North of the South's Wild Side

Limpopo, Venda, South Africa….where are you going? So the best way to describe where I am at is that I am in the more northeastern district of South Africa. Now in that province is pretty large, but I am in a town called Thohoyandou if you really want to map it. The place isn’t too rural, though is clearly near places that are quite rural. We have a Shoprite and an Oasis grocery store nearby ask well as a post office and phone store, but technically I am not supposed to go walking around alone. Shame. One of my favorite things to do is get to know a city by walking. Kampala, Paris, Musanze, Kigali, you name it, I walk it – generally. Guess not here.

This town (which I haven’t seen too much of due to my advised inability to walk) there is a university, a ton of NGOs and clearly a lot of UVA students. Our lodge alone will be hosting more than ten (who are accompanied by other university students from the States). There is a mosque from which the call to prayer broadcast over loud speakers each day and evening in its beautiful melodies.

Monkeys. Now the monkeys of our lodge are EVERYWHERE, and the little bandits ran in and out with a loaf of bread yesterday from one of the other student’s cabins. While bad, what was worse was that once the spoiled loaf had been recovered, it was fed to the monkeys reinforcing the “steal food, get food” mentality that these monkeys. Having said that, they are adorable! Having been spending the majority of my time at the house, these crazy little monkeys and their less devious black tip ferrets have been providing me quite the array of amusement.

Luckily, it has not all be about the monkeys. Since I have been getting to know the other students lodging at the same place as me, the weekend was filled with making those friendships. Not only did we have a braai or cookout on Saturday (including a croc and bird watching experience), but we spent Sunday doing a day safari! Of course the rest will be describing these fun little trips rather than actually describing the villages of Limpopo, but that will come with my research team!

The day safari involved a bit of a drive to the Punda Maria gate to Kruger National Park. We paid for our admission (200R) and then after using the pretty nice toilette, we headed back to the car and into the park. It was about that time that we all jokingly said, “so where are the animals?” Within seconds, 3 VERY large elephants came into view directly in front of the car on the tarmac! The first reaction was clearly to hit the break and the second was to pull out cameras and stick them through windows! It was an incredible entrance, but was met by a few other elephant encounters that even put these one’s (lazily crossing the road) to shame.

Our second fabulous elephant encounter (there were other encounters between our entrance and this one) was at the watering hole. We pull up to a y-shaped intersection not quite sure where to go. Seeing another car doing the same we assumed it was for the purpose of being lost as well. On the other side of the jeep across from us, another elephant was splashing water at himself and quite happily drinking from his own trunk! This was incredible, but shortly after we snapped out photos he headed off along the water’s edge. Little did we know that over the next hill, he was meeting about another 8 elephants who were mud-slinging and fighting each other shoulder deep in the waterhole! It was amazing to hear the tusks hitting one another and the force of them moving the water literally out of their way as they roughhoused. It was of course silent without the car engine on, and so all you heard were the elephants and then later the bucking of the zebras that snuck-up behind us!

Overall, the day featured a black back jackal, warthogs, ostriches, giraffes, zebras, impala, wildebeests, baboons, vervet monkeys and goodness knows some beautiful birds! Strange to be a tourist before a local this time around, but without a reason to be in the villages each day, it is hard to get to know one’s surroundings! But the monkeys of our chalets are the vervets we met in the park, and they were equally mischievous! They managed to steal an entire loaf of bread off of our picnic table!!

After lunch, our drive continued and the elephant sightings did, too! We not only saw a stand-off between a Civic sized car and an elephant, but also so the cars behind back-up slowly and get as far away as they possibly could. The elephant was likely trying to make sure that her/his baby could cross the road safely, but what could have been just a crossing guard moment turned into a 15 minute (at least) stand-off with our cars moving slowly backward and the elephant sizing us up. It walked straight toward the car ahead of us, but we managed to continue backing-up to give the one in front safe distance to slam into reverse if they needed to (aka if the elephant decided to charge). Luckily, it did not and moved on.

In Lion King Style the encore involved most everyone- the warthogs, zebras, wildebeests, and of course the elephants- but this time, there was a trick-up its trunk. This elephant managed to knock over a tree in less than 2 minutes. He’d been eating from its lower leaves and decided that the upper ones were just too high up. SO when you weigh a few tons, you just think let me knock this tree over right? Well, apparently for the big old elephant, the answer is yes! The elephant lined up his tusks on either side of the tree and just started to move slowly forward. The cracking of the tree led to an adjustment and a continued moving forward of massive animal against the tree. So with the closing of the gate came dinner time for this hungry elephant…shame that it got dirty in the small poof of dust that flew-up as it fell!