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petite

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dear S.A. friends :
my 8 year old kid is crazy about animals and been beggin me to take him to africa.
im doing so next augost and i could use some advice
im flyng to johanesburg and then directly to kruger park where ill plan to stay for 5 days ( enough?) and then rent a car and drive all the way to santa lucia (the izimangalizo park) stop for a day or two in suasiland.
questinons
is ist safe to drive those 700 km? are the routes ok? do you have enough infrastructure to do it with a kid and wife?
what about the izimangaliso park is it nice? is it a regular destination for people in S.A?. it is not offered to international public in most agency trips.
i read that the santa lucia may be dangerous cos robberys and even shootings my occur even with in the park.
what are the best places apart from kruger to see wild life in S.A?
i read that cape town is the nmbr 15th most dangerous city in the world.
i dont live in disneyland: Buenos Aires is dangerous too but i wanna know what to expect
first thing i read after deciding the trip was the ex springbok shooting near pretoria..
ill finnally spend a day or 2 in jhojannesburg. before heading back. Something that i dont have to miss there?
thanks in advance and anny suggestion wellcome hope i catch a rugby game somewhere!
 
dear S.A. friends :
my 8 year old kid is crazy about animals and been beggin me to take him to africa.
im doing so next augost and i could use some advice
im flyng to johanesburg and then directly to kruger park where ill plan to stay for 5 days ( enough?) and then rent a car and drive all the way to santa lucia (the izimangalizo park) stop for a day or two in suasiland.
questinons
is ist safe to drive those 700 km? are the routes ok? do you have enough infrastructure to do it with a kid and wife?
what about the izimangaliso park is it nice? is it a regular destination for people in S.A?. it is not offered to international public in most agency trips.
i read that the santa lucia may be dangerous cos robberys and even shootings my occur even with in the park.
what are the best places apart from kruger to see wild life in S.A?
i read that cape town is the nmbr 15th most dangerous city in the world.
i dont live in disneyland: Buenos Aires is dangerous too but i wanna know what to expect
first thing i read after deciding the trip was the ex springbok shooting near pretoria..
ill finnally spend a day or 2 in jhojannesburg. before heading back. Something that i dont have to miss there?
thanks in advance and anny suggestion wellcome hope i catch a rugby game somewhere!

Hi Petite.

Here's some follow up questions, which will aid a bit more in answering your query.

1. When you are in the Kruger, are you staying in the same camp or are you going to stay in different camps. Also, do you know the name of the camps?
2. The road from the South of the Kruger to Swaziland and then to St. Lucia is a very far stretch, and you're not going to drive on any of the main roads or highways. Why did you pick St. Lucia, nowadays it's more of a fishing and diving resort than anything else. There are way better places to visit than St. Lucia.
3. Cape Town has dangerous areas, but it's not really where the tourists are going. Stay away from Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain.
4. How long are you going to be in SA? I'm just thinking of the distance between Cape Town, St. Lucia and the Kruger, I wouldn't recommend driving to all of them, as you'll be in the car most of the time, and it will actually be more expensive than flying.
5. Are you going to be part of a tour group?
 
The Kruger is nice, but if you dont go with a tour guide then you will sometimes struggle to know where to go to find all the best watering holes where you can glimpse the big 5.

if you want a nice safari drive but a more commercial experience in the nighttime then i would suggest staying at Sun city (close to Joburg) and doing the pilansberg safari.
If you want the full bush experience there are some nice bush lodges in the kruger, one of them is called bed en bos where you basically sleep in the open with mosquito nets around you theres a fairly good chance you might wake up the next morning with an elephant drinking water mere meters away from your bed with no walls separating you.

St Lucia (izimangaliso park) is very nice. Its full of Hippos and Crocodiles and an abbundance of bird life in the area so if thats what your after then you can go for that, you can also visit cultural attractions there such as the Zulu or Siswati cultural villages. There are nice curio shops in the area. Two things you need to be careful of in the st lucia area is Malaria and drought. Take malaria medication beforehand. if you go to the izimangaliso wetlands park you can just pitch up at the gate and pay the entrance fee and off you go, there are ferry's that can take you on a tour. not recommended to tour this park by car, boat is your best bet. Only if you plan to sleep in the park itself then book way in advance but id actually recommend to stay at another lodge not the izimangaliso park accomodation. Stay away from government run accommodation rather stay in private lodges, hotels or airbnb houses.

