We arrived in Johannesburg at 8:40am after a 15 hour flight. We cleared immigration and then had to wait forever on our luggage, but we cleared customs quickly. I looked for sign holders and found two BushTracks ladies, one of which took us across the street to the InterContinental hotel. We had coffee in the lobby as we waited for our other travelers to arrive. There are 13 of us, all from the US plus our guide/naturalist/den mother, Dr. Bill Branch. They trickled in except for two who were meeting us at Lanseria airport. Everyone seemed quite friendly, even Linda from Sarasota who I had found on Google and thought looked quite stern. She turned out to be the jester of the group and kept us all in stitches throughout the trip.
We left for Lanseria airport at 11 and the trip took an hour through lots of traffic. At the airport we were met by another Bushtracks rep. Unfortunately the airport’s water was not working, so neither were the bathrooms. Some nice guy took us next door to the admin building where we used their facilities.
At 1:15 we headed off to Mala Mala in two planes. One was a Cessna 406 that seated 6 plus the pilot. Our plane was a Cessna Caravan that seated 12 plus the pilots. The pilot of our plane was named Max, a really nice young South African, who took us all over on our trip. There was lots of controlled burning going on, and the air was quite hazy.
At 2:30 we landed at Mala Mala. This was an asphalt runway with nothing around it. The pilots had to do a pass over to make sure that no animals were on the runway. We loaded on two safari trucks and were driven to Mala Mala main camp. We checked in and immediately were served a lovely buffet lunch which we had on the terrace. There were lots of salads, cheeses, great breads. There were impala and nyala wondering around the camp grounds. We went to the room for a few minutes to freshen up. The accommodations are amazing. There is a large sitting room with a patio overlooking the river, a large bedroom with another sitting area looking out to the river, a desk area, two large bathrooms. This was Bill’s favorite room.
Then we headed out for our first game drive. We split into two groups into the two trucks. This was how it would be for the whole trip. We did not follow each other, so often we had different sightings. Our driver was named Anthony, and he must have told us a million times that he was ‘the chief ranger’. He knew his animals, but he needs a little seasoning and more people skills. This afternoon we saw a thorn nob tree, great king fisher, pied kingfisher, impala with baboons, hammerkop nest, leopard orchid, gray lourie (go-away bird), impala, kudu, russet bush willow with lots of berries, lots of impala, marula tree, leadwood tree which was 500+ years old, elephant rock, crested francolin, cape buffalo, plaques on a huge granite outcropping with the names of the original owners on it, a rhino midden (dung message stations!), saddle-billed stork, bush buck, civet, and finally a leopard stalking water buck and impala. We followed the leopard for quite a while to see if he would make a kill, but it didn’t happen while we were watching.
We were back at camp by 7:30, went to the room to freshen up, and then met back at the bar for drinks. I had my first Amarula which I had heard about on Wildearth.tv. It is made from the fruit of the marula tree and tastes much like Bailey’s Irish crème. They also served some hors d’ouvres – tiny egg rolls, chips, bacon wrapped around sausage.
Dinner was served at 8:30. It was too windy for dinner in the boma (reed enclosed outdoor dining area) so we had dinner in the breakfast room. Dinner consisted of gazpacho or fat free veggie soup, and cold, thinly sliced salmon with dill sauce. This was served to us at our table. Then we went to the buffet which had ostrich slices with peppercorn sauce (this was pretty tasty and not as gamey as I thought it would be), eggplant and cheese, scalloped potatoes, sweet potatoes, and spinach. Dessert was served at the table and was a choice of lemon soufflé or ice cream with chocolate or caramel sauce or fruit salad. Then we were served coffee and cheese and crackers. After dinner everywhere we stayed, the staff sings a few African songs to us which was a lovely end to lovely days!
After the long, long day we all went to our rooms after dinner. At every camp we had to be escorted by camp staff to our rooms after dark. A variety of animals roam these camps, so we are to stay in our rooms or on our porches at night.
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