Schon das Buchungsprozedere war gelinde gesagt abenteuerlich, nein: nervenaufreibend ...
Wer auch immer mal in den Krüger Park möchte: legt euch früh genug ein dickes Fell zu.
Ursprünglich wollten wir ja über das zentrale Internetportal der SANP ( S outh A frican N ational P arks) . Book
Unfortunately, the Kruger with an area of \u200b\u200b20,000 km ² larger not quite as Thuringia. Accordingly, extensive is the first time then the potential range of accommodation ... - And unfortunately there is no proper overview.
On the homepage you have to click on each camp individually, and then to marvel at each 3 mini-mini-tiny photographs. What to do?? How should I ever be able to decide on that basis for a?
Even my attempts at some kind of book, guide or ran to get something else, to me the choice of accommodation could be any help were in vain. A kingdom for a TUI travel brochure!
addition, the question was how to get there at the top and back. I would have theoretically a car, and the Garden Route is finally the highlight of his general. But some 5,000 km across South Africa? - Neeeeeeeeeeeeee ...
fly So there .. However, to Johannesburg, or directly to the park?
Johannesburg was cheaper worlds. I've also heard that there will be the third largest canyon in the world, halfway from Johannesburg to the Kruger Park, the so-called " Blyde River Canyon .
heat certainly defends a detour. So you'd need a rental car again after all that tortures the purse.
But why organize everything yourself?
There are also organizations Surely the offer all-round carefree completely packages .. Flights, accommodation, transport ... all inclusive. Perhaps it is indeed one of the many youth hostels in such a (preferably cheap!) Ran tour operator?
man man man ... You see: sooooo many possibilities!
And then you can not even decently informed STÄÄÄÄÄNDIG fails because the Internet on the site.
Finally, I then put all my hopes in the tourism office at the Waterfront. Here they have
yet determined alle Infos über den Park und vielleicht sogar irgendeinen Katalog, mit einer bebilderten Übersicht aller verfügbaren Unterkünfte!
- ich mach`s kurz: nein, ham sie nich.
Die buchen dort auch nur über’s Internet und zeigen einem auf Wunsch dieselben mickrigen 3cm-Fotos der SANP-Homepage. Hätte ich da bereits gewusst wie ungeschult die Mitarbeiter des Tourismusbüros sind hätt’ ich gleich wieder kehrt gemacht..
Die Steffi hat sich dann Gott sei Dank um die Planung unseres Trips gekümmert!!! Tausend Dank an dieser Stelle hierfür.
Schnell wurde dann klar, dass das Studentenbudget nur eingehalten werden kann, wenn man this avoids complete packages. Also, it makes a huge difference whether I'm in a state owned property (within the Kruger Park) or in one of the most expensive private lodges ( outside, in the so-called "extended Kruger Park") nightly. The boundaries of this extended Kruger Park are still open, but it seemed to us both more useful to stay in the park to take advantage of our five days and to be able to fully and not just drive into every morning to have to.
In the end you put together so piece by piece, the complete program: accommodations, guided tours, everything was so far clear. For the first 2 nights we enjoyed even a "Luxury Suite " overlooking the river flowing past .. And for the Morning Walk in which one is walking with the Rangers through the savannah and the move was recommended to me by all sides as a highlight, yet some were free.
We wanted to book only ... About the Tourist Info said ...
Who would have guessed because even that is incredible for this 6 times (! ) must show up at that!
some point it was not really funny during his lunch break or immediately after total rushing to work, they add jets to then each time to listen to another excuse not:
time was the Internet not even had the official in charge of the PC already shut down, another time she was already halfway around instead of 7 by 7 home ..
was once said to me, the fellow was indeed sick today, but if not tomorrow, Sunday to work on it again. I assured me several times if they really work on a Sunday. And yes, I was promised that this was no problem.
it was not! When I last Sunday (my one day off a week) showed up there, was the only employee responsible for the safari park charge is actually present, she sat before her PC (which was shut down not obvious) and the Internet was also (at least you just surfed on the Facebook profiles of their friends).
question: What could go wrong now?
answer: for example, could be the central SANParks booking portal on a Sunday not released for general bookings !
Sure, a circumstance to which employees have the love of tourist information, unfortunately, no control ...
TO YOU ON SATURDAY BUT MAY ALSO HAVE ALREADY THINKING CAN!
And so it went even further:
they accept no credit cards ! So I have to go back there and run around with the equivalent of 450 euros in your pocket! Since kuckt one then everybody who comes to meet one because on the street, but also well aware of ..
When you pay, I noticed that the park entrance in overnight stays was not even included with non, but ok, I will carry on my own cap .. I'd have to stop to ask before I went there just kind of out.
