On The Road - South Africa

D.I.Y. Africa

BY SETH KUGEL

MARCH 28, 2014

It was a daunting challenge for a lone traveler in the African bush: Using only a tiny $23-a-day Fiat and my wits, I had to sneak around the six sleeping lions blocking the gravelly road ahead.

Much as I wished I could watch them for an hour and then double back, I was late for curfew at Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp, 15 miles ahead, and at South Africa’s Kruger National Park in February, vehicles must be off the roads by 6:30 p.m.

The prudent approach seemed to be to inch forward, slowly. If a Fiat could tiptoe, this is what it would look like.

The two closest lions kept on snoozing, ribs heaving so rapidly they must have been racing after a delicious impala in their dreams. Then, at 10 feet, the female jumped up and stared straight at me. Juggling my camera, the steering wheel and the (left-side) stick shift, I hastily backed up and was edging forward again when, heart pounding, I realized my window was open.

When most people imagine their bucket-list African safari, they’re in the back of an open 4x4, nothing to worry about but their cameras, as their expert guide keeps an eye out for cheetah tracks and rhino dung. Then it’s back to the luxury lodge to doff their pith hats, enjoy a sundowner and relive the day’s sightings.

Such comfort is far beyond the scope of many travelers, and certainly of the Frugal Traveler. But as South Africans already know, there’s a cheaper alternative. By driving yourself, cooking for yourself and camping, you can do Kruger for around $100 per couple per day, including everything but airfare. Prefer a bed? Reserve a “safari tent” instead and make that $120.

The self-drive safari wasn’t the only cheaper — and to me, equally appealing — alternative during my 16-day trip to southern Africa in February. I chose the simple charms of a $14-a-night mountain camp in Swaziland over the usual draws of that tiny monarchy — the touristy attractions in the Ezulwini Valley, home to its polygamous King Mswati III. I stayed in feisty Durban instead of its famously dazzling cousin down the coast, Cape Town.

(As recounted in previous columns, which you can find on the Frugal Traveler topic page, I also traded overwhelming Johannesburg for the compelling history of Soweto and visited Mozambique, a less touristy alternative to South Africa itself.)

The result was perhaps rougher than a traditional itinerary — traveling in Africa can often be a challenge — but also more rewarding, and rarely lacking excitement.

Where was I? Ah yes, facing a ferocious lion with my window wide open. I rolled it up and temporarily backed away. Now that everyone was awake, I drove through, hugging the opposite side of the road as the lions trotted into the bush. My heart continued to pound as I replayed the scene again and again. That lasted about two minutes, until three giraffes ambled onto the road in front of me.

It was the closest encounter I had with wildlife, but not by much. With no guide and using only maps, tactical advice from a whiskey-drinking Afrikaner in the tent next to mine and (when cell coverage allowed) the occasional tweeted tip, I saw thousands of impala, hundreds of zebras, dozens of elephants and giraffes and blue wildebeests, six white rhinos and plenty of half-submerged hippos (including one doing a 360-degree roll in the water, exposing an immense pink belly). Then there was a troop of baboons, some with babies hanging from their underbellies or riding piggyback, that took over the road like a swarm of locusts.

Punctuating all this were some sublime solo moments. Alone at an isolated waterhole, I watched an elegant saddle-billed stork snapping what I assumed were fish with its magnificent red and black and yellow bill. Another time, I saw a rhino padding up the dirt road ahead. Keeping my distance, I watched his huge body stop to munch grass. He soon had company, as birds alighted on his back to munch on ticks. I stared down a green snake at eye level in a roadside bush — was it a rare spotting of the aggressive eastern green mamba or the more common (but still venomous) boomslang? (In retrospect, I should have rolled up my window then, too.)

Friends who heard I’d be camping in a game reserve had alternatively romanticized it (“Sleeping under the African sky, epic,” one wrote me) or imagined me trampled by elephants. But really, the two spots I camped in were not unlike those I’ve stayed in in Sweden or New Zealand. I set up my two-man tent among friendly Afrikaners who invariably had far more luxurious setups. On a third night, I opted for a safari tent, a rustic but quite comfortable permanent structure with comfortable twin beds, a porch and refrigerator.

Some exhausting driving aside, there wasn’t much of a difference between my trip and a guided safari, at least in terms of spotting big game. For those looking for anecdotes and tips and a break from driving, though, 220.20 rand (about $11 at 10.5 rand to the dollar) will net you a guide. I opted for one such trip out of Lower Sabie camp at sunset — and within minutes the group was slack-jawed, transfixed by a leopard perched high up in a leafless deadwood tree. We also got a lesson on details like telling white rhino dung versus black rhino dung.

I’ve wanted to visit Swaziland, a short drive south from Kruger, since childhood, though for reasons specific to a geography-obsessed kid: I thought its name was cool, its spears-and-shield flag awesome, and its existence as a small, pea-shaped country landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique, and still ruled by what most consider to be an absolute monarchy, an odd quirk of history.

