A weekend of wildlife and music

We hired a car for the last couple of days in order to see some of Africa's famous wildlife. On Saturday we drove out to an area just outside of Jo'burg called Krugersdorph, which has a game park with tons of amazing animals - lions, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, and gazelles but not elephants).

We drove slowly around the park never getting terribly close to any of the animals, other than the lions (probably the ones we least wanted to get cosy with). Lots of great photos on the SLR, so will have to wait till they're developed to post them.

The highlight of the park was its smallest inhabitants, some kind of squirrel-like thing that surrounded the car when we pulled over in one area to stare at the bizarre oddity that is the zebra. The little fox-like creatures came out of the grass and started begging at the car doors (obviously looking to be fed junk food tidbits by idiotic patrons). I can almost see how they entice people to part with their crisps; they are unbelievably cute and amazingly engaging.



Later that evening we headed to Jo'berg's "cultural" precinct, Newtown, for dinner and a show. Dinner was at Gramadoelas Restaurant, a Jo'burg institution whose business card claims it has hosted the following unlikely list of famous faces:

Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Denmark, Nelson Mandela, King of Zululand, Hilary Clinton, Elton John, John Major's wife (no name necessary apparently), Winston Churchill's daughter, Denzel Washington, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Harry Belafonte, and Nadine Gordimer.

Interesting collection. Oddly enough they didn't ask for our names... The food was decent, but not spectacular. What came afterwards, however, was.

We headed over to a temporary performance space that's been set up for the last few weeks in which a local festival has been running. Once there we paid sum total of $28 to enter. Three bands were slated to play during the course of the evening. The first, a local Jo'burg outfit had just released their debut album. They were really amazing, so full of energy and life. One of the singers was also heavily pregnant, which was interesting indeed.

The second band performed a fusion of jazz standards (with an African twist), tribal music, and Tuvan throat singing. The combination was quite powerful, though they might have played a touch too long as the crowd was hanging out to see the evening's star attractions - all the way from Havana, the Afro-Cuban All Stars.

I've been wanting to see these guys for years, ever since Wim Wenders made them (and Cuban music) famous in Buena Vista Social Club. They were totally amazing and well worth the long wait between acts.

Yesterday we drove out to the Sterkfontein caves - the so-called Cradle of Humankind. It was really interesting to see the site where part of the "missing link" was uncovered (or is still in the process of being uncovered - apparently the rock around the skeleton of "little foot", as the remains are called, is so dense and hard that the team of paleoanthropologists working on the site are only able to removed 2cm a year from around the skeleton).

Wandering thorough the caves was enlightening and also provided a handy break from the blasting sun outside.

After our stroll through history in the making we decided to get up close and personal with some more wildlife and headed to a lion park. Lion park was a bit of a misnomer as the place also had cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, and lots of other animals. But it was the lions (and one hyena) that were the most fascinating.

Before driving around the park we were able to go into an enclosure with 5 baby lions and a baby hyena. The little suckers were just stirring from their post lunch nap and so were lazing around, but quite awake. It was incredible to be able to pat them and give them a rub behind the ears. They are so much like the kind of cats we're used to at that age, very playful and inquisitive.





The hyena stole the show however. For some reason he took a liking to me and decided I was his personal teething ring. He nibbled on my arm, my bag, my leg, my jeans, my flip flops, and just about anything else he could get his teeth around, and completely ignored everyone else.



Very cute indeed.



We then drove around the park and into the lion enclosure. There must have been 30 lions in the 4 interconnected enclosures and for much of the time there was nothing more than 5 metres and our car door between us and them. We were steadfastly ignored though, which was comforting in the extreme, I must say.

Below are a few more lion pictures. We mostly used the SLR so developing and printing will have to take place before we know how they turn out, and the ones on the digital camera aren't as interesting, but they still give you a sense of how close we were.