Into the Wild

As I had never been to the far northern part of Limpopo, me and Desiré decided to rectify this wrong and at the same time put her new vehicle to the test. Turning north from Polokwane, I entered into the wild, land previously unexplored... well, by me, that is. Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn and soon thereafter Soutpansberg, more and more Baobabs showed up and the feeling of being in the true African bush intensified.

Closing in on Mapungubwe we soon came upon a road block, or rather a road gap. The area had experienced some flooding recently and as a result, many bridges had been washed away. This forced us to take a detour on corrugated gravel roads through tomato farms with waving farm workers.

Back on track the sun began to set and gave the landscape the magical golden shimmer I love so much. Reaching our camp in Mapungubwe National Park, we quickly set up camp as darkness was falling around us and started the braai. Happily we sipped some white wine, listened to the cicadas and looked at the stars, while the chicken kebabs took forever on the grid.

  

When we finally went to bed, expecting to be lulled by the usual night concert of the wild, we were amused as well as annoyed to find that our closest neighbour snored like there was no tomorrow! We cursed our choice of camp site, but the next morning we realized that the small size of the camping grounds made it impossible to be out of hearing range. Desiré quickly got her earplugs out and thanks to the long road trip and all the fresh air we both managed to fall asleep within minutes.

 

Despite the human(?) noices, the camp was frequented by a number of creatures, in search of food, water and protection, making. Especially a bushbuck female and young made themselves comfortable just a few metres away, from right after dinner until after we'd had breakfast.

 

...not having any earplugs actually turned out to be pretty great, as both lions and hyenas vocalized their presence in the early morning hours.

A few nights later the whole camp was joking about the snorer, who turned out to be a very nice guy and a valuable ice-buying neighbour. In spite of this, Desiré and one of the other campers had some rather advanced ideas as how to make the snoring disappear... one of which included a treed, and supposedly hungry, Genet!

/A