If you want to have a wildlife experience close to Capetown the addo elephant park is a nice place to go.

I also would not recommend driving from Joburg to St lucia, and thats not because its unsafe but becasue its far and not the best scenic route for your money and time.
If you can rather do the coastal drive from cape town to the northern parts of the country, going past towns such as Ceres, Knysna, Plettenberg bay, Jefferys bay, Hartenbos and then there is even nice wildlife parks on the wild coast. (Just google these names for more description).

Personally i always recommend people to go to the Drakensberg mountains about 480 km from joburg and 200 from Durban. There you can find great easy and difficult hiking routes ranging from 1 day to 7 days, the wildlife is amazing and you can sleep in caves or chalets. the caves has an abundance of history with rock cave paintings from the san people. The flora in the area is second to none, here you can find the national flowers in its most spectacular form, protea trees hanging from cliff tops. you can stay in absolute luxury in the Drakensberg mountains, in swiss like resorts or you can have that rugged feeling staying in old farmhouses (Run by KZN Enzimvelo) deep into the drakensberg mountains making a fire to keep warm at night.

If you do decide to travel on road
where ever that might lead just keep money on hand to pay for the tolls, it can become expensive.

Honestly joburg is over commercialized and generally a **** place. The area is dry, flat and at alltitude. If you want to visit big malls and casinos while on the trip then joburg can be nice, but if you come for a wildlife experience then joburg should be no more than a transportation hub where you get of the airplane and hire a car to get to the more beautiful parts.
 
thanks for the info guys!!! really appriciate you taking the time to aswer. this is so usefull.
so far we reserved the air tickets to kouger though johannesbourg and the acomodation at krouger for 5 days (in 3 camps: names imposible to remeber :) the fist one is where the plane lands the southern airport. the other to are up north. havent sort what to do after that.
we also have two days in johannes before going back to get some rest. so we have arroung 6 days to visit santa lucia or other destination
our main interest is wild life and ill probably avoid malls.. or big citys.
for what ive seen in google maps thers some 700 km from kugger to santa lucia it looks like a 8 hs ride not so much (im used to diving those distances) my main concern is the state of the roads specially cos i ll be driving from the right, never did before. do u guys think it could be a problem? the idea is to drive those 5 days in krouger and get used to it before heading to santa lucia.
for what i read theres a riff at izimangalizo and thats why we want to go. to see de indic ocean, whales if very lucky. do you think i might get to sea sharks at santa lucia or near by?
dont think im going to cape town.
thanks again for the help!!
 
thanks for the info guys!!! really appriciate you taking the time to aswer. this is so usefull.
so far we reserved the air tickets to kouger though johannesbourg and the acomodation at krouger for 5 days (in 3 camps: names imposible to remeber :) the fist one is where the plane lands the southern airport. the other to are up north. havent sort what to do after that.
we also have two days in johannes before going back to get some rest. so we have arroung 6 days to visit santa lucia or other destination
our main interest is wild life and ill probably avoid malls.. or big citys.
for what ive seen in google maps thers some 700 km from kugger to santa lucia it looks like a 8 hs ride not so much (im used to diving those distances) my main concern is the state of the roads specially cos i ll be driving from the right, never did before. do u guys think it could be a problem? the idea is to drive those 5 days in krouger and get used to it before heading to santa lucia.
for what i read theres a riff at izimangalizo and thats why we want to go. to see de indic ocean, whales if very lucky. do you think i might get to sea sharks at santa lucia or near by?
dont think im going to cape town.
thanks again for the help!!

Ah, so you are flying from Joburg to Skukuza (the main camp in the Kruger). But if you say you are going North from there, you might need to tell us the names, as some camps are impossible to drive to in one day from Skukuza (especially with the driving limit and the times the camps gate closes).

Camps North of Skukuza are:
  • Satara
  • Orpen
  • Olifants
  • Letaba
  • Mopani
  • Shingwedzi
  • Punda Maria
But I would seriously recommend you having a tour guide while in the Kruger, you will learn a lot more about our wildlife and about the reserve from them, plus they have radio communication with other guides to help the tourists see the better sightings such as Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs, Wild Dogs etc.

To be honest with you, I struggled to transfer from a right side steering wheel to a left side steering wheel when I went to the USA as a student. And my biggest problem was to get used to find a new centre spot on the road as well as turning the vehicle. It took me about 2 weeks to get it right.

