South Africa is a country where you can feel history in the making, experience lions and leopards up-close and fully wild, and enjoy one of the world’s beautiful cities. In our ten days in South Africa, we tasted enough to know that this is a trip well worth taking.
The South African Airway flight took us from New York to Johannesburg. While this is one of the longest non-stop flights between any two points, it actually is a welcome change from flights where there are layovers with not enough time to do anything except to try to find somewhere to rest your exhausted body. SAA has movies on demand, making the flight much easier to take.
If your plans take you right out of Johannesburg because you can't wait to go on safari but need to stay overnight at the airport, there is the Intercontinental Airport Sun, a walk across the road from the terminal.
Electric carts are available for you and your luggage, but the walk was so short that we opted for the exercise. It is hard to believe that this hotel is literally in the airport. Landscaping gives it a sense of being somewhere else and the restaurant is pleasant.
Johannesburg and Soweto
We wanted to see Johannesburg, so the next day we checked into the Westcliff, a charming complex of stucco buildings set in one of the South Africa city's most exclusive neighborhoods. The hotel overlooks a lush park and the city zoo where, with good eyesight and a little imagination, you can see elephants from poolside. The halls are filled with flowers and the dining room with exquisite food.
We booked a "freedom trip" that took us to Soweto, a South Africa city in its own right that is a short drive from downtown Johannesburg. On the way we passed pale yellow hills, a legacy of the city's now-closed gold mines.
Soweto is a mixed-income community with many neat, suburban houses, gardens, shops, schools and one of the country's largest hospitals.
The Apartheid Museum, which presents the history of that legal system established in 1948 in which black and "coloured" South Africans were declared second- and third-class citizens, is a must for anyone concerned about where South Africa has come from and where it is now headed. It is a vivid picture of an awful past that left us sober but hopeful.
Even more moving was the visit to Nelson Mandela's house, just up the street from the home of another South African Nobel Prize winner, Bishop Desmond Tutu. Our guide pointed out the bullet holes in the front wall of the house where government agents tried to assassinate Nelson's wife, Winnie.
We sat in the tiny room where Mandela met with world leaders when he became president of South Africa after his release. The modest house isn't a museum but more a living memorial to a man who triumphed over evil and who today is revered without exception for his grace, statesmanship, and good will.
Kruger National Park
From Johannesburg, we traveled by plane north to Kruger National Park, staying in the Sabi Sands area where several boutique private preserves and lodges are located in 12,000 acres of bushveld.
We arrived at Sabi Sabi's Earth Lodge, wondering, where's the lodge? We were led down through a cut in a low rise to a large door that seemed like it would lead to nowhere.
The doors open and you enter Eden, a world of tranquility and simplicity, a panorama of stream and boulders and water gently splashing from the roof edge. Beyond lies the savanna of grasses and trees to be explored during the walking and vehicle safaris each day.
After breakfast, our ranger, Adrian Barnard, elephant gun over his shoulder, took us for a walk. "We try to show the Big Five," he said, "but there is also the Baby Five: leopard tortoise, rhino beetle, buffalo weaver, ant lion and elephant shrew, which you can’t see unless you are close to the ground." We watched one of nature’s pooper scoopers, a dung beetle, roll droppings into a neat ball upon which he perched, hoping to attract a female, Adrian told us.
That afternoon, Adrian, and Barney Khoza took us out on our game drive in an open, six-seater landrover. Barney is Shangan, a tribe whose members are famous for their tracking ability. We were ready with the binoculars and bird and mammal books thoughtfully placed in our room and our cameras.
Adrian had his rifle, walkie-talkie, lots of water for us and a picnic for later. Barney sat on his perch off the front left fender ("Barney's office," said Adrian), searching for signs of the wild animals we hoped to see.
Right out the gate he located a leopard, one of Africa’s most illusive cats. We trailed him through the rough thorny bush. Adrian explained why the leopard kept opening his mouth wide as he reached a new area. "He is smelling," said Adrian, "He has a gland in the back of his throat which tells him if a female is in estrus."