And the best story: I was once
mit'm Andy together during the lunch break there. Say: I actually really not much time!
defect sufficient computer skills mistake my times compared to dozens, put out by mistake already filled fields from the form, etc., etc. ... My blood pressure rose steadily, the stomach growled, Andy was the boring and so slow you felt then seriously fucked! As the lady says
but actually I now also have to convert:
" I promise: you will remember this day as I tell you something about your father, about God ... you will remember me and this lovely, great day! "
And then it started:
That Jesus died for me that he (kindly as he is) has sacrificed his life for my own and me here now reveal my destiny, and now and save me from the hell!
SKY ARSE AND TWISTING-OR-A-MAL! I HAD TO
SOWAS NUN REALLY JUST ABSOLUTELY NO BOCK!
Ok, sorry for the blasphemy .. And Stop the whining and Gela ... at least I can serve each of my readers as a cautionary tale, I was suffering, at least not in this for nothing now hated me home ...
When I requested my vacation the whole office was very jealous of me. Everyone would like to take a safari and I managed to reason, to tell you as much as possible about the Kruger Park.
(maybe I should broaden the jetzt dann bald auch mal machen... *gg*)
Los ging´s in der Früh um ¾ fünf. Unser Flieger war anscheinend auf Werbeeinnahmen angewiesen: die Handgepäckklappen zierten Vodka Gorbatschow Plakate. Kurz nach dem Start ertönte dann dieses typische „PIIIIIIING“-Signal, welches eine Kabinen-Durchsage ankündigt (ich denke ein jeder von euch weiß wovon ich schreibe, oder?). Eine versoffen-tiefe Russenstimme begrüßte uns dann auf dem Flug „ 437 to Moscow.. please sit back and enjoy your flight while sipping a trippl e d istilled, pure Vodka “…
zugegeben: eine einfallsreiche Werbeaktion.
The landscape under one seems from up here is anything but sexy ... troc Kenes, Clay Brown, mountainous wasteland . Now and then a farm with circular fields (I assume everything here is irrigated, and the apparatus rotates in a circle .. so this strange land classification).
At the airport we name it our rental car at reception and loaned us then also have a navigation system with (it was worth gold!)
Aware that Jo-Burg how to call the South African Johannesburg, the third most dangerous city in the world, you feel instantly searchable after leaving the airport site a bit odd. At each traffic light feared the legendary Car hijack "... m a travel guide writes:
"The really attractive center of Johannesburg should [...] for the high crime only in the context of an organized tour to visitors. The hotels in the city have given up because of attacks on tourists, almost all of them. Tens of thousands of F lüchtlingen from all over Africa, the City> taken <. [...] D ie city and Soweto, should only be organized and attended in a group .
Nevertheless, hunger drove us the first time straight to the nearest Mc Donald `s :-)
The trip to the Kruger Park
dragged on eeeeeeeewig .. 4 hours, the landscape changed little. Only the final session was really interesting landscape!
street signs in the open floor warned hippos , the once dusty and rugged Berghän
GE were green, sometimes almost like a jungle. We went to St dead straight races past citrus groves towards the horizon and always envied the Harley Davidson rider, the board AGAINST us every now and again opposite (at least I did it * gg *). Just before the main gate to the park you could see as far as the eye could only corrugated iron and mud huts , uphill downhill. It was not a single village obscure. The cabins were just freely scattered in the bare mountain slopes, trails meandered between you through the red S and and everywhere people were running around seemingly aimlessly. Endlic
h, after almost 3 months, I felt the first time really arrived in Africa . In contrast could hardly be greater: (! ) children played barefoot with old bicycle tires, waaaaahnsinnig fat women carrying their purchases on your head dozens of miles on the trails home, school children jumped in his black uniform aus Minibussen... Und zwischendrin kamen auch manche im schwarzen Nadelsteifenanzug und Lacklederschuhen anscheinend gerade von der Arbeit nach Hause.
Ich ärgere mich noch immer sehr darüber, dass ich keine Fotos geschossen habe.
Aber wir wussten auch nicht so recht, ob man in dieser Gegend einfach mal so stehen bleiben und seine Kamera auspacken dürfte.
Im Park angekommen bestaunten wir auf dem Weg zum Camp die ersten Antilopen und Gnus . Damals wussten wir noch nicht, dass man diese „Futter-Tiere“ ständig vor die Linse kriegt.
Zuerst werde ich euch vom Park an sich und all den Tieren berichten. Danach kommt dann der Faktor man and accommodation added that are clearly to blame this trip that I unfortunately can not fully recommend !
