Growing up in a formerly coloured suburb in Johannesburg, the closest I got to seeing real ”wild” animals were the scrawny, unhappy lions or cheetahs at the zoo. So it was with scepticism that after 27 years of my life I was dragged on holiday to the Kruger National Park to check out the ”Big Five”.
I had heard from my bunny-hugging colleagues (who were scandalised that I had never been to the bush) that the experience is part of being ”truly South African”. But you know, we coloureds have a bit of a chip on our shoulder when we hear the word ”bush” because it is too closely linked to the derogatory term bushie — so we generally tend to steer clear of any situation where we may have to deal with these issues.
We arrived in the park on a beautiful afternoon. After having watched The Lion King many times, I expected to bump into groups of lions, monkeys and giraffes just walking along the path. With utter dismay, I was told that not only did we have to drive around aimlessly looking for them — but there was a chance we may not even see any animals!
On top of that, this city girl had to wake up at 5am to get out of a locked enclosure (where the humans are kept) to make sure we saw the animals first. Ja right, I thought, the giraffe wakes up at the crack of dawn to make sure he is groomed for the spectators in their 4x4s. Are these people crazy? But I didn’t get a chance to ask them because of the excited buzz as they gobbled down Ouma rusks and coffee before rushing to their cars and waiting at the gates, to be the first to get out.
After a couple of hours driving around at 40kph without any music blasting from speakers, we spotted a few birds and a couple of graceful giraffes who checked us out with sullen expressions — probably thinking we were crazy to waste so much time driving in a hot kombi to a location to make our own breakfast.
Okay — for those of you who know about the rituals of the bush experience — let me tell you why I was so miffed. You see, when you come from a kleurling background, your definition of a ”holiday” does not include driving for hours to a destination, then driving the whole time you are there — in a place where you not only wake up before the sun rises but drive aimlessly around looking for a smudge in the distance, which everyone tries to convince you is a rhino (ja right). Then, there’s making your own food (duh) and cleaning up after yourself. Now for me that is ridiculous because you still have to pay to suffer through what some people think is a holiday.
I spent the next couple of hours planning my escape and working out ways to dodge the monotonous routine in the coming days. Then suddenly we went down a dirt road and came across what is truly the most spectacular scene — two lions had brought down a buffalo moments before and were feasting on the carcass. Being the first car there, we quietly pulled up close to the kill and watched as the lions tore into the buffalo.
As we sat there, the queues of 4x4s pulled up to watch the scene like they were at the drive-in. After a while the hyenas came, and then the vultures, then the elephants to mourn the loss, the bucks drank from a nearby pond and it felt like I had stepped into The Lion King. There was something so fascinatingly gruesome but profoundly elemental about the scene — just the way the bush is — free and not complicated by man.
The image converted me to a bush baby — leaving me feeling grateful for having had an opportunity to see such wonders in my own country. It was my ”proudly South African” moment, when I recognised that the initiative to introduce a Wild Card to provide cheaper access to all game parks for citizens is a good thing — so we can experience the true worth of conservation in our land.
So bring on the rusks, waking up at the crack of dawn, driving for hours, looking at birds, listening to the hyenas — because now I am happy to be a bushie in the bush.