South Africa — Blog — The Towering Travelers

After leaving Cape Town, we started our safari adventure. We flew to Johannesburg to meet Haley and David and, after spending one night there, we started driving out to Hoedspruit, where we would turn in the car and have a driver take us the last hour and a half to the safari lodge. Our drive was about six and a half hours, and we split it into two days.

The first few hours were through fields of crops and power plants, and the drive was pretty calm with the notable exception of a three-truck-accident that happened ahead of us and made for a very exciting half hour. At first, both lanes of traffic going our direction just stopped, with some drivers getting out or standing on their cars to see what had happened. Then, as the drivers started to clear one of the lanes ahead, everyone started moving.

A bunch of cars started driving on the shoulder, and then in the grass median between us and the other direction of the highway. We were in a rental car without the best clearance, so we were worried about driving in the grass without knowing where any holes might be, but we eventually followed a truck and an SUV over to the shoulder of the OTHER side of the highway, where we drove against traffic in a line of cars until the accident, and then cut back over through the grass to the correct side of the road. David, who was driving, did a great job staying calm in six chaotic lines of traffic as we all yelled and filmed the experience.

Luckily, that was the most exciting thing that happened to us while driving, and we were only slightly late to our lodging for the night in Graskop. Graskop is around the start of the Panorama Route, which is a beautiful, rocky area with stunning waterfalls and beautiful views. Unfortunately, the area was very smoky from nearby fires, so we didn’t see much of the views, but the waterfalls were still amazing.

Two tall waterfalls pouring down a rock face with trees growing out of the tops and sides of the rocks. — Mac Mac Falls, with amazing greenery all the way down the rock walls (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two waterfalls pouring into a river below with fields and mountains in the background. — Lisbon Falls (photo/Jason Rafal)

The fading sun over smoky mountains with a river running toward them. — The smoky but beautiful view from Lisbon Falls (photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason and Nicole reaching toward each other from an arm's length away with a waterfall in the background, and Nicole is laughing. — “Leave room for waterfalls!” (photo/Haley Carter)

We stayed in a beautiful Airbnb in Graskop that was basically made for photos. It was very simple but a great one-night stop.

The view of the sunset through a window wall with a bathtub on the floor in front. — The amazing view from inside our little cabin (photo/Jason Rafal)

We also got some great bunny chow at Divine Foods at the View in Graskop - it’s a dish consisting of (usually meat) curry in a bread bowl from the east coast of South Africa, and it’s amazing.

A bread bowl with a cracker and four sauces on a wood board on a table with a gas lamp in the background. — A delicious bunny chow meal (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next morning, we stopped for one more Panorama site at the Bourke’s Luck Potholes, where you can look down into a beautifully eroded rock canyon. We were sorry to miss the epic views part of the Panorama Route, but were still glad we were able to see the other attractions.

A view down steep rock walls into naturally-carved pools of water. — Looking down into the potholes (photo/Jason Rafal)

After dropping off our car at the adorable Hoedspruit airport and being driven to andBeyond Ngala Safari Lodge, our safari experience began with lunch and our first game drive.

A giraffe walking through tall grass toward trees. — We saw our first animals, including this giraffe, on our drive to the lodge (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two bush babies, one asleep and one peering over a wooden beam. — The lodge had a family of adorable bush babies living in one of the beams (photo/Jason Rafal)

The experience of being at a safari lodge is unlike anything I’ve ever done before. We had a 5:30 am wakeup call, headed to the breakfast area for coffee or tea and a snack, and then by 6 we were leaving for a game drive with our guide Amy and our tracker Mishack. They would have talked with the other rangers and trackers about the likely viewing options for the morning, and Amy would make a recommendation for where we could go and what we could try to see (we always followed her recommendation). For the next three and a half hours, we’d drive around the property, stopping to watch animals and changing our plans if Amy heard about a good sighting on the radio.

Around 9:30, we’d arrive back at the lodge and have breakfast, then relax for a bit before a 2 pm lunch. The next game drive started around 3:30 or 4, and we stayed out into twilight, watching animals or having drinks in the brush at sunset. Then we would head back to the lodge, have dinner around 7:30 or 8, go to bed, and then get up early to do it all over again. It was incredibly fun and fulfilling and completely exhausting.