The time of year you're coming is too early to see the whales. I would recommend you then rather come in October, and go to Hermanus in the Western Cape which is where the Whales are every year. It's then also closer to the other coastal towns that offer Great White Shark expeditions and cage diving.

To be perfectly honest with you, I would have a relook at your itenerary. And would remove Saint Lucia completely from the plans...
 
The Isimangaliso park in st Lucia is very nice, dont know why TRFheineken is against it, its a protected world heritage site. If you want bird and wildlife species that appears near wetlands then this is a great place.

However if you want to do reef diving, go shark cage diving or whale watching then this is not a great place to do it. Sharks like cold water but the more north you go up along South Africas eastern coastline the warmer and more tropic it becomes. So st lucia and places such as Kosi bay is very close to the mozambican border the water is very war, (Fun for swimming in) and even snorkling for small reef fish ( but that id rather do at cape vidal which is also close to st lucia) . IF you go more southwards to Durban then there will be places where you can do what they call soft cage shark diving. its just a soft cage for you smaller breeds of shark. And if youwant to dive with the beasts of the ocean then you have to move to the far south of South Africa where the water is much colder and as far away as possible from the warm Mozambican streams. With hard cages you can dive with the great white sharks near gansbaai. But the con is that it is not nice to recreationally swim in the oceans so far south as its super cold. Fun swimmin at the beach is reccomended for the northern parts of the east coast.

Please go and google the "Golden gate higlands park". It might be a destination you want to go to. Also "Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park" and "Cathedral peak"
 
thanks! i have to digest all this info and sit with kid and wife to see the options
dont care much about the whales cos we have plenty here. but we dont have riffs, the water here is damm cold! swiming and snorkling with fish sounds great. the sharks are a main interest for my son but hes only 8 so i wasnt planning to put him in a cage with a great white!! yes i read about cape vidal we wanted to visit it!
i´ll google these places
heineken we are going to olifants and lower sabie apart from skukuza (we have the reservations) think we are going to hire the guide as you say!
thanks again for your views, very usefull!
 
thanks! i have to digest all this info and sit with kid and wife to see the options
dont care much about the whales cos we have plenty here. but we dont have riffs, the water here is damm cold! swiming and snorkling with fish sounds great. the sharks are a main interest for my son but hes only 8 so i wasnt planning to put him in a cage with a great white!! yes i read about cape vidal we wanted to visit it!
i´ll google these places
heineken we are going to olifants and lower sabie apart from skukuza (we have the reservations) think we are going to hire the guide as you say!
thanks again for your views, very usefull!

Well you certainly picked the camps with the best views. between Skukuza and Lower Sabie you should see a lot of wildlife next to the Sabie riverbed. and then between Lower-Sabie and Olifants is the best route to take to see Lions, Leopards and Cheetahs. Olifants probably is the camp with the best view of all the camps in the Kruger, as it's built on a hill and overlooks the mighty Olifants River. May I suggest you visit Letaba as well, which has a Museum about Elephants, which is very interesting and educational for kids and adults alike. It's just 30km away from Olifants.

As for the rest of your itenerary, I understand now a bit better of your plan with this trip, But I think Mozambique will offer you a better deal with regard to snorkeling in riffs with underwater life.

But then again, there are so many places in SA that you can visit, that we might not even think of right now.

I'll be honest, I don't like St. Lucia, mainly because of a personal bad experience there. Which will most probably add to my negativity. But my Uncle is one of the best people to ask about St. Lucia and the wetlands, and he's a professor who does regular studies in the Kruger and the Wetlands regarding frogs and other amphibias. In fact he's in the Kruger right now, to do a study regarding the changes in Bullfrogs habitats after floods. He always tells us it's such a strain for him to drive to St. Lucia, as the road to get there is just so bad (this coming from a guy who drives a 4X4 with every piece of equipment you can think of on his car).

If wildlife is your main priority, and you want to make it educational for your son, I want to suggest you stick around the Kruger area, there are places like Kapama and Moholoholo rehabilitation centres, where they let adults and kids interact with wild animals, help with feeding the animals and even play with baby lions and both of them are around the Hoedspruit area.
 
Well you certainly picked the camps with the best views. between Skukuza and Lower Sabie you should see a lot of wildlife next to the Sabie riverbed. and then between Lower-Sabie and Olifants is the best route to take to see Lions, Leopards and Cheetahs. Olifants probably is the camp with the best view of all the camps in the Kruger, as it's built on a hill and overlooks the mighty Olifants River. May I suggest you visit Letaba as well, which has a Museum about Elephants, which is very interesting and educational for kids and adults alike. It's just 30km away from Olifants.

