If I would have written this post 7 days ago it would have probably been titled "I Hate Tours" and while I am still not a fan the people and our tour guide made the 6 day trip end better than it started. I don't think there was anything necessarily wrong with Intrepid (although I will have my issues with them, especially the first 3 days), but for me tours just aren't the kind of traveling I like to do. I have had a lot of time to think about it and between the issues we had in Asia and the first of our thee here in Africa I think it really boils down to two things for me. 1.) You're on someone elses schedule the whole time. Seriously what's the point of traveling if someone is going to tell you you get 20 min to do this or meet back 60 min from now. It just sucks to have the entire trip dictated to you based on some companies timeline. In the end what you realize is that they just don't have the incentive to have you in their best interest. They are looking to get as much money out of you and get you from point A to B in the shortest amount of time. 2.) You are don't get that "oh shit" feeling. You never get to make a mistake or feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. You basically feel like a kid on a 6th grade field trip. You don't get to make mistakes or be out on your own and meet people and in the end that is half the fun of traveling.
That said it is great to be back in Africa and traveling over land is the only way to do it. When you fly it is convenient, but you just miss too much of the good stuff. The other cool thing is that being back has brought a lot of fond memories back of Makapansgat and the time I spent here 5 years ago. I really do think I appreciate how unique the experience was now more than ever. It just is something you can't duplicate. Seriously being in Makapan was totally different than this trip and I doubt no matter how hard I try I will never get to live in a valley in South Africa for two months. I am not saying this one will not be equally as great. I think there is a lot left to do here and I am pretty sure the next 35 days we have here driving across Africa will yield there own unique experiences.
Now that that stuff is out of the way I guess I should try and summarize what we have been up to. I will do my best to keep it short, but 10 days is a long time not to blog. Also we have been taking readings with Mr. Matt's gps. I don't have it with me, but I will try to post the coordinates for each of our camps so that you can go to google maps and see where we are.
Day 1 (August 7th) Departure
After going back and forth across town the night before to the tune of 120 bucks we figured out a way to meet our tour group closer to our hotel. When we arrived at the meeting point there was another group leaving the hostel. They had a huge overland truck and there were about 4 "hot" chics boarding the thing (they were Africa hot, which in the end probably meant nothing to write home about, but it was a shock to see anything resembling a girl boarding the thing). The guide asked if we were on her trip and while tempted to say yes we told her we were waiting for another group. Our ride showed up about an hour later and to our surprise was nothing like the fully geared out truck the other group had. Our ride for the next 6 days looked like an airport shuttle bus with a trailer. You know the kind that carts you from the economy lot to main terminal. All in all we had 14 people on the damn thing not including our guide and the trailer was not big enough to fit all the gear so the entire back row was full of bags.
Once we loaded our stuff up we set out and not an hour into the ride we had a flat on the trailer. It took about 20 min to change and then we were back on the bus. From there we drove another 2 hours or so and then stopped for lunch. Our guide ( his name is Garland) gave one of the group members 400 rand and told us to all go eat together while he shopped for dinner. It worked out ok I guess, but giving 14 strangers money and telling them to just go work it out on their own is a little crappy. After wasting an hour and a half in town we got on the bus and I swear not 20 min later we stopped for gas. At this point I was pretty much pissed. Seriously how does the driver sit around for an 1.5 hrs and not get gas. After filling up we pressed on and shortly after that blew out another tire. Yup two in 3 hours. Obviously the bus we were on was not built for this. I won't go into too much more detail as the trip pretty much went like this all damn day. In addition to all the technical issues we drove 180km out of our way to spend 20 min at the Blyre River Canyon (3rd largest in the world) Honestly, who drives 3 hours out of their way if they are only going to give you 20 min to walk around. On the way back from the canyon the breaks over heated on our way down a mountain on the way to Kruger and we had to stop again. To put it in perspective driving to Kruger from Jo'burg in a straight shot takes about 3.5 hours. In our case we spent 11 hours in a damn van on day one and missed Kruger by an hour. We did not realize it then, but this would cost us our night game drive and possibly an extra hour or two to see animals inside Kruger. About the only thing that went in our favor is we did not camp on night one. Since we missed Kruger we had to stay in a private game lodge outside the park.
Day 2 Kruger
This was probably the low point for me of the trip. We got up at 5:00 am again to depart at 5:30am so that we could stay on schedule and get to Kruger as early as possible. Day 2 was suppose to be our game drive through Kruger Park. Having been there before I was pretty excited to go out there again and get a shot at seeing a leopard and the rest of the big 5. Unfortunately for me Intrepid viewed the "game drive" as a way to add something to our tour while driving 80km an hour down only the main road to the northern most campsite in the park. Seriously our driver would have to slam on the breaks and back up a good 100-200 yards every time we saw something. Seriously having spent 4 days in Kruger in 2002 I knew this was not the way to see anything and as the day went on it just got worse and worse. By the time we got to camp we had seen the usual stuff, but had failed to see lions, leopards, or rhinos. We thought we might get a shot at a night game drive when we got to camp, but our tour leader shot that down quickly saying they would not come out to pick us up at our camp site for the night drive. I have no idea why he could not drive us back to the main lodge himself, but we got the impression it was just not going to happen. After setting up camp we ate and everyone pretty much went to bed having spent another 10 hours in our shitty bus.
