Safari in South Africa

Three safaris, and eight hours, in pursuit of catching sight of the Big Five

The journey begins late morning from Johannesburg to Limpopo in a 28-seater bus. It is a three-and-a-half hour drive. Most of my travel companions journalists from other countries catch up on their sleep while I stay awake to take in the landscape... pristine green countryside occasionally dotted with beautiful bungalows. I should have caught up on sleep too because the next two days were going to be filled with fun and adventure, bereft of sleep.

By around 3 pm we reach Mabula Game Lodge, a private reserve with about 12,000 hectares of forestland. The lodge, which belongs to liquor baron Vijay Malaya, has a rustic feel, with straw roof rooms. We have an hour to grab some lunch and rest. The safari is at 4.30 pm sharp, we are told. So after some tea-coffee at the reception, we pile into the land rover. Our ranger is Lowe.

The first thing Lowe does is load his gun. "For precaution," he says cheerfully. Someone in the jeep isn't feeling so cheerful and rues about not using sun block. The sky is clear blue, and very sunny. It is a beautiful day.

As the land rover sets rolling, my heart starts beating like African drums with anticipation of what we may see that evening.

A few kilometres into the jungle, we spot our first wild animals two-horned rhinoceros. About three or four of them, walking through the thick vegetation with the ease of a bulldozer. There are some squeals from the jeep, a lot of cameras start clicking too. I realise then that the highs of seeing an animal in the wild are different.

The rhinos seem distressed by our intrusion, and walk deeper into the jungle. From here on, after every few kilometres, we spot doe-eyed impalas, zebras, wilderbeasts, rabbits, ostrich and a lost-looking lone wild boar. Lowe keeps the information on the animals going. He points at the zebras and says, "They are donkeys with stripes."

We go through dust roads for more than an hour, occasionally spotting animals. I am eager to see giraffes. I am not disappointed. Lowe spots some movements in the trees. He said, "It's the giraffe." His excitement matches mine as I jump up from my seat. There are several of themu00e2u0080u00a6 soaring over the trees, plucking vegetation as they slowly move around. The impalas nearby look dwarfed.u00a0u00a0

We witness a love scene too u00e2u0080u00a6 a male giraffe wooing his girl who is acting hard-to-get. He tries, and tries some more, following her everywhere for a while. She snubs him, and snubs him some more. Finally, he walks away, perhaps nursing a bruised ego. We have a good laugh, the sadists amongst us.

Lost in this masala, we fail to see the rain clouds approaching. When we do, we realise that it's pouring on the horizon. The climate undergoes a dramatic change. It gets windy and ponchos are pulled out from under the seats. The sky is engulfed in dark, heavy clouds. A stretch where the vegetation clears exposes us to picturesque mountains. Soon, it begins to rain.

The colours of green, gray and black in every shade imaginable leap out from an artiste's canvas. And then, as suddenly as it started, the rains stop. The clouds clear partly to expose the sun, its rays playing geometric patterns on the mountains and the greens. "Hey, there's a rainbow," someone from the team shouts. And sure enough, right ahead of us, are the multi-striped wonders. The plural because there is not one but two rainbows!

The transformation from the sunny sky to an overcast one and then partly sunny again is theatrical, as if it is all staged for us...

Lowe parks the range rover at a safe place, pulls out a folding table from the vehicle, a tiffin box with fish pakodas, chicken nuggets, pretzels and roasted peanuts and an ice box of sodas and chilled beer. Since we are yet to see the lions or the African elephants, Lowe promises to take us to the lion reserve, cordoned off in an area some seven kilometres away, the next morning.

So, the next day at 5.30 am, I find myself in the land rover again. It is daylight already. In South Africa, day breaks by 4.30 or 5 am. The weather is as we had left it the last evening chilly. And the mood among those in the land rover is brimming with enthusiasm.

Lowe takes us straight to the lion reserve. The rangers stay connected on radio with each other, telling each other their position and that of the animals. There is excitement when the radio crackles to tell Lowe that the lions, which are pinned with locators, have taken a kill to the middle of the bushes. Since none of the rangers are allowed to leave the dust path, we go up and down the entire stretch of the reserve in an attempt to spot the wild cats. For over two hours we race up and down, but the elusive beasts escape sighting. We can't even hear a whimper. The only noises I hear are disgruntled sounds from those in the land rover.

Not ready to give up, Lowe continues driving us through narrower roads. And then the radio crackles: A lion is on its way to drink water from the dam. It's somewhere nearby. We are right in the middle of the lion's path. Lowe immediately kills the land rover engine. We wait in silence, right in the middle of the thick bushes.... Then, just like that, one of the girls on the back of the jeep says out aloud, "He is behind us."

It's slo-mo from here on: All heads turn in unison as hands reflexively reach for the camera... and there, right behind us, the King of the Jungle, a young male with a handsome mane, is crossing the narrow dust path. He turns just once to give us a 'oh-you-silly-humans' look. I hear a gasp, it's my own I realise, and fumble with the camera to click. All I get is three shots. For me, they are three glorious shots.

As soon as the lion disappears, the slo-mo stops, the spell breaks and we start talking all at once. A high note of triumph in every voice, my own too. It's pack-up time and we head for breakfast.

But there's another safari in the evening. We aim to see African elephants. And we do, after a three-hour frantic drive around the reserve. The ecstasy of seeing an elephant has never before been so sweet, not even for someone who spots its Indian counterpart on the streets of Mumbai.

And the mother of all joys is conquering my phobia of reptiles and actually consuming one crocodile meat (!) to find it tastes just like chicken.

This trip was courtesy South African Tourism

Jo'burg calling

The striking thing about Johannesburg city is a sense of du00c3u00a9ju00c3u00a0 vu the friendly locals, the in-your-face rich-poor divide and the architecture reminiscent of the colonial rule. The Apartheid Museum is a painful reminder of the past. A couple of original benches displayed outside the museum have these words written on it: 'Opeans only'.

It means for 'Whites only'. Later, we drive in our bus from outside Nelson Mandela's bungalow in Houghton... it gives us goose-bumps. There are other places to see in and around Johannesburg like the Union Building, Monte Casino, Cradle Of Humankind and the Sterkfontein Caves in Gauteng and Soweto. There are innumerable restaurants in Johannesburg too with a lot of good food options. A true culinary delight.

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