As for the rest of your itenerary, I understand now a bit better of your plan with this trip, But I think Mozambique will offer you a better deal with regard to snorkeling in riffs with underwater life.

But then again, there are so many places in SA that you can visit, that we might not even think of right now.

I'll be honest, I don't like St. Lucia, mainly because of a personal bad experience there. Which will most probably add to my negativity. But my Uncle is one of the best people to ask about St. Lucia and the wetlands, and he's a professor who does regular studies in the Kruger and the Wetlands regarding frogs and other amphibias. In fact he's in the Kruger right now, to do a study regarding the changes in Bullfrogs habitats after floods. He always tells us it's such a strain for him to drive to St. Lucia, as the road to get there is just so bad (this coming from a guy who drives a 4X4 with every piece of equipment you can think of on his car).

If wildlife is your main priority, and you want to make it educational for your son, I want to suggest you stick around the Kruger area, there are places like Kapama and Moholoholo rehabilitation centres, where they let adults and kids interact with wild animals, help with feeding the animals and even play with baby lions and both of them are around the Hoedspruit area.


thank you very much!!
 
To be honest with you, I struggled to transfer from a right side steering wheel to a left side steering wheel when I went to the USA as a student. And my biggest problem was to get used to find a new centre spot on the road as well as turning the vehicle. It took me about 2 weeks to get it right.

This. Totally agree with this when I switched from driving from the right of the car/left of the road to the opposite side in the USA. Especially centering the car; kept naturally veering to my right side of the lane I was in. Turning right and left also took time to get used to.
 
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I hired a car in Barcelona and like 10mins later scraped the side of it when going up a ramp onto the motorway cause I couldn't tell how far I was from the wall on the spiral ramp thing I was driving up, lol
 
Hello boys! @unrated and @TRF_heineken!
Im back from S.A! fist of all y want to thank you cos many of your advice where very usefull.
its been a hell of a ride full of emotions of all kinds.
To start with, the plane to get there was very hard to endure! 2.45 to Sao Paulo, 5 hs there and then 8.30 to joburg, Few more hours at the airport and then the plane to skukuza. It took us like 24 hs! i was thinking how tougth it must be for the players! we did feel de jet lag and slept for 14 straight hs.

The rental car was there as we got out of the plane. I had little to no problem with driving from the other side (while in the parck) just turning on the wind shield cleaner insted of the turning sign (every time) but the speed limits, litlle traffic and good roads, allow me to adapt well. At the beginig i tried to get de gear shifter whit the right hand only to touch te door.. but it was the first day (i´m left handed so it was relativley easy to do it.)