We had a couple of special meals while we were there, including a surprise bush breakfast (Amy tricked us into thinking we might see rhinos in the area) and a boma dinner, where she joined us for our first dinner at the lodge. Both of these special meals were cooked over open fires, which is traditional in the area.

This is a good time to talk about the food at the lodge, which, along with the whole lodge experience, was amazing. We had a butler who was with us the whole time and quickly learned what we liked (sparkling water every meal), and he made sure there were always pescatarian options for Haley and David. We had a few options for each meal, and everything we picked was always delicious.

Our lodge rooms were also beautiful, with a large bed, private patio, and huge bathroom with both indoor and outdoor showers, as well as a large tub. When we returned to our room after dinner, we were escorted by a member of the staff, just in case there was a hyena or honey badger hanging out near our rooms (we didn’t see any, but it apparently happens somewhat frequently). The rest of the lodge included a pool, gym, spa, and eating area, all enclosed by a fence that started at four feet high and was only meant to keep out the elephants and buffalo, the most destructive animals who lived in the area.

The view of our bathroom from the outdoor shower (photo/Nicole Harrison)

Ngala safari lodge has a unique story - it was private land that was donated to WWF, but since they weren’t equipped to run a lodge, they leased the land to andBeyond for tourism operations. The land lease helps to fund the South Africa National Parks Trust and its work across the country. Ngala was also the first private game reserve to be incorporated into Kruger National Park, and it maintains an open boundary with Kruger, so the animals can go in and out of the property as they want (it was kind of a reverse zoo, since we had to stay inside of our property lines). They’re also very conservation-minded and focus on animal comfort, with policies like only allowing two vehicles to be near animals at a time. The prey animals were a little nervous about us, but all of the predators were completely comfortable with the vehicles - they just saw us as a large animal that sometimes hung out nearby and never really did anything.

A man bending over and drawing in the sandy ground with a small stick. — Mishack shows us where a baby rhino crossed the road (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close up of a zebra looking into the camera. — Each zebra has a unique stripe pattern, and I loved this one that was more black than white (photo/Jason Rafal)

A male baboon climbing up a large rock in the late afternoon light. — A large male baboon climbing to the top of a rock (photo/Jason Rafal)

A beautiful lilac-breasted roller, our favorite bird of the trip (photo/Jason Rafal)

A large kudu with spiraled horns looking into the distance. — A greater kudu (photo/Jason Rafal)

An impala that was in an unfortunate fight (photo/Jason Rafal)

We were lucky to hear about a female leopard sighting on our first evening at the lodge, and we got to go see her. She had stashed her cub somewhere and laid down for a nap in the tall grass (she was almost impossible to see at first), and as dusk fell she got up and started walking off and calling to the cub. We left her alone at that point, but it was amazing to spend some time with her.

Leopards are so beautiful (photo/Jason Rafal)

A leopard sitting in tall grass in late afternoon sunlight. — Starting to wake up and look around (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of an elephant's face between leaves. — A little elephant, so young it didn’t have tusks yet (photo/Jason Rafal)

A young elephant walking through tall grass. — Such a cute “little” elephant (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dense herd of impala, one with a red-billed oxpecker on its head. — We usually saw impala in dense herds (spot the red-billed oxpecker on the middle one’s head, eating bugs) (photo/Jason Rafal)

The trackers spend a lot of time sitting at the front of the vehicle looking for animal tracks in the dirt of the road. Once they see a fresh track to follow, they’ll get down and track on foot, and other trackers will often be dropped off by other vehicles to help. On our second day, Mishack went into the brush looking for lions. When he radioed in later to tell us he found them and we picked him up, we tried to get him to tell us how he found them. He just followed the tracks and then a lion walked in front of him, he said. Simple.

One of the lions we saw was one of three white lions that exist in the wild; it’s a recessive gene that was thought to have died out, but has started showing up again. He has very cool pale eyes and a light coat.

A white male lion yawning, with a female lion walking by in the background. — The white lion yawning - he’s not actually mad (photo/Jason Rafal)

The lion’s manes grow longer as they age, so the male lions were somewhat young. That being said, they’re huge.