Day 3 Road to Polokwane
It was another 4:45am wake up for us on day 3. After packing up we piled into the bus for a 3 hour drive through Kruger and then another 4 to Polokwane. On the way out of Kruger we actually came upon a huge group of people who had seen a big cat in the tall grass. They were all stopped and waiting for it to re-emerge. So what do we do, we stop for 5 min and then roll on slowly so that we could make it to Polokwane by 2pm. I guess that is just how it is in the end. Your experience comes second to the schedule, even when you have a real shot at sitting for 20 min and seeing a big cat. Honestly, I saw a lion just about every damn day the last time I was in Kruger and with Intrepid we saw none. I know there is a lot of luck in seeing game, but there is a certain patience to it as well and our guide had none. We left Kruger around 10am and continued on to Polokwane. We got dumped in a shopping mall for an hour while our guide shopped again. I get that he had to shop, but he could at least take us into a town where we could get on the internet or look around instead of leaving us at a strip mall. From there we went to camp, set up and ate lunch. We probably sat around camp for 3 hours waiting for our bus to come back from getting new tires. Clearly after day 1 it needed it. We did a late evening game drive in a private park to see rhinos. Of course we did not see any, but I will say our group was the best group of shadow and rock spotters I have ever seen. The night ended with dinner and another early turn in since we had another 4:45am wake up call
Day 4 Road to Nata
According to our guide this was our first official long drive day. I am not sure what he considered the other 3, but that was the way he described day 4. We left camp at 6am and the day was pretty much all driving. About the only cool thing that happened was we stopped in a small village on the side of the road to visit with the people who lived there. It was pretty cool to see all the kids running around and take their pictures and show it to them. They really got a kick out of seeing themselves. Chris showed them some of the video's we had from Asia, but none of them were as big of a hit as the video he took of all of them and their village. They literally burst out laughing as each one of them appeared on the screen. From there we made the rest of our trip to Nata. The roads were complete crap and covered in pot holes. It really is hard to describe, but we probably average about 30 miles an hour for a good stretch. In the end the drive took about 8 hours. At camp that night there was a bar at the place we were camping and everyone took some time to unwind after 4 straight days on the bus. I have to say this was probably the turning point for the group. Everyone began to open up at this point and the group began to gel a little bit. Everyone stayed up a little bit later that night since we were getting a reprieve the next day. Chobi was only 5 hours away and we did not have to leave till 8am the next day.
Day 5 Chobi
We got up late on day 5 and made the 5 hour drive across pot hole covered roads to Chobi. We set up camp and got a chance to order a customized t-shirt for our trip that we would pick up in Livingstone. They turned out pretty cool and show our entire trip from Jo'burg all the way to Nairobi. That evening in Chobi we got to go on a sunset river cruise. This was clearly the highlight of the trip and really raised everyone's spirits. It really reminded me of how cool it is to be traveling in Africa. We boated for about 2 hours and got within 10 ft of some of the animals on the banks. We saw everything, but big cats and at one point could see 7-8 different species of animals all in one place. The whole trip Chris snapped photos with the SLR like a National Geographic photographer. I must admit there are some cool shots. I wish the internet did not suck so bad here so we could put some of them up. After the cruise we went back to camp and lucky for us our guide had arranged a dinner at the lodge so we did not have to cook at camp. We all ate and then went to the bar again. I think everyone was finally having a good time. Too bad the trip was set to end the next day when we got to Livingstone.
Day 6 Livingstone and Victoria Falls
We got to get up late again and made the boarder crossing around 10am. It really was like something you see out of a movie. Once we finished border formalities we had to get on a small ferry that could carry one big truck at a time and then a bunch of people. Our guide arranged for us to meet up with another guy who lives in Zambia so he could take us to the falls while our guide and driver waited to get the bus across. It was a short ride across the Zambezi, but it was pretty crazy. The boarder was packed and people were sitting all over the place with huge bags of stuff. Once we got across we were taken by some our new crazy guide to Victoria Falls. Seriously it was some British expat who had lived there for 20 years, looked like he had not bathed in weeks, and was missing his front teeth. He drove us in a 1968 British double decker bus to the falls blaring the Beetles all the way. He was unique if nothing else. It was about an hour ride and we spent about another hour and a half at the falls. They were pretty impressive, although I must say I was expecting more. After the falls we headed back to Livingstone. We checked into our hotel quickly and then met the group for a booze cruise (35 usd for dinner and free drinks). The cruise lasted about 2 hours and then we spent the rest of the night till around 11 hanging out with everyone. After that we set out to walk back to our hotel, which was only about 10 min away. On the way out the guard said to be careful. Of course we asked of what people and he said no elephants. We both smiled to ourselves as we walked out the gate. Seriously elephants, watch out for elephants.... we must be in Africa
