The Utterback's Visit Part 3: Game Driving

Going on a game drive is just part of living in and visiting Africa, it's a must. We have been to many small parks around Pretoria that offer game drives, but these drives are usually filled with antelope and any predators are typically behind fences, making it not much of a game drive at all. Our first genuine game drive experience was during our stay with Klasserie Camps. There is a definite thrill to being out in the middle of the bush, the fresh air in your face, hoping that you will turn the corner and find an animal just feet from the truck!  We had two drives a day one in the morning and the one in the evening. Half way through each game drive we were treated to a break which in the morning included coffee and biscuits, and in the evening included drinks and snacks. We rode in a 10 passenger open jeep with stadium seating. The guide drove and our tracker sat out in the front of the truck in a special seat, being our eyes and ears for animals. The bush varies in the Kruger area, some parts of the national park are wide open while other parts are heavily covered with trees and bushes. Klasserie Camps is in a more heavily wooded area, which can make seeing and finding animals a little more difficult.  However, our guide Jan and our tracker, Wise-Man were awesome! It was fascinating to see them follow tracks and tell how long ago an animal had been by. They planned drives based on tracks they had found on their morning walks or whether or not they had heard an animal in the area. Jan expressed how much he really enjoys working at a smaller camp like this one because he feels he really needs to be good at his job, opposed to larger camps where they may have several trucks and guides communicating with each other about where animals are located in the area.

Morning coffee overlooking the river, we could see a group of hippos in the water below

Gorgeous Sunrise

Within the first 24 hours we had seen 4 of the big 5 (including our lucky Leopard siting). The Big 5 are Africa's stand out animals and are known by hunters as the most difficult animals to hunt by foot. Over the years safari companies started coining the term in relation to game drives and now its known less with hunting and more as a treat to see all these animals while on safari and/or while visiting South Africa. The Big Five is comprised of the Elephant, Rhino, Cape Buffalo, Lion, and Leopard. We saw the elephant, buffalo, and leopard on our drive into camp and within 24 hours while on drives saw the rhino and more elephants and buffalo. Every drive Mitchell was sure to point out that we just needed to see a lion to make our 5 complete. It was our goal and we kept our eyes peeled the entire time. I think by the end of the drives my eyes were sore from straining to spot something moving in the grass! We tracked lions and traveled to parts of the reserve where lions are known to be, but came up short and just couldn't find them.  I was so surprised how easily animals disappear in the bush, for all we knew those lions were 10 feet from us and just stayed buried in the grass!

Buffalo

Rhino

Impala

Wildebeest

buffalo by the river

Hippo

Giraffe

Some of our favorite and most nerve racking encounters came with the elephants. One morning we came across a heard that had a few babies with them. The females in these groups were not happy about us being there. We were never charged at, but one mom was quick to move in front of her young and show us her big ears. One of the moms even blew her trunk at us just to tell us to get lost! I have to admit that the elephants are by far the most intimidating of the animals we came across, I had heard that they are temperamental and really didn't want to have to speed away form one.  Our last morning we came across a male who also didn't want us to get too close and stomped his feet at us. It made my mom and I jump a bit, but of course our guide was completely calm.

This male Elephant was giving us a warning by flapping his ears and stomping his feet

Our evening game drives were interesting as well. We saw some neat animals like a rock python,  a chameleon, and some owls. One evening we went across the river in search for lions.  On the way back to camp that same evening we attempted to cross back over the river in a different spot and had to turn around. There had been a lot of rain in the area before we came and a lot of the trails had been washed out. As we turned around and headed back up a very steep hill our jeep became stuck. I think a bit of panic came over me as I started thinking about being miles from camp, in the dark, with animals around us. Our guide and tracker were calm and immediately started brain storming how to get us out of the rut. It was probably only 10 minutes that we were actually stuck, but as we waited it seemed a lot longer. We all stayed silent and just hoped they knew what they were doing. Thankfully they did and we were back to camp and ready for dinner shortly after.

