During the long weekend, one of the interns suggested that
we all go to Kruger National Park, a place famous for wildlife viewing in the
neighboring country of South Africa. I was super excited and quickly
volunteered to participate as spots in the car were limited. I’ve rapidly come
to realize that since Maputo has no reliable public transportation system in
place, it’s vital to make friends with people who have access to their own wheels.
The other female interns have solved this problem by simply dating a Marine or
one of the children of DoS employees who are here for the summer. Obviously,
this is not an option for me but thanks to Rotary and Brazil, I can offer cash
and language skills, both of which are in relatively short supply in the intern
and summer hire group.
We decided to do a day trip to the park which is doable
since it’s only about a two hour drive away. What can take time, however, is
the border crossing between Mozambique and South Africa, especially on the
weekend. To prevent this, we left early in the morning and came back late at
night, right after the border opened and right before it closed. It also helped
that a few of the interns had special diplomatic passports because of their
parents so we were all able to go through much shorter lines. Among the other
perks of being connected to the embassy that we utilized on this trip were
showing a badge when we were stopped for speeding and not having to pay a fine
and showing the badge again when stopped randomly for bribes but being waved
through without having to pay. I’m constantly amazed at the benefits of being a
diplomat abroad – they live an upper-class lifestyle according to their own
rules. Again, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Kruger National Park was incredible and only cost about $20/person
to enter. Seconds after we crossed the park boundary we had to slow down for a
herd of gazelles to move across the road. The amount of wildlife that we saw
and the ease with which we saw it was unparalleled. The park is huge and
although we only drove through a fraction of it, we managed to see elephants,
baboons, giraffes, zebras, hippos, water buffalo, wild boar, monkeys, loads of
birds and an astounding variety of four-legged antelope-like creatures such as
elands, impalas and reedbucks. Most of the time, the animals were so close that
you could almost touch them by reaching out of the car – it was so cool! One of
the main rules was that you couldn’t get out of the car except for at the
designated rest stops where all picnic tables were equipped with long sticks to
fend off the monkeys (seriously).
I could have stayed at the park all day and even campaigned
for the carload to stay overnight since we had Monday off as well but I was overwhelmingly
outvoted in favor of a trip to a nearby South African mall. Sadly, we left the park
to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening bowling, eating at Nando’s and
seeing a movie. This all would have been
fine except for the fact that there were lions, leopards and rhinos still to be
seen and only a few minutes away. All of the interns wanted to get their mall
fix because we are not allowed to go to the mall in Maputo as it is owned by
some sort of drug kingpin. Needless to say, I hope to find some way to get back
to Kruger before my time in Mozambique is up so I can check off the remaining
three of the “Big Five”.
So sad your amazing trip ended up in the mall ... why did they not decide to come back for only-shopping another Weekend and dedicate this one only to animals? hm ... ^^
So awesome! Hope you can go back again.