A close-up of a male lion's head facing the camera. — I liked this guy’s hair tuft (photo/Jason Rafal)

A male lion lying in the grass looks back at the camera. — Another picture of the white lion (photo/Jason Rafal)

A close up of a male lion walking toward the camera and glaring. — The lions moved into the shade as they overheated in the sun, creating some dramatic action shots (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of the white lion's face, with many scars visible across his eyes and nose. — The incredibly dramatic white lion (photo/Jason Rafal)

There was a pride of female lions hanging out not far from the males - they all kept an eye out for an easy hunting opportunity but they were pretty chill overall.

A close up of a female lion looking into the distance, with a head and paw of another female lion in the background. — Two of the female lions hanging out in the sun (photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the fun things about having an open camp is that the smaller animals were able to wander in - we mostly saw birds and lizards, but when we were heading to lunch from the pool this little bushbuck was grazing in the bushes right next to the path. They have absolutely giant, Disney-style eyes.

An adorable bushbuck at the lodge (photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason and Haley were constantly looking for new birds to add to their Merlin app, and we all enjoyed finding birds in between finding the big animals. It kept it interesting and always left us with something to do. South Africa also has a lot of really cool birds.

Two yellow-billed hornbills doing some sort of dance (photo/Jason Rafal)

A large black bird with bright red skin across its eye and under its neck and a long, sharp bill sitting perched in a tree. — The dramatic southern ground hornbill, which we saw in a tree instead of on the ground (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two African fish eagles (photo/Jason Rafal)

A male impala smelling us (photo/Jason Rafal)

We learned that hyenas often hang out near wild dogs. The dogs are very frequent and efficient hunters, but the hyenas are bigger, and they are often able to chase the dogs away from a kill pretty quickly.

A spotted hyena sitting up in the grass, with tearing and scarring on both ears. — Look at the beat up ears on this hyena (photo/Jason Rafal)

African wild dogs were first on my list of animals I wanted to see, but I tried not to get my hopes up because they’re fairly rare. Luckily, they had been hanging out on the property, and we were able to see a pack of them on the second afternoon - lions and wild dogs in one day!

They’re absolutely beautiful with their tan, black, and white coats, round ears, and long tufted tails. It was also so fun to see how much they acted like domestic dogs as they played and interacted with each other. Apparently, they are absurdly effective and impressive hunters, unlike most of our pet dogs.

A wild dog lifting its head out of the grass and looking behind it, away from the camera. — I love the ears! (photo/Jason Rafal)

A pack of wild dogs lying on the ground, with one in the back lifting its head to look into the distance. — Looking around from the pile of dogs in the grass (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two wild dogs standing next to a bush, with one licking the other's ear. — They spent a lot of time grooming each other (photo/Jason Rafal)

A standing wild dog with a cut behind its ear looking at the rest of the pack. — The dogs were covered in small (and sometimes large) cuts (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a wild dog with ears flopping to the side looking at the camera. — The pack leader, who had adorable floppy ears (photo/Jason Rafal)

A wild dog standing at a diagonal in the tall grass. — They’re such beautiful animals - I love their coat patterns (photo/Jason Rafal)

In the middle of the game drives Amy tried to make sure we were able to stop for drinks and snacks (sometimes she asked if we were okay skipping it because there were animals to go see, and we always opted for that instead). When we did have time, though, we’d stop for coffee in the mornings and drinks in the afternoon, and both came with delicious local snacks, from biltong (dried, cured meat) to cookies to some sort of amazing dried corn mix that was better than Corn Nuts. Amy and Mishack also made us a variety of mixed drinks - the classic was a gin and tonic with fresh lime, but I was partial to Amarula cream liquor over ice.

Amy and Mishack setting up a drink and snack table in a dry riverbed. — Amy and Mishack set up tasty drinks and snacks for us during the drives (photo/Jason Rafal)

The sun setting over the horizon between trees and bushes, with purple mountains in the distance. — Being out for sunrise and sunset every day is tiring but amazing (photo/Jason Rafal)

Mishack is amazing at spotting things we would never have seen from the front of a moving car, especially at night. He shone a flashlight in long sweeps across the road in front of us, turning it off for us to drive by if we saw diurnal prey animals (their night vision takes a while to come back, which makes them vulnerable until it’s restored). On the second night when we were driving back, he had Amy stop for a moment, and then said what he had found was too hard to see and he’d find another one. A minute or two later he had Amy stop again and pointed out a chameleon on a tree branch, which blended in almost exactly with the leaves. When we asked how he possibly could have seen it, he said he just looks for half a lemon in the trees. We watched it change colors to react to the light for a minute, then left it alone.

