The elephant is so close we can feel the breeze from his flapping map of Africa-shaped ears. He’s in musth, his legs wet with a pungent combination of urine and semen leaking from his penile sheath. Hot to trot but at least one female short of a happy ending. As he approaches the open vehicle, trunk at half-mast, ears akimbo, I think: so this is the way my world ends. Not with a bang but a trample.
Isaack Nkuna, our tracker is sitting on the bonnet – talk about vulnerable – but instead of reaching for his rifle, ranger Matt Roberts doffs his hat, waving it high in the air. The elephant pauses and takes a step back.
“Keep going, big fellow” says Matt. “Please …”
To our relief, the elephant ambles off, ripping up a small tree en route, but the excitement doesn’t stop there. Near Jason’s Dam we happen upon around 300 buffalo cooling off in the water behind a hippo bull, cow, and calf.
Do hippo and buffalo get along?
“Not so much,” replies Matt. “The hippos don’t appreciate the buffalo defecating in their water and kicking up the mud.”
On cue, the bull arises like Neptune in a flurry of spray, cavernous jaws and glinting tusks. With a roar he surges towards the herd at tsunami speed. The buffalo scarper up the banks.
Aroused by his alpha powers, the hippo then turns his amorous attentions to the cow, which is so not in the mood. During another 15-minute display of physical coercion, the buffalo venture back into the water. It’s the stuff National Geographic dreams are made of. Less than half the price of other private safari lodges in Kruger, it’s also great value for money.
From your nThambo chalet on wooden stilts perched over the dry surf of undulating grass you can see lightning skitter along the distant Drakensberg range, hear the giggles of distant hyena, count shooting stars, or tiptoe with pounding heart to watch an elephant feeding.
In the end, though, it is not the Big Five that sparks me so much as the heady aroma of wild aniseed and elephant dung, the melodious bubbling of the Burchell’s Coucal, the busy silence of spinning golden orb spiders, and buzzing cicadas. Such a pristine paradise helps you forget for a minute, the other South Africa, the one rife with poverty, load shedding, sporadic wi-fi connections, potholes and traffic jams.
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