The following evening we had booked the Sunset Drive . A small Warthog for me would almost have been the highlight of the evening .. They are cute when you with her tail in the height of the grass run .. :-) But the whole giraffes were impressive. On the way back we came shortly before the camp will still steal a lion , which I sow then still the show.
He is good 20 minutes always mitgewandert front of our car (apparently the cats run much better on the still-warm asphalt for on the beaten tracks). That was ever a really good start! :-)
We had booked trips a day and in the intervening time we took our own car easily even by the steppe. We saw it all: lion
, elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, rhinos, zebras, hippos, a chameleon .. everything. And most of the animals we could marvel at least one time in close proximity to the car. monkeys we experienced first hand when they threw the bag of chips from the parked car stealing. ;) The flora changed constantly during our tours! Every few kilometers you said in another park:
time you pass through relatively barren steppe , sometimes surrounds a high grass, sometimes hip-high bushes , sometimes dense jungle ... here comes on real Africa feeling ! With our rental car we drove over gravel road through the forest, extremely steep slopes up and down, over hill and dale middle of a dry river ...
The park was simply fantastic!
And the animals provided more than once for an exciting adrenaline: eg
As we once gravel road through the middle of the bush we were traveling, a single bull elephant blocking his way. Ironically, the greatest, we had seen to date. His tusks were both extremely short and we wondered if he has worked perhaps this by fighting with other bulls. Maybe that is a particularly aggressive copy?
I'm assuming in any case he would not go away let us pass. Once we are in walking speed approached, he threatened us and threw his head back and forth, snorting up dust and waved his ears. Suddenly popped out in the opposite lane, a jeep from the curve. When the elephants saw them he ran for the poor, who then tried to escape in reverse gear. We finally decided, when he started slowly on zuzukommen us to turn around and take a detour.
"Aaaaaach what the hell, now we're there! "
us grabbed the curiosity, we turned around and looked at a walking pace again after our aggro elephant. With a healthy heart palpitations, we finally ended lane past the elephants, who had been withdrawn a few yards into the thicket, and (when He bemerkte) zwar energisch aber zum Glück viel zu langsam auf die Strasse zurückkehrte.
Man, war das cool.. :-)
Tausend mal spannender als ich es mir vorgestellt hätte.
Soweit so gut. Nur die Camps erfüllten eben leider unsere Erwartungen nicht.. :-(
Die Empfangshalle des „ Skukuza “ war noch richtig klasse!
Und „ Naja, alt und spartanisch, aber ok “ dachten wir uns noch, als wir unsere „ Luxury “-Rundhütte bezogen.
Der Fluss (quasi vor unserer Haustür) hingegen war traumhaft. Eines Morgens kämpften zwei Elefantenbullen prevented on the other side of the river, and a hyena me one evening nearly had to call with my mom because she made such a noise so ..
Grottenschlecht however, was the food and service the unfortunately often untrained staff!
When we arrived we were told that the Morning Walk we had for the day booked in advance and paid for is no longer available. When asked why
chatted the lady at the reception but are actually out, that she is having trouble because they let go off due to lack of personnel with the tourists lay and all walks deshalb von oberster Behörde auf unbestimmte Zeit untersagt wurden!
SAGT MAN SEINEM HOTELGAST SOWAS ???
Wir sollten uns dann aus ihrem Angebot eine andere Tour aussuchen und möglichst noch am selben Abend den Manager of Duty aufsuchen, um bei Ihr umzubuchen. Viel Zeit zum überlegen blieb uns jedoch nicht, da wir bereits in einer ¾ Stunde zu unserem Sunset-Drive mussten und auch die Koffer gerne erst mal in die Hütte gebracht hätten.
Da wir jeden Ausflug (Sunrise-, afternoon-, sunset- und night-drive) bereits gebucht haben und auch nicht vor hatten einen Drive ein zweites mal zu unternehmen entschieden wir uns für das Bush-Braai (eine Art BBQ mitten in the bush), provided the necessary personnel for this purpose is to be found. From
ask the front desk and to the manager.
The same lady who gave me before 15 minutes explains rebook that I had and the best is still to manager is, I wanted to now (as I said 15 minutes later) do know that the boss does not work on a Sunday and tomorrow is reachable again.
fingers up those who are here would NOT have occurred fooled!
I was afraid to play for time:
tomorrow they only make up at 7, even if I then go over the same Morning Walk would have been. They are determined dann jedwege Umbuchung strikt verweigern und mir unterstellen, ich hätte die Tour einfach nur verschlafen. Aber was soll man machen ???
Ich versuchte noch diese Hotelmitarbeiterin dazu zu überreden, dass Sie mir meine Tour umbucht. Natürlich war Sie dafür nicht befugt, eh klar.