Kruger park
This place is just breath taking, the amount of animals, their size and majesty is something well never forget. the hole place seemed taylored por the tourists so we felt safe in spite of the obvious danger.
As you mendioned betwen Lower sabie and Olifants there where so many incredible palces, landscapes and animals that we could not belive our eyes.
The camps where confortable and we had a great time, visited satara and Letaba aswell ( my son loved the elefant museum ) and an old guide there, gave us very interesting insights
We got to see 4 of the big 5 (dont understand why the giraffe is not among them) they are such beautifull creatures. we could not get to see the leopard.
we followed your suggestion and took the safaris, one in the night and one in the morning before sunrise. it was just great! but the best sightings we did them by ourselves. We didnt get to see rhinos at kruger (but did saw many of them later on in santa lucia)
The main incident happend when we took a long loop and run, by surprise after some bushes, with a bunch of elefants. One of them let us know inmediately that she didint like us to be there. Think we kind of surpise her. She scared the s... out of us. I just escaped at full speed. in other ocasions we run into them but they didint seem to care. We even had a picnic (in a permited area) and there was a family of elefants feeding not more than 10 meters away.
we got to see a herd of lions feeding very close too.
(before getting there i thought il would be more like a zoo kind of experience. Nothing to do with a zoo! you really get an amount of exitement that a zoo will never provide the experience is so different!( it s you who s in the cage) when the male lion appeared it froze us like a thunderbolt!
and then there´s the hunt having to work for it (i drove more than 500 kilometers in the park alone)
The food and prices in the park where reasonable, we ate very well for like 15 uSs in every camp. (the food is damm good) people are so, or even more crazy than us about braai, it looked like everybody grilled every night!
about malaria we took the very expensive medicine (but didnt see a single mosquito) at santa lucia the told us that there had not been cases of malaria in 15 years.
While driving to cocodrile camp in the south end of the park we got to finally see a cheeta with 2 calves that was so lucky! later on they told us that is the hardest to see.
Moving to izimangaliso.
Driving to Santa Lucia was indeed an adventure! It took me like 10 hs. There is a clear difference betwen the provincial and national roads. but all of them where at least decent (dont know what your uncle considers a bad road he should come to argentina HAHA) at some point we passed thou a long lapse of very poor black comunites
where lots of people where walking along the road) and hitchhiking. i wanted to stop but didint dare. The place and people seemed so differnent and remote.
People looked at us like we where from mars. Think everybody could tell we wheren´t from there, even though we are white we don´t looke like white South africans at all.
For instance we met lots of kids visiting museums, and they satared at us and specially to my kid. to finally say hi!
We stopped in a gas station in a place called Mkondo and the guy asked me where we where from! when i say Argentina he just smile and nod his head, i repeated and then had to use de code name MESSI!! then he goes ahh!! that was funny.
A few miles away from Santa Lucia we got to meet the road police. One of them rusehd acrros the road as we passed. They said i was speeding ( i think i wasnt) in any case he said i could pay a reduced fine right there.. i palyed along: 500 rand and left as quick as i could (the police does the same **** in Argentina)
We loved Santa Lucia and the izimangaliso park, there we did the tour for the hippos an saw plenty them, even a family out of the water (wich the guide said is unusual) tons of nile crocodiles, birds (an african fish eagle)
The appartement we rented was very nice and we enjoyed to go back to confort. As soon as i sat on the cauch and turn on the tv i looked for the sport channels and there it was the Curry Cup fisrt divison final!! So i got to see live how the boys won the tournamet!! (realy jelous of your rugby channel!!)
the next day we snorkel in Cape Vidal and visited the bat cave. those beaches there where so beautifull!! To sink your head in the water and benith the first rock find a lobster and multi colored fish! The water was pristine the sand fine and soft we could even see the humpback whales some hundred meters away from the shore (those same whales visit aregnetina too). We do have 5000 km of shoreline, but our beaches suck. They are windy, the water is cold and green brownish. the sand thick..

We had a great time there saw plenty of animals,10 difernet rhinos, kudus and much more. The monkeys where a bit annoyng, after a while my son fed them in spite of my advice.. and then they where after us, a bigger adult appeared and demanded food in a very agresive way! my wife and kid where scared i tried to scare him away but he stood up! showing me his teeth, she was eating an apple and we had to give it to him. We got mugged by a monkey!! After that i looked for a big stick and hold it with me at all times, it was the only way to keep them away.
We saw them storm some tourists that had gone to the sea. They stole everyting!!! even opened the fridge!!
To durban.
After that i drove to durban where we had to drop the car. We drove around the first day and got to se the kings stadium home of the sharks! mi son was exited!
But we find the city to be very agresive, lots of highways dificult to go by and places with so much povety. it remind me of Sao Paulo or Colombia and also Argentina. But it was tougher cos you are ignorant of the codes. It was hard to understand the accent. We visited the very beautifull botanic garden and a natural museun that where very nice, It´s defently not a city to walk arround! i had returned the rental and we moved with uber. We stayed two days and that first night we walked to a restaurant 2 blocks away, it was 6 pm or so (we are used to have diner much later) but by the time we left the hotel by feet the street was deserted, we passed several people sleeping in a corner, we found an Arab restaurant where all the people where muslims some women had burkas, no blacks no whites just muslims (didint know they where so many, indians too) in aregntina people are way more integrated and mixed. it looked like they where " new" inmigrants. the food was chip and very good!! and where very kind to us.
 
