Freddy Kruger Park

It has been a while and for good reason since I just spent 2 weeks on holidays. It all started on 14 Nov when James arrived here at Maputo. Obviously that was a big moment for him as it was his first trip to da mothalan. It goes without saying that this historic fact was celebrated with alcoholic drinks for the entire two weeks.

The next day his buddy Sharif arrived from New York. Did I mention that he was from New York? How do I describe this guy? Hmmm, imagine taking a big pot and put in there a table spoon of Eddie Murphy, a bucket of Flavor Flav, some Schwarzenegger (just a little bit though. Don't want to inflate the ego), a little diddy or puff of Sean John, a Joey "How you doin'?" Tribbiani pack, a pinch of Dennis Rodman and a good handful of Ali G. Turn on the heat and mix it all up with some of your favourite dance moves from Justin Timberlake and MC Hammer and you have.... Sharif! And, what you didn't know... he's from New York!

The first days were spent in Maputo. Some sightseeing, swimming, shrimp eating, partying and yes, drinking. The highlight of those days? Some dude trying to pick a fight with Sharif over something. We actually still do not know what. Maybe he didn't even know! He might have actually be mentally challenged as his way of 'announcing' the fight was to smash his own glass against his forehead! Yes, you read this correctly. He smashed his own drink against his own head! Never mind the risks of seriously injuring oneself, but just consider the waste of perfectly good alcohol!!!

Next stop? Kruger Park! A park more than half the size of Holland and about 45 times larger than Curaçao. We entered through one of the South gates and immediately saw a whole bunch of crocodiles. They didn't look that menacing though, especially not later that night on my plate. Tastes like chicken, of course!

Half a mile further down the road we saw impala's! Wow! We were extremely impressed with our luck! We just arrived and already saw deer! The three of us had never seen an impala before so we were manoeuvring carefully to take the best shot. Little did we know that these animals are only outnumbered by mosquitoes in the park. Two hours later we were like: Hey ! Impala! Yeah, whatever... (By the way, they don't taste like chicken.)

Over the next 2.5 days we drove and drove and drove around the park. Well... ehhh... technically, I drove and James and Sharif slept but only half of the drive. Safari is quite fun. You drive around slowly and in the meanwhile you stare and stare. You look left, right, up and down in search of a moving object or a silhouette that looks like an animal. Half of the time it's a tree trunk.

Sometimes you drive a full hour without seeing anything (apart from these d*mned impala's) and then all of a sudden I hit the brakes, the boyzzz jolt out of their nap, and we all stare and stare at something in the distance. The reward is great when you spot an animal you haven't seen before in its natural habitat.

And we saw many! We saw Giraffe, Kudu, Warthog, Buffalo, Steenbok, Hippo, Baboon, Waterbuck, Elephant (+babies), Hyena, Springbok (the national symbol of South Africa), an Eagle (!), Bats, Nyala, Rhino, Wildebeest, Zebra, Bushbuck, Grey Duiker, Eland, Ostrich, Vervet Monkey and of course... the King of the Jungle... (no, not Sharif).... the Lion! Now also know by us as 'ohhhhhhh Leoooooooooooooooone'.

The two scariest encounters were with the Lion and with a specific male Elephant who looked seriously pissed off, as if someone took away his TV remote in the middle of a Baywatch reunion special.

The lion encounter was not necessarily scary, but quite tense. We signed up for a night drive and as we were driving along in pitch dark, we came up to a lion who had just eaten and was sleeping on the road. We carefully drove up to him and everyone was taking pictures. Obviously this woke him up. First a big yawn to make sure we were all aware of the fact that our entire head would easily fit in between his yaws. Then he got up and slowly paced along side the vehicle, as if he was sizing it up. In the meanwhile he kept giving us the evil eye! He looked mean and threatening. I swear, if he had a glass of gin-tonic, he would smash it against his forehead!

When a adult male lion looks at you like that from up close, it's scary. You get visions of ending up like Siegfried and Roy! And that was already bad, even before their incident.

The elephant was really scary. It started quite peacefully. I was driving along, the guys were taking their nap and all of a sudden I saw a herd of elephants drinking and bathing in the little river. We stopped and so did a few others behind us. It was a nice sight. All of a sudden a noise! One large male elephant started trumpeting loudly, shaking his head and flapping his ears. Obviously he was pissed off. He started 'jogging' in our direction, increasing his speed as he came closer. He ran up the hill, stopped some 100 meters away from us and checked out the vehicles. There were 2 large safari trucks, one big ass 4x4 and there we were.. 3 tasty, juicy, healthy, fresh, vitamin rich, clean scrubbed boys crammed in a vehicle, affectionately known in Banco Terra as a 'baby Tata'...

Our little Nightmare on Elm Street was about to start! This big fella' quickly came to the conclusion that the small package was definitely the one he could handle and ran straight at us. Obviously the first instinct is to run and run fast. This was also the advise screamed out loud by one of my passengers. The other one shouted in panic "Establish Dominance!". However, we also didn't want to miss the spectacle as we were all holding our camera's to try and get the best action shot.

Problem with Dumbo was that he didn't run in a straight line. The trees might have had something to do with that. So I'm with my left foot pushing down the clutch, the right foot on the verge to putting the pedal to the metal and my left hand (yes, left hand) holding the stick wondering whether I should put it in first gear or in reverse. All depending on the route taken by our 'friend'.

Finally when he was close enough I decided to go forward, but just some 20 meters, since we didn't want to run from the action. Our Bergkamp-like quick change of direction was too much for Mr. Grey as he skidded past us like an Argentinian defender and ended up on the other side of the road. That was a close call! Our hearts were beating, the adrenaline was pumping and I think my guests have only been more scared when seeing mosquitos... Yep, they were roughing it!

PS: Kudu, Ostrich and Springbok also do not taste like chicken.

Next post: Cape Town, which in our books took over the title of the Windy City.