Aber immerhin konnte Sie mir schon mal sagen, dass ich den Bush-Braai auch gleich wieder vergessen kann, weil Sie den ausschließlich für Gruppen ab 10 Personen anbieten, und wir seien schließlich nur zu zweit! (anscheinend ham sie wohl all den anderen Morning-Walk -Interessierten frühzeitig Bescheid gegeben oder wie?).
Es war auch unser Problem, dass jeder " Safari Drive " just third of our desired (and already paid) Morning Walk costs: you pay off any difference! (let alone the full amount!)
-by now starting to pick up the blood pressure again-
I paid for something that to me (from you for reasons) do not offer more, then the I but reflect the money, or how you see that?
Well, the end of the story: I got the money to my virtual SANP account for my next Kruger Park Trip credited!
And if it makes no sense: in the camp where we spent the last two nights, we were able to book with this account a Afternoon-Walk . It appears that either better Ranger, which are also able to protect their tourism in the bush .. or they just do not care simply ridiculous at this assembly that the walk is supposed to prohibit said ..
matter, we finally came to our bush walk, everything we wanted to not do that.
Still, no nice place to start ...
And what annoyed me the most: There was hardly a way to eat really chic to go!
I looked forward to Krokodil - und Kudu-Steaks , eine Flasche guten Wein und ner tollen Eiscream .
Stattdessen ließ einem die Abendkarte (ungelogen) die Wahl aus folgenden 3 Gerichten: Schnitzel mit Pommes,
Burger mit Pommes
oder Sirloin-Steak mit Pommes...
ENTTÄUSCHEND !!!
Ich versuchte mich am Steak, musste jedoch leider bei einem Großteil kapitulieren, weil dieses Gummifleisch nicht klein zu kriegen war. Und dazu waren die Kellner mal wieder sowohl unfreundlich als auch ungeschult.
Einmal bestellte ich ein Erdbeer-Eis . Da sich die Kellnerin nicht sicher war, ob sie ein solches haben, I said, vanilla would be ok without
again to speak with me, you came back with a cup of ice and the following statement:
" Strawberry cream was out and we forgot the Vanilla Ice-cream in the refrigerator, so it is too frozen ... Therefore I am bringing you walnut now "... * Gg *
The last two days we moved then as mentioned in another camp, including " Olifants .
The same breathtaking views, however, to another river, the Olifants River! But seriously
also the same old round huts (built estimated at 1950), and the same miserable EXAT card in the "Restaurant". We did not eat what we should be more seriously!
So slowly I had to sometimes fill up ..
what I already knew : in South Africa we must by law buy any gasoline on credit. Say, they do not accept credit cards.
What I did not know: throughout the Kruger Park there are only two ATMs!
For a German this may now be no great surprise. But here in South Africa normally found really ÜBRALL these so-called ATMs, in every supermarket in every garage, at every gas station, at every major intersection .. EVERYWHERE!
not only in the Kruger Park
One of two available cash machine was in the camp from which we were just (at this point: removed five hours from our current location).
The other was, thank God in Satara Camp, only at 1 hour's drive away. We drove into the camp and said reading the note indicating that there was shocked at the ATM: ATM
THAT DOES NOT ALREADY BEEN 8 DAYS! PLEASE INFORM YOUR GUESTS.
class! No matter TIA = This Is Africa
, a bit of courage this!
We'll see if we will bring the remaining amount of fuel then tomorrow to the nearest gas station (outside the park).
The next shock was then when we realized that we have the distances here blatant in South Africa underestimated. If we wanted to do on the way back to Johannesburg a stop at the Blyde River Canyon , gave us the Navi this time exactly one hour as a buffer so we do not miss our plane. And even if we leave at the same gate opening in the morning around 6.
One more time: No matter , a bit of courage to do this!
:-) We decided on this trip, auch wenn wir vielleicht nichteinmal aus dem Auto aussteigen können.
Ein atemberaubender Bergpass führte auf das Highveld , vorbei an Bergdörfern und tiefen Schluchten .
Je näher wir dem Canyon kamen desto schlechter wurde das Wetter.
Wolken brachten uns letztendlich um den wahrscheinlich eindrucksvollen Ausblick am Canyon .
Nebel ließ uns bei den berühmten Pottholes gar nicht mehr erst aussteigen.
Und bei Pilgrim’s Rest , der letzten Sehenswürdigkeit in dieser Gegend, kam die Fahrt aufgrund eines echt hässlichen Schlagregens and a visibility of less than 20 meters almost to a standstill. And while we dawdle scolded the Navi for our ...
should probably just not meant to be ... Then just the fastest way to Johannesburg. Back in Cape Town but still I got my crocodile meat : in the " Mama Africa", an "experience-Restaurant on Long Street.
PS: you know: there's more photos on
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