped away to bleed out and die. Wolhuter survived this savage lion attack, was badly injured by the lion mauling, suffered massive blood loss, caught blood poisoning / sepsis from the lion’s mouth and teeth. He was carried by other guides in his party to a nearby field station where he was temporarily patched up, and was sent onwards by train to hospital in a nearby town. Wolhuter underwent life-saving drug treatment for sepsis, then emergency surgery, massive blood transfusions, and subsequent plastic surgery. Months later, Wolhuter returned to being a Game Keeper in Kruger National Park for another forty years, though he suffered a lifetime of excruciating pain in his right shoulder where the second very large lion had bitten him deeply and gripped him with its massive long canine teeth, and dragged him off to eat him alive. Wolhuter is a legend, the steam in the piss, among African Game Keepers!

Painting of Attacking African Leopard (my collection)

African leopards are solitary hunters, cunning, swift, agile killers. They are largely opportunistic hunters prowling on the edge of a veld, with some edge of forest cover, so they can strike out rapidly and surprise prey. Leopards usually have strategic promontories for vantage points to observe other passing game at a distance, mainly a variety of antelope, including the very fast African impala in small groups. Then the leopards will leave their promontory and stalk their prey. Leopards will also isolate slower moving and or unprotected young from larger animals, such as impala, baby elephant, baby giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, or the magnificently twisted horn kudu. Leopards will store a kill in a tree, safe from other predators, and will feed off it for several days, and will feed their cubs also. Leopards generally raise three or four cubs, and on rare occasions of fertility, five cubs, and must feed these hungry cubs. The cubs watch the mother leopard closely and learn their stalking and hunting lessons from her for their own future survival. Here is a painting of an attacking adult leopard, with powerful canine teeth, and sharp claws for gripping prey. I purchased this dynamic painting in South Africa.

Hotel Room Invaded By Rampaging Baboons

Friends out on safari, Jack and Jill (names have been changed to protect the innocent), went on to Victoria Falls to see the beautiful falls, the massive Zambezi River cataract, the most famous falls in Africa, near where American actors Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn starred in the John Huston film, The African Queen. Our friends stayed in a hotel near the falls, without air conditioning, and they were advised to keep their windows shut, to prevent any wild animals from getting in. Makes sense!!

During the hot sweltering night, our friends decided to open the windows a crack for some minor ventilation. Big mistake!!

In the early dawn hours and sweltering heat, Jill got up to take a shower.

Jill was in the shower, when all of a sudden she heard a blood-curdling scream from her husband, Jack.

Jill ran out of the shower instinctively, buck naked, her large breasts swinging to and fro, and ran directly into the room to see TWO LARGE BABOONS inside the room, and her husband panicked and screaming.

Jill immediately began screaming at the baboons and chasing them to get them out of the room. Jill screamed at her husband to do the same thing. Jill was a take charge kind of woman, birthday suit and all!

Both Jack and Jill were buck naked chasing and screaming at the pair of baboons. Round and round the room they went, the four of them, Jack and Jill shouting and screaming, the baboons howling, growling, spitting, and displaying teeth, Jill’s breasts swinging to and fro, and Jack hanging on to his pecker for dear life! Jack’s pecker was more important to him than his passport, his wallet, or his Rolex Submariner!! He glanced at his Rolex Sub; it showed 5:50 a.m. 5:50 a.m. in Africa and rampaging baboons in my hotel room??? Totally insane!!!

THEN the baboons began to defecate as they ran around the room. They were marking territory. They made a helluva stinking mess.

The baboons appeared very anxious, uncertain of what was going on, two naked simians in hot pursuit, perhaps some new mating ritual with these naked ape cousins? The baboons’ noses swelled up with blood and looked like LARGE SWOLLEN RED PENISES, with bulging eyeballs on either side. And these baboons had very animated facial expressions!