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Joburg
After that we fly to joburg and stayed 2 nights mostly to rest before the long way home. If we find Durban agressive joburg was much more. The contrast between rich and poor, black and whites seemed gigantic. never seen so many electric fences.
We walked 4 blocks to a restaurant first, and then like 7 to a mall, we wanted to buy some presents to our nephews. We again where stared at (my son was whearing a croatia footbal shirt) mistake! While waiting for the Uber some guy aproched, said he was a police man and started yelling that we needed a permision, that we needed to buy one at the atm nearby, even though i knew something was wrong we followed the guy to the service station. I asked him to show me his badge and then some other guy show up he did have some kind of ID hanging from his neck, he pretend to show us how to get the permition ( bullshit of course) hopefully my wife, who has wathcing the scene more than participating, was cool engough to think. The guy only talked to me, she used an argentinian card instead of the credit card that we where in fact using, so the guy took the card inserted it in the atm and asked my wife to mark the pin and then the phone nbr. in a second they where gone with the card.
After that the people in the station approched and told us what we allready knew, cancel the card! Hopefully we had a usable phone and we did cancel it within minutes, So actually nothing happend, but it really ruin my day. I felt so stupid (they try a similar scam to me here in Arg some years ago but i didnt fell for it) my wife was telling me to just walk away but it didnt feel safe either so i thought that getting to the service station where the atm was, was the best option. The fact that nobody said anithing until they got away with the card, proved that they where scared too. i could see it in their faces. There where at least 10 people in there.
The uber driver was very kind and helped along. In fact we had a few situations where strangers where extremely kind, one woman walked with us for 3 blocks in Durban to show us an adress. When we got to Joburg they could not find our reservation at the hotel, and again the uber driver stayed there until everyting was ok.
The next day we took the city tour bus and went to the apartheid museum. That was a chilling experience, at times i had to make an effort to hold my tears, in a way we can ralate to it cos we had policical violence aswell during the 70s, and it took me back to some dark times. Also my father toured SA as a couch with a rugby team in those years so i could not avoid a sense of shame and dispair (dont blame him at all it was such a different time, but recently we talked about it and he said he did wrong) Many of the famous touring South America XV who got that win vs the bocks also regret it) when we got back to the hotel i find out that chester had died, and minutes ago i was telling my kid all about him. such a sad moment.
Again we where approched by some other guy while waiting for the city bus there was no one around. Again i knew something was wrong so these time i cut him off.
and while i was sayng to my wife just go away with the kid a security man approched, by the time i lookd again the man had fled.
Far from pointing my finger or beeing judgemental , cos i know that i had only a glance into a complex country and reality and my views are far away from the truth. i consider it very interesting experience i´m really glad i visited and i would recomed everyone to go. i been throu **** many times. robbed in italy, in BS AS several times, stabbed, also in BS AS and i had to run for my life more than once so im not easyly scared.
it is a land of exuberance where we find the best and the worse and we got to taste it all.
think it was great material for my kid to learn cos maybe it was his first glance to real life with all it beauty and mysteries.
all the best to you and your great country.
 
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Yeah never feed the monkeys in St Lucia. I grew up in that Northern KZN area and I've seen monkeys open double latched coolers and get into all sorts.

Joburg is **** and I always recommend that people not to stick around there if you don't need to. Unfortunately yes, you would stuck out to the criminals. You should have bought a Springboks jersey to blend in!

It's a pity you didn't get to Cape Town which is my favourite SA city
 
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Yeah never feed the monkeys in St Lucia. I grew up in that Northern KZN area and I've seen monkeys open double latched coolers and get into all sorts.

Joburg is **** and I always recommend that people not to stick around there if you don't need to. Unfortunately yes, you would stuck out to the criminals. You should have bought a Springboks jersey to blend in!

It's a pity you didn't get to Cape Town which is my favourite SA city
well my brother went to there last year so me and my son already own a bokke jersey. but wearing those there we would look like tourists trying to blend in! as for cape Town it was more due to the flights availability and logistics and that we where seeking for the wild life. next time!!
 
Good to hear! And I'm glad you didn't become another tourist statistic with regards to crime.

Glad to hear your experience in the Kruger was nice, man I miss that place so much, but I dare not go there now with my kids being so young. You came at just the right time not to have the mozzies at you all the time. had you been here in a month's time when the rain comes and the dams fill up, they will be there in their millions.

How was the food?? Did you braai?
 
I'm sad to see I missed this thread during my hiatus but glad you had a memorable experience (apart from the wrong the kind of memorable of course). Yeah, we have some issues in SA but now you also know the draw cards.

Had I've seen it I'd have fought tooth and nail that you only need to stop in at the Western and Eastern Cape though Addo Park is not quite the Kruger the rest more than makes up for it. Sorry you had to experience the Northern cities. Our waters are only too cold for the limp wristed. I mean isn't cold water what you are looking for on a sunny beach day?! Okay, so Clifton is very cold but just go in and out for short swims and tans. Really refreshing. A few cramped toes is worth the visit to Gansbaai for the Great Whites.