A chameleon on a tree lit up by a flashlight in the dark. — A little chameleon in a tree (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next thing we were all able to see - a spider had created almost a full web across the road. We felt bad to have to destroy all its hard work, but the vehicles only went offroad for specific animal sightings, and we needed to take back the road.

Looking toward the front of the car in the dark, with Mishack shining a flashlight on a spiderweb across the road. — A surprise spiderweb (photo/Jason Rafal)

An elephant walking through grass with trees in the background. — We saw a ton of elephants, and it never got old (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a young elephant's face, with its trunk reaching up. — You can tell how old an elephant is by its tusk length - this one was pretty young (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a young elephant's face, with its trunk wrapped around its tusks. — Some fun trunk contortions (photo/Jason Rafal)

An elephant with its ears out to the side looking at the camera. — Flapping its ears to cool itself down (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two large birds perched in the top of a dead tree, with one bird behind the other. — Two tawny eagles in a tree (photo/Jason Rafal)

An impala walking behind a grazing wildebeest.. — The blue wildebeest and impala were often together for protection (photo/Jason Rafal)

A hippo in the water, with the eyes and nostrils of another hippo visible in front of it. — Two mating hippos (photo/Jason Rafal)

A bright blue, red, and green bird with a long forked tails flying against a blue sky. — A lilac-breasted roller in flight (photo/Jason Rafal)

A warthog walking across the road with a red-billed oxpecker on its back. — A warthog with a red-billed oxpecker hanging out on its back (photo/Jason Rafal)

An elephant walking down a dirt road flanked by dense trees. — An elephant walks down the road in the distance (photo/Jason Rafal)

The animal Jason was most excited to see was a cheetah, and they’re not always on the property. We got very lucky, though, and heard from another group that there was a mother and her half-grown cub on the reserve. The baby was still learning what to expect from the vehicles, and got into a tree to watch us more clearly.

A cheetah stalking through the grass and looking at the camera. — The mother cheetah watching us (photo/Jason Rafal)

A young cheetah standing in a dead tree and chewing on some of the bark. — The young cheetah got into a tree to see further and chew on some bark (photo/Jason Rafal)

A young cheetah standing in a dead tree and looking into the distance. — He watched us for a few minutes (photo/Jason Rafal)

We only watched the cheetahs for a few minutes before heading out to give them some breathing room, but it was so cool just to watch them move - they’re so lanky and elegant.

A large spider in a web, with smaller spiders in the web and a green background. — A large and terrifying spider (we think a golden silk orb-weaver) at our lodge (photo/Jason Rafal)

A zebra looking at the camera, with a baby zebra behind it. — This baby zebra was adorable and I was so happy to see her (photo/Jason Rafal)

The baby zebra hadn’t yet learned that oxpeckers are friends and shook this one off (photo/Jason Rafal)

A zebra that is covered in brown dirt looks into the distance. — Another zebra, this one with wider black stripes (photo/Jason Rafal)

Close-up of a zebra's face looking at the camera. — This one had a bit of ear missing (photo/Jason Rafal)

A bush duiker considering whether it should run away (photo/Jason Rafal)

A large, fluffy bird with a long, thick tail and long talons sitting at the top of a tree. — A grumpy-looking white-browed coucal (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two young elephants walking through the grass, with the back one resting its trunk on top of the front one's back. — Two young elephants (photo/Jason Rafal)

A wildebeest with several birds on its back scratching its jaw with its left back hoof. — Several yellow-billed oxpeckers were hanging out on this wildebeest (photo/Jason Rafal)

We were constantly amazed by how quickly we saw a blanket of stars after sunset - by the time we got back to the lodge around 7:30 pm, we could see the Milky Way. On our last night at the lodge, we asked one of the room escorts to take us out to the pool for a few minutes so Jason could take a couple of pictures. I don’t think it was a common request, as he was surprised but excited to see the pictures. If you look closely you can see the little round bird nests in the tree!