Beautiful Sunset, you never get tired of the African landscape

Enjoying our sun downers

Owl

Chameleon 

African Rock Python

Our last morning drive we headed back to the river for one more look for lions. We stopped and had our morning coffee and enjoyed some time to let the kids play by the water. I think the river was my favorite place we had stopped, it was a beautiful space and a perfect end to our stay at Nzumba  We had so much fun at the Klasserie camps everything from the food, to the service, to the game drives was perfect. I was thrilled that we had the opportunity to take my parents with us to such a fabulous place and I can't wait to go back. So, if anyone is looking to visit we know where we are headed on Safari!

Baboon track, almost could have been Spencer's footprint 

Leaping over Elephant tracks

The Utterback's Visit Part 2: The Nzumba Experience

The last weekend my parent's were here we took a four day vacation up to the Kruger area. On the recommendation of a friend, we decided to go to the private Klaserie game reserve just outside of Kruger National Park and stay at the Klaserie Camps. Klaserie Camps has three different camps in their property. Two of the camps are fully catered and the other is a self catering.  We chose the fully catered Nzumba lodge and were happy we did, because the food was amazing! Nzumba camp has 5 chalets and one main building for dining and relaxing. The camp sleeps up to 10 guests, but when you book they try to keep bookings to only one party at a time, so we had the entire camp and main building to ourselves (4 adults and two children). They also only have one chef for both of the catered camps, so they only book one of those camps at a time. No one was at the self catered camp this weekend, so we had no other guests on the property with us.

Our drive to the Kruger area was gorgeous

Beautiful Mountains

Getting to the camps was an experience of it's own. Once you pass the small town of Hoedspruit, most of the driving is on gravel dirt roads and at times it gets pretty rocky. Once we were inside the gates of the Klaserie Reserve we started seeing animals, for my mom I think this was an unbelievable experience. Its hard to really get how neat it is to just be driving down the road and have an Elephant pass in front of you without seeing it for your self. On our way into camp we came across two elephants, a heard of cape buffalo, and several impala. As we were pulling up to our camp my mom spotted a leopard in a tree, this is a huge spotting for anyone looking for animals in Africa.  The Leopard is one of the hardest African animals to see in the wild, we have friends that have been here for over a year and have never seen a leopard in the wild.

We stopped for Breakfast in Dullstroom, a cute little town

The Leopard! I was sad I didn't have my good camera all ready to go

Once we arrived at Nzumba we were greeted by our hosts for the weekend. Lliana and our guide Jan (like Jon in the US). They took our bags to our room and we relaxed for a bit with drinks and a late high tea (lunch). Every moment of our stay there these two people took amazing care of us. I was very impressed with how much they seemed to care about our stay and wanted this to be a personal experience. I also appreciated how they cared just as much as our children's experience as our own. They had children's options for meals, and checked in to see how the kids were doing.  They even gave us options to change the schedule around if we wished to do so.  When I was looking at various places to stay with our kids it was very important to us that our kids experience things with us and not be limited to "children's areas" or "children's game drives". I understand why bigger places do this because other guest may not appreciate children on game drives or at dinner, but I didn't want to go on a family vacation and leave my kids in a play area while I experienced seeing animals in the wild, at least not on this trip.

Our Hosts, Liiana and Jan

having fun before dinner

We had two full days there and our schedule was as follows
- 6am morning game drive
morning tea/coffee on the drive
9am breakfast
3pm High Tea
4pm evening game drive
evening sun downers on the drive
8pm dinner
The schedule at first seemed like it would be tricky with our kids schedules but they did great! Both kids ended up taking naps on the game drives and in between drives they were happy playing with toys we had packed, playing games with the adults, and looking for animals at the water hole that the main building over looks. It was also nice to be able to spread out to the main building where we could read or play or sit out on the deck/balcony. We tried to have the kids eat sack dinners on the evening game drives, but they had napped so much that it ended up well for them to just stay up late and eat dinner with the adults. Mitchell missed our big Boma dinner as he fell asleep,  but Spencer enjoyed seeing the fire for sure!

The Boma dinner was our favorite, such a neat space to enjoy a meal.