I am the president of make the giraffe part of the big 5 club. Not really but I should get a campaign going. Leopards might as well not exist and don't have the charisma of cheetahs. Buffalo have zero charisma when compared to a giraffe. Hell even an Eland is more impressive IMO. Ostriches are huge birds and the white and black feathers are impressive. Also, put a buffalo and hippo next to each other and tell me you aren't more scared of the hippo. Big 5 should be IMO: Lion, Elephant, Giraffe, Eland and Ostrich. My reasoning is that an Eland is the most impressive of the buffalo/buck variety, rhino and hippo fall into the same category where the elephant is king, the lion picks itself. Giraffe is the tallest land mammal, hugely interesting and the ostrich is the biggest bird. Easy.

My idea of the best SA has to offer on a reasonable budget/time frame is Cape Town CBD 1 day just the city. Day 2: Table mountain the morning into Clifton for beach and sundowners. Day 3: Kirstenbosch morning walk to Hout Bay fish and chips lunch taking the worlds prettiest drive (Chapmans Peak f course) into Cape point or Simons Town/Kalkbaai if you've had enough hiking already for now. Day 4: From there take the N2 stopping over at Hermanus (in whale season?) and visiting the Hemel and Aarde wine district (Stellenbosch/Franschhoek is better but thats more out of the way here unless you fit it in as a day trip while in Cape Town- but I think H&A is underrated). Day 5 shark cage diving in Gansbaai, make your way to Addo park visting the usual stops along the way. Day 6 and 7 at Addo. That's my best SA experience in a compact form. Though I do admit the Karoo, West Coast, East Coast and Laeveld have their own attractions, Cape Town into Garden Route is the best for me. The only thing is Addo doesn't have giraffes.. but my newly formed organization will sort that out.
 
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Good to hear! And I'm glad you didn't become another tourist statistic with regards to crime.

Glad to hear your experience in the Kruger was nice, man I miss that place so much, but I dare not go there now with my kids being so young. You came at just the right time not to have the mozzies at you all the time. had you been here in a month's time when the rain comes and the dams fill up, they will be there in their millions.

How was the food?? Did you braai?
right! it was not a coincidence we carefully search before booking. we read that the best time was this when there 's little water and the bushes are almost dead wich will allow better sightings. and then when the rains come the animals spread. they have water everywhere and don't need to gather upon the waterholes. and of course the mosquitoes.
anyways it must be quite a great view of exuberance during the spring and summer.
but the temperatures must be crazy even now (end of winter) the temperatures where near 35 degrees Celsius! at mid day, but after sunset dropped to a very nice to sleep 15!
we do know what is like to sleep with that temperature, 100% humidity and the mosquitoes buzzing around! (I live 15 km away of one of the biggest delta systems of the world (tigre) it's uncomfortable even in a proper house. in a tent or bungalow must be tough as hell.
yes we got braai and liked very much but I'm not sure that it was the real thing.
in Argentina you must go to sombodys house to get it. in a restaurant is not the same cos the real thing it's more like a long process. different stages of food and it takes like 6 hs! but the food was very good. not only the braai! every thing we tryed was good. in durban we got to try lots of sea food (excelent) at first glance the braai has more spice. marinated
we don't. we cook the meat just with a bit of salt. but I knew just by seeing the grills at Kruger that people here knew how to cook meat. why ? the grill distance to the flame is adjustable wich is fundamental for the perfect doing. in most places people just make a fire, spread it and toss the meat to a fixed grill.. controlling the heat is fundamental. in Argentina we do the fire in a different place and when ready we take it to the grill and adjust the amount of heat by adding more or less fire or more distance between the fire and the grill. doing it slowly like 3hs with constant temperature will make the meat softer. but I ate in a random place once. that is no measure. but it was good! it seemed more American style with the rub. the wine was good to but I'm not expert. red wine and meat is the essence of our asado. specially malbec. it felt like home at night when the sun went down and all the fires started to flash. every tent or bungalow had and used the grill! but the shops in the park are a bit limítated. I didn't knew the the brands. they sold only packed meat . later on in Santa Lucia I bought random burgers and did them in the grill they where shitty.. I read about some cheese sandwiches you do when you braai. didn't try those but seemed very good as an apetizer we do chorizo or provoleta (hot cheese) I'll post some photos next time I grill.
 

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