The star-covered night sky with a blue-illuminated tree in the bottom of the frame. — The incredible night sky (the tree was lit up from the pool below) (photo/Jason Rafal)

We spent the last morning before leaving the lodge hanging out with the cheetahs again, and we were the only car there, which was really nice. They were more comfortable with us than the day before, and the baby even started nursing, with the mother occasionally growling to let him know that this wouldn’t happen for very much longer.

Two cheetahs, a mother and half-grown cub, look back at the camera. — Double cheetah (photo/Jason Rafal)

A female cheetah lying in the grass and looking off to her right. — The mother cheetah checking out some sounds (photo/Jason Rafal)

A mother cheetah lying down and her baby laying next to her with its paw on her side. — The baby cheetah looking up from nursing (photo/Jason Rafal)

Two men in tan pants, gray fleeces, and gray fleece hats walking away down the road. — Mishack and Tonight, another tracker, heading off to look for animals (photo/Jason Rafal)

Five impala next to a body of water, with one butting the back of another. — We spent some time at a watering hole with some hippos, a crocodile slinking around, and some playful impalas (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dwarf mongoose popping out of a hole and looking at the camera, with another one behind. — A cute dwarf mongoose next to the road (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our safari was incredible, from seeing all the animals, to Amy and Mishack hanging out with us for 8 hours a day and answering all our questions, to the amazing lodge and food. All four of us want to start planning our next safari adventure - Botswana is looking like the next one.

Close-up of a wild dog yawning. — One more bonus picture - we had a great time watching all the animals yawn (photo/Jason Rafal)

Cape Town

Our South Africa trip was based around a safari that our friends Haley and David had found and invited us to book with them. Jason and I decided to add on some time in Cape Town before going to the lodge as well, and we ended up spending a day and a half in Johannesburg too. Overall, we took almost two weeks for the trip, which is the minimum I think I’d book to justify the 30+ hour travel days to get all the way across the world (South Africa is close to the antipode of Washington state).

I had always heard great things about Cape Town, and we were excited to spend some time there. The city has endless things to do, from outdoor activities to museums, and I was frustrated trying to prioritize what we wanted to do in our four days there.

Our first activity after arriving in Cape Town was to go on a free walking tour, which is always a good way to get some context from a local. Our walking tour was historical, and our guide took us through some of the important points of the city center. We took the tour about an hour after arriving in the city and are very glad we challenged ourselves to explore a bit before jet lag set in.

The area was originally inhabited by a few tribes, including the Khoikoi, San, and Xhosa people. The first western “discovery” of Cape Town was by the Portuguese, who sailed by in the late 1400s but never established a long-term presence in the area. The first colonization began in the mid 1600s, when the Dutch decided to establish a settlement to support ships traveling to the Dutch East Indies. Unable to find enough labor locally, they began to import slaves from other areas of Africa, as well as Indonesia, which began the cultural melting pot of the city, as well as the introduction of the “Cape Colored” racial group. The British eventually also saw the value of the Cape and, through various complicated war efforts, fought for control of the city throughout the 1800s; they eventually unified South Africa in the early 1900s.

In 1948, the National Party won on a platform of institutionalized racial segregation, or apartheid. Previously racially integrated, Cape Town, as well as the other cities in South Africa, subjected Black citizens to forced relocation to townships. While apartheid was finally repealed in 1991, racism and government corruption are still everywhere. South Africa has an unemployment rate of 40%, and there are hundreds of thousands living without electricity, clean water, and proper sanitation. As a tourist, there are large areas of the cities that we were advised not to visit based on high crime rates. The wealthy areas of the city are very white, even though white people make up only 16% of the population, and the inequality is still painfully evident. The history in this area is winding, not always well reported, and generally hard to wrap one’s head around; we had difficulty finding more detailed information to link to, but this article does as well as anything we saw online (we do want to note that the article stops at 1948 and the history most certainly does not). The history of this city, region, and country is complex and learning to understand it a bit more by visiting was rewarding though also often painful.

