Safari bound: Joburg to Imfolozi HluHluwe in Kwazulu Natal

Day One of the tour:

Wait, you booked a tour with a group? I got this a lot. Here's the deal y'all. Could I have planned a great trip as I have many times on my own? Sure. But after our amazing Galapagos experience in 2019 with Intrepid Adventures, it really seemed silly not to use their expertise. The African Safari with Teenagers trip is one of their most highly rated experiences. From our Galapagos trip, we met an insider to the company, and Robin assured us that this was a trip of a lifetime. No glamping, no fancy resort lodging and Veuve on demand like our last safari, but rather mostly camping and more natural lodges, transport via ground, group work with dining, cleanup, etc. We learned that there were 4 other families joining us early on, so that also helps with teenagers because then if they get sick of hanging with parents, they have other social opportunities...until they need money again of course.

So here goes:

Full day 4: I had a big issue. A medication that I forgot in the states was being 2 day fed exed to SA, but because it said I was a doctor on the package, it was confiscated. Instead of a nice day biking in Soweto, I spent essentially the entire day trying to convince the FDA of SA and customs to please open the package and see that it is a script for ME and that I am not distributing meds to SA. This never happened. I essentially just said a prayer that if my Dupixent has worn out, that I am not dealing with sheets of skin falling off and hearing loss. Kind of incredible that calling with my passport and a pic of my medical license and a pic of the script wasn’t enough. So, go right to hell FedEx and customs, and thanks for wasting 2k in a medication.

I am sure my family got some pics of Soweto but unfortunately, I cannot make report. Actually, updating now, I suppose there are no pictures, my apologies. For all of the wonderful skills and traits of my husband, taking pictures for my blog is not his forte. The ones he took of the kids playing a soccer match with the local kids also still haven't been sent my way...

Meeting the group was nice. With 8 adults and 8 kids with pretty good age matches, that generally portends good success with relationships during the trip where all folks are new to each other on day 1.

Day 5: the journey to Hluhluwe Imfolozi park was a long one with few stops, so I don’t have much to report. Actually, my report is that if you have a bony butt and are in your 40s, bring a pillow because the south African massage of a crater infested road will leave you with arthritis by the time you reach camp. Perhaps in a different vehicle, aka not a cargo truck converted into a cargo box with seats, the constant impact would have been a bit better, but the bright side is all the turbulence made our iWatches think we were doing parkour or something and we had a lot of ‘exercise’. We stayed at Bonomanzi resort and set up camp before getting acquainted. This was only after a mild issue in which our truck got lodged in foot deep mud, necessitating the use of all the firewood as a ramp to dislodge the beast.

Our wonderful culinary queen, Somkhele, made us a dish of butter chicken on an open fire. One thing I really commend intrepid for is that they mostly have local cooks doing their best to make excellent rounded meals. With the exception of a pit stop at kfc and a weird shopping center (see future entry), it really was a great effort and I thoroughly enjoyed learning some tricks of the trade for open fire cooking throughout the experience. Somkhele, when interviewing for the position, apparently was asked if she could handle cooking for larger groups of families every day…to which she said, “I am black and Zulu…what do you think?”…I instantly knew I was going to be fast friends with her. A not so secret preference of mine is people who be no-nonsense at the same time being a bit cheeky.

Sleeping in tents in the wild can be divided into two types…those who like nature sounds and find them comforting, and those who just don’t sleep because of them. Normally, I am the pro-nature sound person. I did bring noise canceling headphones but found the murmur of frogs to be an easy thing to focus on initially. This classification of travelers, however, does not include a tent mate that sounds like a wart hog snorting to an extent that the tent shakes, so choose the tent mate wisely.

Day 6

Hluhluwe imfolozi national game preserve is one of the largest of its type, and you can self drive or hire a guide to explore. They boast the big 5 and many other animals in the ugly 5, secret 7, small 5, none of which I knew was a thing. So, big 5 is leopards, lions, buffalo, rhino, and elephant. This is because these are the game animals that King Zulu used to aim for but also were so dangerous that many lost their lives trying to use a simple spear or arrow to claim their dinner. The last time I was here, we drove ourselves which was wonderful because you did your own pace. But, you cannot do the off-roading you get with a guide. We saw plenty of items last time from the car, including a white rhino who thought our gray rental car was his family member and came up to sniff it. He was otherwise quite peaceful. Rhinos have poor eyesight in general so we understood the mix up.

With the guides, they communicate via WhatsApp when a rarity is spotted and can quickly navigate very difficult dirt and rock roads. This means you see more faster and the encounters are close, although no rhinos sniffed us. Amongst our finds was a family of giraffes, many elephants including one in must (so stinky), who decided that in he didn’t like us but was yet playing hide and seek all the way down the road. My nervous system was a bit frazzled at this, and and because an elephant about to charge can easily crack a large tree in half, overturn vehicles with a flick of his trunk etc. In fact, at about the same time hundreds of miles away in Zambia, an American tourist died due to an elephant charging and knocking over the truck, trapping her beneath.

The juvenile male lions getting scolded by their mom was also incredible. The pubescent boys walked right in front of us, playing with eachother and trying to ignore mom. We had been hopeful to watch a hunt of the impala in the distance, but similar to my stepson, this juvenile male couldn’t sneak up on a dead guy, so they all scattered. We saw warthogs kissing, some local starlings and hawks, lots of nyala and wildebeests as well. Overall, outside of the leopard, we had the big 5 on the first drive. I also personally like to take rapid pics of things like zebras because they make funny faces, and birds because everyone focuses on the big animals…what did birds and bugs ever do to deserve such obvious disregard? Plus, guinea fowl have the best hairdos of any wild bird, not unlike Prince in Purple Rain.

Final review…if you have a car and free time, you can see a lot by yourself and have a little family time, but if you have the guide you get the extra amusement of off-roading and seeing them get all excited with a report from other guides 😂. In our case, last time we stayed at a reserve with all the bougie amenities called Zulu Nyala reserve. We had morning and evening game drives with the same people, so by day three, the redneck kids were on my nerves constantly discussing how cool it would be to have taxidermy wild animals on their walls that we went outside of the reserve and drove ourselves. If you don’t have kids, and/or cannot fathom tents and open air cooking nightly, this is certainly an option that is well run and has pretty incredible buffets and wine selection.

Either way 10/10 recommend.

Link to the trip itinerary: https://www.intrepidtravel.com/us/south-africa/south-africa-family-safari-teenagers-143849

Imfolozi site: https://www.nature-reserve.co.za/hluhluwe-imfolozi-wildlife-preserve.html

Bonamanzi reserve: https://bonamanzi.co.za/

Link to the Bougie stuff: https://zulunyala.co.za/