Kruger, Quissico, Tofo

My last two weekends in Africa were pretty fun. The first weekend, I went to Kruger Park, which is a huge game reserve in South Africa. I and four friends rented a car in Maputo and drove to the park.  Inside, we were allowed (as everyone is, we’re not special or anything) to drive around all day look for and at animals. It was great! We didn’t see any cats, but we saw tons of elephants, giraffes, a few rhino, hippo, lots of birds (my favorite’s the franklin) and other stuff. We saw these two giraffes engaged in what looked like a slow motion battle. They would take turns in slowly swinging their heads at one another. We were thoroughly confused as they did this for 10 minutes. Then one tried to mount the other… and we understood. They didn’t… uhh… complete the act, as another giraffe came over and was watching. Giraffes are very private creatures… though they didn’t mind us watching apparently.

Another time whilst watching giraffes, I was leaning forward to take a picture of the beautiful creatures, the tranquil country-side – trying to capture this moment of pure nature… and I honked the horn. I turned red, my friends laughed and berated me, and all animals in a 10-mile radius sprinted away. Good one Damien (this happened three times actually).

Here are some pictures!

Crazy bird.

Elephant in the road

Franklin, aka best bird ever (doesn't really fly much)

Giraffe courtship

Warthog - my friend described it as the punk rocker of the bush

The following weekend, I went to Quissico with some friends to see the annual Timbila festival. The Timbila is a xylophone-esque instrument. Many Timbilas are played at the same time, with varying rhythms. It was pretty cool to see… though I couldn’t really discern a tune. Many Mozambicans flock to the festival however… and they all get absolutely battered. Apparently it’s known quite well in Mozambique as a premier drinking festival. Quite a good atmosphere. However, we were 6 and couldn’t find a place to stay. So we went and asked the local governor if there was a place where we could make a fire and sleep outside. He was very kind and brought us to an enclosure behind a government building. We made a fire and tried to keep warm in our sleeping bags through the night while sleeping outside. It was not a pleasant night, but a pretty cool experience!

The following day I went by myself to Tofo. Tofo is a premier diving sight where you can see Giant Manta Rays, Humpback Whales and Whale Sharks. I went on a dive and did not see Mantas unfortunately, but on the way to the dive site (by boat) we saw a bunch of Humpbacks. They were pretty huge and pretty cool. Tofo’s also got some good surfing usually, but this particular weekend was quite bad.

Thanks for reading!