Swaziland, Kruger, and a Birthday

We just got back to Pretoria and some internet access- that's why there haven't been any updates lately. The thing was is that we were in some pretty remote places, and while remote means no internet it also means a whole bunch of other amazing stuff that easily makes up for not being connected to the world wide web.

We drove from Pretoria to Swaziland to visit May Allen's aunt and uncle, and it took us all our navigational skills and about 4 hours of our day. It takes a little while to get used to highways in another country; things are just plain different, especially the driving on the wrong side of the road part but also the people crossing the highways on foot. I'm not sure what they are thinking but apparently everyone is thinking that same thing because tons of people run across the highways here.

After dodging the pedestrians we drove to the border of Swaziland and South Africa to deal with the customs there. The South Africa side was easy as we documented with our video camera, but once we got to the Swazi side that video camera almost caused us some problems. The border officer saw that I was taking video and very aggresively asked if I was taking pictures of him. Of course I said no and put the camera down on the floor of teh car. Our friendly border officer then grilled us on why we were coming to Swaziland, when we arrived in South Africa, where we'd be staying in Swaziland, etc. All of these questions would have seemed normal had they not been down with a scowl and a glare from this man's face. As we later found out from Dale, May's uncle, some Americans had been in Swaziland a couple months prior to our visit with CNN and had run some sort of documentary on how the king of Swaziland was exploiting his people. So, obviously, these guys at the border had reason to treat Ameicans with video cameras with some skepticism.

After that encounter the rest of the people we met in Swaziland were great. Dale and Irma, May's aunt and uncle, took us in and allowed us to stay at their house overlooking the "heavenly valley" of Swaziland in the capital city of Mbabane. It was an incredible view. We went to the local hot springs with Dale at 5am to get the morning started and then went around the kingdom to see what we could. With Irma we checked out their nail factory and then picked up some African crafts at the local spot. We only stayed in Swaziland for a couple nights because Dale and Irma sold us on Kruger National Park and set us up with reservations, so we left on Thursday to get over there.

We came in the south gate and drove up to our first night where we stayed at Skukuza camp. On our way in we were greeted by a giraffe walking across the street. We thought that was amazing- little did we know what awaited us the next couple days.

The next day we drove on some dirt roads to a wildlife viewing blind. This blind overlooked two different watering holes with a bit of a mound separating the two ponds. In the one on our right we could see probably five or six crocodiles and some hippos while the water hole on our left had some impala drinking from the water. As we looked closer at the hole on our left we saw that of the five impala drinking from the water one must have gotten too close and was stuck up to its chest in the mud. It was struggling to the point of exhaustion to free itself but it couldn't get itself out of there.

Kicker and I looked at one another and wondered if we were in for some discovery channel action, half hoping the impala would free itself and half hoping the croc would come find it. As we were thinking this, one of the crocs from just beyond the mound separating the water holes worked its way to the impala's watering hole. As it slowly walked to the water's edge and slunk into the water, the impala in the mud got a bit skittish. The croc worked its way over to the impala and clamped down on its front shoulder. The impala let out a yelp and for the rest of the episode was silent and peaceful looking (as odd as that seems). The croc slowly worked its way out to the middle of the pond and worked on drowning and killing the impala until the impala's neck was limp. As he had accomplished this it was as if a dinner bell had rung and all of a sudden these crocodiles that could not see the action were migrating their way to the meal that awaited.

AFter a couple minutes there was a muddy croc feeding frenzy with reptiles spinning, thrashing, and twisting their way to an impala lunch. Two or three would grab hold of the impala with one holding and the others twisting off chunks of bone and flesh. After 10 minutes of these guys churning up the mud puddle the big daddy croc worked its way over. This thing was HUGE! Its head must have been 3 feet wide and its body close to 20 feet in length. It made its way straight into the action and just grabbed that impala away from the others and swam away. It came right towards the blind we were in and started chomping on the muddy carcass trying to arrange it so it would go down his gullet. He tossed that thing all over the place while some other crocs did the same with their morsels. The entire impala minus a leg or two fit in this crocodile's mouth and the only thing keeping it from swallowing were the horns on the impala's head. We thought that these horns might be a problem but that monster proceeded to simply crush the skull in and horns and all. Then it threw its head and throat back and let the whole animal slide down its throat- I guess that's how it got to be 20 feet long! We asked our friends here in Pretoria and they said this particular crocodile must be about 100 years old- truly a dinosaur of sorts.

After the crocs we figured our wild life viewing luck was all used up, but we were quite wrong. The lion story will come next when I get back from working out at Tuks University here in Pretoria...