Okay, stepping away from the history. Cape Town is incredible. It’s gorgeous, with mountains to the south and ocean to the west. Dramatic clouds often pour over Table Mountain like a blanket, inspiring a legend of the devil having a smoking contest with a pirate. The city has incredible food, with influences from Indian, Malaysian, and African cuisine, and there’s also a lot of great coffee. Nearly everyone we met was kind and happy to talk to us about what we were enjoying on our trip, and they’re obviously all so proud of the beautiful city they call home.

Johannesburg

This blog is a little different because it’s not chronological - I wanted to pair our the first part of our trip in Cape Town with the last part in Johannesburg so that the safari would get its own blog. So, please time travel with me as I tell you more about the city we visited at the end of our trip. We flew into Joburg before heading out to the safari, and then after the safari we flew back to the city for a day before heading back to Seattle.

Johannesburg was difficult for me. It’s massive, with more than 5 million people in the city and 10 million in the metro area, and so much of that population lives in abject poverty. We stayed in one of the fancy tourist areas, which was essentially a completely walled-in outdoor mall with three Marriott hotels, lots of restaurants and high-end shops, a supercar dealership, and an armored car dealership. Access was strictly controlled, especially at night, so that we could feel safe walking between the buildings. It did feel safe, but also incredibly isolated from the rest of the city.

Throughout our time in South Africa we learned about load shedding, which impacts the entire country. Essentially, the power system has collapsed, and there are rotating power outages every day, with the government designating a phase that dictates how many hours a day the power is out. While we were there, the country was in phase 8, which means that the power was turned off for 4 hours in the morning, 4 in the afternoon, and an additional couple of hours overnight. The rest of the time, everyone uses generators or other alternate power if they can afford it, but a lot of people just don’t have power. There’s been a high impact on small businesses, many of which had to shut down, and there are constantly stoplights out all over the city, causing increased traffic. Even our nice hotel in Johannesburg, which was set up on the compound’s generator power, had trouble switching to generator the last night we were there, and we woke up without power or water for a couple of hours. The problem is constantly top of mind for residents, and an enormous percentage of the advertising we saw either referenced, joked about, or promised solutions to the pain of living with load shedding. Unfortunately, with a government-funded power system that sees constant embezzlement of allocated funds, there is no faith of or hope in improvement any time soon.

We were planning both a bike tour in Soweto and a visit to the Apartheid museum on our last day, but because our flight got moved up a couple of hours, we only had time for the bike tour. Despite the amazing things we’ve heard about the museum, we both thought the bike tour was the right option for us. We learned a lot about the history of this important township and I felt a lot more connected to the city after talking to locals.

Soweto - originally South Western Townships - was an area where Black residents of Johannesburg were moved in the 1930s and 40s. It quickly became the largest Black city in South Africa, with a current population of more than 1 million. It was home to Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Trevor Noah (the South Africans would like Trevor Noah back, but say America can keep Elon Musk). It’s also the home of the 1976 student uprising, where students of all ages protested a ruling that Afrikaans, a language developed by the Dutch settlers of the area, should be the language used in schools in Soweto, destroying the educational opportunities of the residents. The protests were violently suppressed, with more than 1,000 killed or injured, but civil unrest grew until the repeal of apartheid in the 1990s. We heard a lot of exasperation with the current government, but there’s a general sense that one of the more successful government efforts of the past 30 years has been free, accessible education for all South Africans. To learn a bit more about the history of Soweto you can read this page or the Wikipedia article - there seems to be a dearth of well written information about Soweto on the internet which is a shame. Please let us know if you find anything else!

Our guide Tebogo, a Soweto local, led us on our bike tour through the West Orlando suburb (We can’t recommend One Day Africa enough - look them up if you’re in Cape Town or Johannesburg). We visited Nelson Mandela’s house and museum, then biked to the decommissioned Orlando Towers, which were previously part of a coal power plant and now home to a complex that features food, beer, and activities like in-tower bungie jumping and paintball. On the way back, we biked next to an improvised “shanty” town, where we saw how some of the township’s poorest residents lived (and waved back to a lot of kids).

On a Safari in South Africa

At the Cape of Storms

Cape Town

Johannesburg