Chase, the kids, and I all shared one chalet while my parents stayed in one next door to us. The chalets were big enough for our large bed and two single beds for the kids. The perimeter of the property only has a one wire fence around it to keep large animals like Elephants and Rhinos out. But, there was plenty of space for impala, warthogs, or even leopards to roam around the camp. Each evening we were escorted back to our rooms by either Lliana or Jan.  I think the first night I was a little anxious about what could come into camp, after all Spencer is just an appetizer to a large cat! However, by night three I felt pretty comfortable and had faith in our hosts that they would be able to sense a danger.

View off the deck of the main building, was awesome to see some animals enjoy the water hole.

Breakfast on the deck our last morning. Each meal was in a different spot on the grounds, It was always a pleasant surprise to see where we would be eating next. 

Breakfast one morning out by the pool over looking the water hole

I could go on and on about what a wonderful experience we had at the Klaserie Camps, it was top notch service, fabulous food, and amazing scenery. My mom and dad have traveled the world on various business trips and to hear them say "This was one of their favorite trips" means a lot. No one could say one negative thing about our time there. I hope anyone looking for a great get away will check it out, I know we will be returning before our time is up here in South Africa.

I have attached a link to their facebook photo album of the Nzumba Camp we stayed at. Their professional pics are much nicer then my snap shots.

https://www.facebook.com/klaserie.camps/media_set?set=a.628203973932394.1073741864.100002283905215&type=1

PART THREE of The UTTERBACK'S VISIT will focus on our game drives look for that posting soon! :)

The Utterback's Visit Part 1: The Tribal Experience

My parents joined us in Africa for the month of March. Once again we were excited for visitors, and couldn't wait to start showing off Africa. Having back to back visitors didn't pose to be a problem, as our area has so many attractions we didn't need to repeat anything we had done with Chase's parents, so I didn't feel like we were doing everything all over again. One of the places I hadn't been yet was the Lesedi Cultural Village, so I decided this would be a great place to take mom and dad as they enjoy learning about culture and history. The cultural village is a small staged village area that has been made up to represent 5 of the major tribes in South Africa, the Zulu, Bosotho, Xhosa, Pedi, and Ndebele. A day visit here will get you a tour of the various tribal villages and a Pan African buffet should you choose to stay for lunch.

Everyone who works at the village wears traditional tribal apparel and plays the role of a tribe member. In some ways I compared this to going to any of our colonial tours in the US. Near the area where I grew up there was a place called Arrow Rock and when you went with your school they wore traditional colonial clothing and showed us things like how to make butter. Here at Lesedi they tell you about how each tribes dressed, how they say "Hello, and Goodbye", what they are known for historically, and the roles of the different members of the tribes. Some tribes were more peaceful then others, some known for their art, and others known for their weapons. It was interesting to hear about how each tribe treated their woman, and how they defended themselves from attacks. It was a very engaging tour and our guide was very enthusiastic. The village tour is a full 1.5 hours so we didn't take the boys with us, as I don't think for my young kiddos it would of been interesting enough.

At the end of the tour you also get to enjoy a traditional dance boma (dancing around a fire). This portion of the show was a full thirty minutes of tribal dances from each tribe and even some from other parts of Africa as well. I was very impressed with the dancing and music portion and thought the staff seemed to enjoy this part the most as well. I got some amazing video of the dances, and wished I had bought the music CD they were selling as I know Mitchell and Spencer would of loved the music!

Finally, we ended the day with a Pan African Buffet which included various salads, and meats served with Pap. Pap is a popular traditional staple in African diet. It's corn meal based thick porridge .I describe this as a texture of mashed potatoes and southern grits. It's not very good all by itself, but when served with a stew or tomato gravy, it can be good. I think it's growing on me, and my mom LOVED it. They had several different stews to choose from with various meats. I chose what I thought was beef and chicken only to discover that it was actually ostrich and crocodile. Surprisingly, the crocodile wasn't bad, it "Taste's Like Chicken".  Ostrich itself isn't bad either, I've had some before that was tough and chewy, but in the stew it tasted pretty good.  I guess if its covered in sauce anything can be eaten. They also had a variety to Boer rolls (sausages) and other meats to choose from as well. Then to end the meal we could choose dessert, a traditional dessert in South Africa is the Mavla Pudding which is basically a rich sponge cake with custard pudding poured on top. Over all it was a good day and fun to learn about the tribal culture and let my parents try some South African food.