Jack and Jill continued to run and scream in hot pursuit of the baboons to try to chase them out of their room. THEN Jill panicked and screamed to Jack, both buck naked,

“Holy shit, Jack, look at those big red penises on their faces! I think these baboons want to fxxx us!!!!!”

Total panic gripped Jack and Jill!

Who’s to say that African Baboons with great big swollen red penis noses don’t enjoy great sex???!!!

Jack grabbed his pecker with both hands for extra personal safety! And kept running around the room screaming at the baboons!

Jack looked down at his pecker cradled protectively it in both hands as he chased after the two LARGE baboons, and wondered, “What the hell am I doing here?????” and thought to himself, “This is worse than Hallowe’en with Donald Trump!”

Safari in Africa…. Sex with Baboons??? Not today, thank you!!!!!

THEN one of the baboons grabbed a package of cookies, waved it at the other baboon, and the pair hopped out the window!

THAT’S what the baboons had come for, not sex with tourists, but COOKIES!!!!!

The baboons hung out in the trees outside the windows, and passed the cookies around to their baboon pals also hanging out in the trees outside the windows, and waved at the panicked and exasperated Jack and Jill in the room. Those were great fruit flavoured jelly roll cookies.

Jill thought, better them eating my cookies than eating my jelly roll!!

Jack looked down at his pecker to see if it was still there, and breathed a huge sigh of relief! He looked at his Rolex Submariner; it was 6:05 a.m. Good old dependable Rolex watches, always there when you need them!!

Their room was completely trashed, stinking baboon dung everywhere, so the couple had to get another room, and promised to keep the windows locked tight!

………………………………

Return Trajectory

We travelled back to Johannesburg with our guide. In the next few days, we toured the city including the wonderful Nelson Mandela Shopping Centre, did a little shopping, and saw the giant statue of Nelson Mandela out front and centre.

Next day we caught a flight to Amsterdam. It was a long thirteen hour flight, with absolutely wonderful aerial views of the African continent, a geographic tapestry of tropical forests, rivers, deserts, herds of animals in their annual migrations to better feeding grounds, predators, lions, alligators, jackals, waiting at river crossings and watering holes.

Early next morning in Amsterdam, we caught a train from the airport to the train terminal, all wonderfully interconnected, and stowed our extra luggage. We took only overnight bags and caught an urban transit train downtown, and got our hotel, which was in the middle of a popular university student district.

The Dutch university students stayed up till 6:00 a.m., smoking Mary Jane and drinking beer on the streets, making a very loud noise, making it impossible for us to sleep, but they were completely unharassed by police. In the next few days we toured the local museums and art galleries, notably the Anne Franck Museum, we street walked, people watched, and shopped. So many people ride bicycles in Amsterdam, avoiding use of cars on a massive scale, very clean and healthy.

While in Amsterdam, I contacted my old friend, legendary jazzman, Alan Red Bush Laurillard, a superb interpretive jazz saxophonist, whom I had known in Vancouver. Bush was now playing in his own jazz band in Amsterdam, cutting jazz records, and teaching jazz. He and his wife also had another home in Romania. Bush and I reminisced about former days, living at Fiji House in Vancouver, in the era of Otis Redding, and his famous songs, Sitting by the Dock of the Bay, and Try a Little Tenderness, good blues infused with good jazz, the black influence and contribution to the origins of rock and roll. Too bad Otis died so young, just as his arc was ascending.

Mary and I caught our flight out of Amsterdam to Montreal. I glanced out the cabin window as the big silver bird arced westward over the sparkling evening lights of western Europe.

We had two comfortable aisle seats across from one another in economy class on good old reliable KLM / Air France. Cabin crew served good nosh and noggin, and extra wine!

Un digestif, Monsieur? Bien sûr, Mademoiselle!

The cabin lights dimmed. I glanced at my Rolex Sub, it was 11:30 p.m.

We drifted into sleep on our overnight flight home to Montreal! Animated dreams! Stories to tell!

A bientôt.

Philippe.