Kruger National Park is one of the most renowned wildlife parks not only in South Africa but also in the world. Established in 1898 by Paul Kruger, it was shortly thereafter taken over by Major James Stevenson-Hamilton. Major Stevenson-Hamilton was in charge of the camp for 44 years and worked adamantly to expand it to its current size of 8,384 square miles. The park has a width of 37 miles and a length of 217 miles. Kruger’s diversity of species is unrivaled, being home to 336 different types of trees, 45 fish, 34 amphibians, 114 reptiles, 587 birds, and 147 mammals. Kruger has an amazing road system that allows guests to easily travel around a large part of the park, with dirt roads that are accessible off of the paved roads. The park receives 1.5 million visitors a year, and is able to hold up to 5,000 people a day in its various camps. However, even with this large amount of visitors, people affect only five percent of the park.
We stayed in the Skukuza Camp, located in the southern part of Kruger. Located on the south bank of the Sabin River, it is one of the top camps for game viewing. It is has a great reputation of allowing guests to see the “Big 5.” The Big 5 are comprised of lions, jaguars, rhinos, water buffalos, and elephants. These five animals get there name because they are the least common animals to see around the country. At our specific accommodation we all stayed in smaller huts that housed two or three people. Outside on the porch, each hut had a hot plate, refrigerator, table, and sink. Inside, there were beds and a bathroom. The huts gave off a very cozy feel and at night you could hear the lemurs and monkeys around the premise.
After our arrival at Kruger we enjoyed a group dinner at an old train station turned restaurant. One of the signs read “Cape Town- 1164 miles”, which was where we were not 12 hours before dinner. After dinner we retired to our huts to get a quick five-hour sleep in before departing on our first safari at 3:45 am. Morning safaris are generally better for seeing animals, and this did not disappoint. We separated into two buses and each group had a slightly different experience.
On my bus we saw a leopard and three lions as the first animals we saw. It was quite a way to start the safari. Our guide explained that the way the lions were lounging it was evident that they had just finished a meal. In the jungle the female lions go and hunt and the male lions wait for the food and eat. In contrast, there is a species of birds that the males make the homes and wait for their females to come home. If the females do not like the home they tear it apart and leave and wait for the male to remake the home to their liking. It was interesting to see the differences between the sexes in different species.
As we traveled through the park there were an astounding amount of kudu, impala, and springbok, which all closely resemble deer. Next we came across an elephant that wasn’t more than 20 yards from us. I very much underestimated the size of the creatures. They can eat up to 240 kilograms a day, which is three of me, and drink 150 liters of water. One guide explained that they should be considered the king of the jungle, because elephants are scared of no other animals while lions, generally regarded as kings, are very afraid of elephants.
Next we came across five zebras traveling together. An extremely interesting fact about zebras is that no two zebras have the same stripes, similar to human’s fingerprints. Towards the end of the safari we saw a pack of roughly 75 impalas that also had some zebras and a wilder beast around them. The animals being together like that meant that there were no predators close by. It was interesting to see that the animals work together because they know that if they are together they have more eyes and can warn each other earlier if there is a predator around.
Our night safari was less successful in my opinion. We headed out around 5:00 pm when it was still light out and ended around 8:00 pm, and the sun began setting around 7:00 pm. We saw a group of giraffes that also had zebras around, again showing their ability to be around each other. Again we saw a few elephants, but they were fairly far away. We saw rhinos as well, but they were so far away our group says that we saw 3 ½ of the big 5, because they were just too far to say we actually got the experience of a rhino. One interesting thing the tour guide explained is that when elephants are around 12-14 years old their mothers kick them out of the pack and they are left to fend for themselves. Recently they had a problem with those younger males getting no attention from the female elephants who want the older, larger elephants, and mating with rhinos. However, when they do this they end up killing the rhino because the elephants are just too big to do this. It again shows how powerful the elephants are. One of the coolest experiences we had was at the end of our night safari. As we about to go home there were two lions sitting on the road, and they ended up being not more than 10 feet from us. It was very cool, but also very intimidating.
The entire experience was amazing. It was very impressive how the animals were so comfortable with humans being around. Kruger is an amazing park and really shows South Africa’s commitment to preserving their environment and the animals that inhabit up the area.
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