safari! day one

ok so safari. i took in an immense amount of information about many many things. i will try to share the best. first things first the details of camping...we were at kruger
our safari company, bundu maybe is the name (it had many names), leases land from the mopani's (i think) who were evicted off the land in the 1960's(using apartheid laws) when kruger wanted to expand its borders. they moved just outside the fence and they still live there today... it looks like a sprawling township. in the 90's with the new government they gained the land back but instead of moving back they left it as a parkland and here's where the company i used comes in- in addition to leasing the land they also offer training and employment for the community in various disciplines including guide training. so our camp was 10 minutes inside the gate and consisted of a large wood frame tent that served as a lounge/bar/dining room, separate housing for the staff & guides, maybe 15 tents set up on wooden platforms that housed two cots for the guests, bathrooms for boys and girls (deluxe for camping some would say- concrete slab floor, 2 flush toilets, 2 showers with hot water,a sink. but it was pretty open with only tent flaps as walls. i.e. bugs and things could freely roam. i am still doing seat checks for bugs. once i found a large lizard in the sink who refused to budge, i opted out of giving him any sort of push. and i must confess i didn't experience the showers. yes that means going over a few days without bathing, but i like to think of that as getting back to nature and possibly making myself smell more like a wild animal. maybe? anyways the thought of something showering with me was more than i could take and our quarter to five wake up calls didn't give alot of time to primp either.
our arrival day was hot, enough so that we went for a swim. (yep that's right, our camp had a pool. nothing too fancy though. and filled with smallish bugs...) and that's when i discovered the single most frightening animal ever, at least for me. resting gently in the grass but not moving was the largest grasshopper i have ever seen. shiny black plated exoskeleton with some red on its head and easily as large as my hand. yipes! it was dead thank heavens. i have an unreasonable fear of crickets and slightly less of grasshoppers (which is why i choose to call it a mammoth grasshopper...even though they claim it was a king cricket. f.y.i. it's not i looked it up and i saw a dead king cricket in the hot tub. they too are large, but not so large.and not shiny black. i have yet to find a picture of this bug and maybe that's for the best.) more on him later.
that evening we took a sundowner drive though our area of the park (saw a rhino in the distance,some daikers, and lots of birds) drove up a rock and enjoyed drinks while the sun went down. on our drive back to camp after it got dark the spotlights came out. and so did the bugs who flew in swarms to the light. i had forgotten to think about any bug other than a mosquito. silly me. there are many bugs and critters in camping, even nice camping. and i don't like camping. i remembered this at that moment too. we get back to camp and find dinner is being served down the hill at the fire pit. since there is no electricity, the fire and small gas lights are our only light. which is admittedly a fair amount, but not enough to see if you are eating a large beetle or not with your pasta primavera. (again, italian.) i was starving and didn't really care if i ate extra bugs - it might have done me good protein wise. it was the proceeding walk from our tent to the bathroom where i had quite a fright. krista and i had a deal- i would check the tent for snakes (her biggest fear) and she would look for bugs. it worked well, but failed to include a plan for outside. i was leading with the 'torch', aka flashlight, when down from the tree above me, and a foot in front of me slides down a massive spider (also about the size of my hand- later inquiries lead us to believe it was a rain spider) who pauses eye level then scrambles down to the ground and scurries towards me. frozen, i refused to go forward and walk into a web. the spider was secondary to the fear of its web. somehow krista talked me though and then of course we had to come back. she in front this time with the light. at almost the same spot on the path, light reflecting off its shiny plated exoskeleton was another of the mammoth grasshoppers. this is when real fear set in, as i knew i had to go past it, but then the reality struck...i was surrounded by them. i believe i said to krista "they're everywhere." which she informed me the next day was the most afraid she had ever seen me. i have no idea how i made it back to the tent but i do remember doing my snake check. i christened that path to our tent 'the path of doom', very indiana jones i thought. looking back i was more like the blond lady he has to rescue constantly, which would make krista indiana jones? hmm...