Kapama Game Reserve – Arrival

We awoke in Johannesburg to another breakfast at the hotel. Nothing amazing or fancy today, just a quick bite before heading out. It was time to head to the airport and fly to Hoedspruit and onto Kapama Game Reserve. Our tour guide the night before had told us that our pickup today would be at 9:00, and that he was the one assigned so it should all work out. We go outside around 8:45… and around 9:15 called the travel company to find out what was up. They told us they would get back to us, but didn’t know. Cornelis did arrive a few minutes later, traffic had apparently been terrible, but we made it ot the airport with plenty of time and we were on our way.

 

Our flight to Hoedspruit was interesting, another propeller plane. Thanks to TripIt, a mobile app a friend introduced me to recently, I knew ahead of time we were headed to a prop plane, and it was funny to hear the others on the bus going “is THAT our plane?!?”. Yes, in fact, it was! All of the passengers fit into a single bus during boarding, and I don’t think the plane could have held more than fifty people total. It was an interesting experience but not an unpleasant one. The plan trip was short and we were greeted by our ranger, Joe. It’s actually a couple of days later while I am writing this, and I just put together that Ranger Joe was also Uncle Joey’s name on Full House when he was doing the puppet act with the beaver. Ah, childhood. Anyway…

 

 

Hoedspruit airport is, well… small. Actually, it’s a hut. Yes, a real hut. We got off the plane onto the tarmac and walked from entrance to exit without seeing our luggage. Joe said it would arrive “out front” and being the only plane that afternoon he was right, they just pulled up to the front of the hut and unloaded all the suitcases. My friend Brian has talked about how most US airports are actually just a small shed with a key and a car to borrow inside, and if you’re lucky maybe a guy on the radio. Well… this was my first experience with such a small airport. I have pictures! It was awesome!

 

 

 

 

 

From the airport, it was a fifteen minute trip to the chalet, Joe said, and as it turns out the Kapama game reserve started across the street from the airport.We drove right onto the property and were surrounded by animals again within minutes. It was great to see more zebra, giraffe, and all the rest again! I did not have my camera out on the way in… but looking back I wish I had. It’s probably for the best, I have plenty of pictures as it is!

 

 

 

Kapama is very different from Kariega. While Kariega was very mountainous and full of lush wildlife, Kapama is more of a flat landscape and the underbrush is either dead or dying with a few bushes here and there with leave. Many of the bushes have very large thorns on them, and as dry as the plants are they looked like barbed wire. Given, some of this also was present at Kariega, but not as dry as they are here. We would become intimately more knowledgeable about them soon.

 

Upon arrival, we met with the camp managers, and they got us all signed in and ready to go. They warned us to keep all windows and doors locked, as the monkeys will get in and destroy the room if we do not. The lodge manager asked if we were honeymoon together, and Jen replied with “Ew! No! He’s got cooties!”. As it turns out, this means something different in South Africa, and I’m pretty sure they’re still not convinced I *don’t* have lice, but we tried to correct the misconception. The manager of the lodge said she thought she would enjoy us staying with them, they loved interesting people. We agreed that we were interesting and then blamed each other for the mix-up. Still lice-free, luckily!

 

 

After check-in, we grabbed a quick lunch before heading off on our first game drive at Kapama with high expectations. Imogen had set a pretty high bar, and this time we have a team of two guiding us, the ranger Joe and a spotter who actually sits on the front of the truck. Having other couples also involved us being split up in the car, and I got the very back seat with a very nice couple from Castle Rock, Colorado (of all places! I live in Denver, Colorado for those reading who do not know me). Their names were Brandon and Sue, and with Brandon on the outside and Sue in the middle, we were pretty tightly packed in the back as we headed out.

 

We drove around for a while, and spotted a few different kinds of things. To be honest right now I don’t remember all the animals we saw that night, I do remember we saw a male lion sleeping… and then I just remember disliking bushes, and Joe, and brambles, and trees.

 

 

During the drive, we spotted a leopard. Well, the spotter did with some pretty inhuman ability if you ask me! The only problem was that the leopard was not very visible from the road, so we decided to dig deep, and find a way through. This included a few hills into a dried-up riverbed, and pushing the vehicle through some dense brush and tree-sized bushes full of thorns. I have the marks on my arms and tears in a shirt to prove it! At one point, we were told to duck below the metal car handles to avoid overhead branches. The only problem was I sat in the tallest seats, so of course that didn’t happen. Instead, I ended up with a cucumber-thick tree branch pressing directly into my arm and chest as the car moved forward.

 

 

 

It hurt, a lot! I reached up, grabbed the branch, made all the appropriate noises to summon strength, and ripped the branch in two about a foot from my body, just enough room to squeak by, but not before having the branches all around tear at my arms as I did it. No big gashes, but a lot of long ones. It’s been a few days and I still have the slits along my upper arms, hands, and elbows. We continued to do this, back and forth, left and right, for what felt like an eternity but was probably only twenty minutes or so. More than a few times I could feel the brambles ripping my shirt away from my body was we tore past, thought later it didn’t really look all that bad. I made a mental note to carry my coat in the future, it’s old and ratty anyway, I’d rather lose it than a shirt. If this was how all the game drives in Kapama were… I was in for a long few days!

 

At the end of all that, I didn’t even really get a picture of the leopard, though I have a few blurry shots. We headed back to camp, had dinner (which was actually a little disappointing, I had a stew which was listed as “curry”, but tasted more like watered-down barbecue sauce), and went straight to bed after a but more wound nursing. It had to get better, I thought, it just had to. Joe said at dinner he was afraid people might say the drive was too rough, and all the other parties sad it was “the most lively yet’, hopefully those are good signs, and not a challenge for tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

More to come, and wish me luck!