Monday, 29 May, 2011
Finally: Johannesburg (Kempton Park) to Malelane
"Beep, beep, beep..." What is that? Where am I? Why is it so cold
in here? Oh, I remember. We arrived last night in South Africa, Tom
and I (Jana) and Tom's mother, Linda, after a 15-hour nonstop
flight from Atlanta. No wonder I've blocked it from my mind!
Actually, we were due to arrive a day earlier, but our flight from
Knoxville to Atlanta was canceled on Thursday due to thunderstorms,
so the plane to Johannesburg left without us. We refused to risk
the same thing happening on Friday, so we drove to Atlanta and left
from there.
Our plane landed in Johannesburg at 5:18 p.m. Saturday, and with no
checked luggage to wait on, by 7:15 we'd cleared immigration,
customs, visited the ATM, picked up our rental car, and were
checked in to our hotel, Emerald Guest
House, very near the airport, where Tom and I had stayed at
both ends of our Botswana trip in 2007. When our flight got
canceled Thursday, we had to move back our prepaid room reservation
by one night, but it was happily not a problem.
TRAVEL TIP - Johannesburg Airport ATMs: The easiest source of cash,
with the best exchange rate, is through ATMs. There are no ATMs on
the arrivals level of the O.R. Tambo International Airport. To get
cash, once you've cleared customs and are about to exit the
airport, go up the escalators one level and through a set of double
doors to the departures level, where you'll find the ATMs.
After check-in at Emerald's, we had dinner (beef lasagna & veg,
beef cottage pie & veg) and drank some Castles, a refreshing
South African lager, in their dining room before turning in in our
chilly rooms. It's late fall in South Africa, and the elevation in
Johannesburg is 5,751 feet. With the help of a reluctant space
heater, the room temperature rose to a non-balmy 61 degrees
overnight.
Emerald Guest House
gate
When we awoke, Emerald's served a plentiful breakfast of eggs,
bacon, sausage, toast, fruit, coffee, and juice. A nice start to
the day. We walked the grounds before leaving and saw six bunnies.
The wildlife has begun!
Bunny
Our rental car from Thrifty is a silver 4-door Hyundai Sonata with
an automatic transmission and the steering wheel on the right,
since we'll be driving on the left. Some of the rental car
companies indicated an International Driving Permit is required to
rent, so I got once just in case, but since our licenses are in
English and include photos, an IDP was not required.
It took just under four hours to drive from Emerald's, near the
Johannesburg airport, to Rio Vista Lodge in Malelane, near one of
the gates to Kruger National Park, via the R21 road, the N12, and
the N4. We paid three tolls on the N4, at Middleburg (rand 40),
Machada (R60), and Nkomazi (R45). The exchange rate being about 6.8
rand per dollar during our trip, that's about $21. Just 30 minutes
outside the Johannesburg metro area, a stray piece of gravel flew
up from the road, chipping a hole in our windscreen, a hazard
explicitly excluded from our car rental insurance. I wonder how
much that'll cost!
On the road to
Kruger
The R and N roads in South Africa look just like interstates in the
United States, only with tons of pedestrians alongside the road.
The three of us thought it pretty unsafe how close to the driving
lanes people were walking, and we were proved correct rather than
paranoid in Matsulu, where a recently killed pedestrian was laying
in the road, one leg sticking out from beneath a tarp.
Malelane is not a large town, and we had no trouble finding the
entrance to the gated neighborhood where Rio Vista
Lodge is located. The guard took my name and license tag number
and we passed through the gate, only to arrive at another locked
gate at the entrance to the lodge, where a sign instructed us not
to "hoot" our horn, but to call a phone number, and they'd open the
gate. Well, that's all well and good, except that for such a short
trip, we hadn't purchased local SIM cards for our American phones
and had no way of calling!
Back to the first gate we went, where the guard also had no phone.
As we were pondering our quandary, other guests of the lodge
arrived, with phone, and we managed to gain entry. We'd emailed a
reservation change to this lodge also due to our flight
cancellation, and again it was not a problem. We checked in at 2:00
p.m.
After unloading the car, we headed to the Super Spar grocery store,
about a kilometer down the road. Our first four nights in Kruger
will be at Talamati Bush Camp in a self-catering cottage, with no
shop or restaurant. Then we'll have two nights at Letaba Rest Camp,
with both store and restaurant, and then two more nights of
self-catering, at Bateleur Rest Camp. So if we want to eat for the
next four days, it's time to provision up!
Although the Super Spar was very similar to the supermarkets back
home, grocery shopping with three people when you don't know where
anything is located or even what items are available is chaotic,
but we eventually made our way through the store. Then for some
reason, when we went to pay, Linda's credit card was rejected, but
I gave them mine and it worked, so no big deal. You've got to be
flexible with a variety of payment options when traveling
overseas.
The biggest purchasing challenge was a cooler. We had to have one,
and the cheapest one at the Super Spar was R199 (30 bucks).
Shopping around wasn't an option because it was Sunday, and most
other stores were closed, so we bought the overpriced thing.
Incidentally, you can't buy bottles of liquor in South Africa on a
Sunday, at least in Malelane, just like at home. Luckily,
anticipating this possibility, we had stocked up at the duty-free
in Atlanta.
Grocery shopping accomplished, we went to the gas station for gas
and ice. Why is ice a gas station thing? The gas (they say
"petrol") stations in South Africa are all full service, and you
must pay in cash, unless you are South African and hold a South
African garage card. Consequently, we had to carry a lot of cash on
our trip, especially since we were going into Kruger, which has
very few, very unreliable ATMs. The petrol was R28.08 per liter,
about $5.75 per gallon. Ouch.
Back at Rio Vista, we enjoyed sundownders (drinks at sundown,
naturally) on the back deck: Windhoek, a Namibian beer, for Tom and
me, and a gin and tonic, after much discussion and confusion by the
staff, for Linda. Regarding the Windhoek, don't bother. The
deck/bar/restaurant overlooks the Crocodile River, which borders
Kruger National Park. Sometimes wildlife is seen drinking at the
river, but not today.
Linda and Tom on the Rio
Vista deck
Crocodile
River
We had dinner at Rio Vista, T-bone steak, baked potatoes, and
cauliflower with cheese for us all. Unfortunately, we had a
language difficulty when it came to the doneness of the meat, and
it was not nearly as cooked as we would have liked. It was still
good, though a bit chewy on the less-done bits. Since we're leaving
early in the morning, the lodge fixed us to-go breakfasts and
brought them to our rooms after dinner.
About 8:30, Tom and I tried to leave the building to get a better
view of the stars than from our fenced-in porch, but they'd already
battened down the hatches for the night, and it wasn't worth
causing a ruckus to get the attention of the night security guard.
I'm not used to the strenuous security in South Africa. We were
locked in a compound last night, we're locked in a compound
tonight, and we'll be locked in compounds every night of our stay
in Kruger!
What precipitated this
sign?
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