I eschewed the standard Swaziland itinerary — game parks, casinos and the Ezulwini Valley, home base of the monarchy, where you can do such things as visit a “cultural village” and see art shows and music performances at a place called House of Fire — in favor of Shewula Mountain Camp, in the country’s far northeast; it had been highly recommended by someone I met in Kruger as a rustic resort run by villagers with a very light touch. The price was light, too — 150 rand for a dorm bed in a rondavel, a modernized thatched roof structure. (The Swazi lilangeni is pegged to the rand and both are accepted all over the country.) Avoiding the trappings of monarchy had another advantage — avoiding controversy. A pro-democracy movement has urged foreign performers and fans to boycott the country, affecting tourism.

It took just minutes to like Swaziland. First, there were the infinite shades of green, sometimes layered one upon another in the same panorama, from the yellow-green of withering sugar-cane leaves all the way to the deep, shadowy green of distant mountains. And then, turning up the 10-mile rutted, burnt-orange dirt road that led through Shewula village to the camp, things took on a surreal look of another time: Children waved as I passed a mix of traditional thatched houses and more modern concrete structures.

Of course, what you see is rarely the full story. I was not surprised to hear from Kayise, the woman who greeted me at the camp, that the village was very poor and ravaged (like much of the country) by AIDS. One sign the Mountain Camp was a homegrown operation: I couldn’t get a clear explanation of how revenue from the camp (founded by the local chief) helped local residents. A more polished operation would have surely had a sound bite ready.

The mountaintop camp itself was tidy and modest — until I got to its edge, where I found a sweeping view of mountains and valleys stretching out below. Saving two of the camp’s few activities (a 100-rand traditional dinner of chicken and peanut sauce and a 40-rand village tour) for the next day, I decided to simply wander into the village.

Just a couple of minutes down the road, I came across a field of kids in a full-scale pickup soccer game. They practically pulled me into the game; I handed my camera to a 14-year-old named Myeni, showed her how to shoot video and made my first appearance as a goalkeeper in 18 years.

The next day, I suggested to the camp’s only other guest, a young South African named Maria, who was carless, that we take a road trip. She agreed, and we chose what looked like the closest city of any significance, Siteki. What had been described in a tourism guide as a “charming” regional capital was actually a rather dusty town, but it was Sunday, and so congregants were returning from church in either their natty best or brightly colored robes. The doors to the High Praise Assembly church were wide open, and we poked our heads in. “We’re just wandering around,” I explained to a group of women who seemed perplexed by my curiosity.

“You should have been wandering around at 10 this morning,” one girl said. “You would have seen us dance.” Note to self: Next time you head to Siteki on a Sunday, get there by 10.

We went into the only spot we could find for lunch, the Lamatikweni Pub and Restaurant, a simple operation with a few shelves of sodas and snacks in the front and a steam table farther back. We ordered what the server called “beans with bones,” an irresistible and pretty accurate name of a tasty dish (the beef bones still had a little meat hanging off them). With another plate of stewed chicken and vegetables, and entree and drinks, our total was 67 rand.

From dusty town to metropolis: I had chosen coastal Durban as an alternative to Cape Town because it was supposed to be less beautiful but more diverse and friendlier. I am always wary of entire populations being described as friendly, but in the day and a half I spent there, a stranger bought me a beer during lunch, a taxi driver abandoned the cab line to lead me to his favorite local restaurant, and even a convenience-store clerk — often the surliest of professions — perkily asked where I was from and wished me a good stay. And I had just bought a water.

In a roll of the dice, I had decided to book a room through the website Hostelworld at Neil’s Backpacker’s and Guest House, which had few online reviews but seemed quirky. Indeed. The house, on a leafy block not convenient to public transportation, was huge and inhabited solely by Neil Snyman (a South African, age: “of the Woodstock music generation”); his dog, Zuma, named for the South African president, Jacob Zuma, though before he was elected; and the occasional guest.

Neil is an incredibly nice guy, an accomplished music producer and a conspiracy theorist, though he would object to being called the latter, arguing that conspiracies are not theories but reality.

I arrived at night, and we went out for an evening of Indian food and Namibian beer (Neil considers South African beer impure), and he gave me several excellent Durban pointers, the intriguing story of how he got into African music, and how the National Security Agency regularly shuts down his computer. My creatively painted, decently appointed room was a bargain at 240 rand a night, though window shades would have been nice.

On Neil’s recommendation, I went to lunch on my second day at Gounden’s, which is one of the more legendary purveyors of the dish Durban is famous for: bunny chow — curry stuffed into a hollowed-out half- or quarter-loaf of white bread. I ordered the mutton version — full of meat, a spicy kick, very filling, and just 40 rand.

Durban’s main attraction is the Golden Mile, a strip of beaches and piers linked by a palm-lined, runner- and biker-friendly promenade that was overhauled for the World Cup in 2010 and is still looking mighty good. Though it lacked the sheer beauty of the Cape Town coast, it was a world to itself. Nowhere is the city’s diversity — blacks and whites and Indians and Muslims and tourists — more evident. Joggers in tank tops and running shorts breezed through, a woman in a hijab trotted after her daughter in a summery red dress, Indians crowded the boardwalk restaurants, a leather-skinned middle-age white surfer emerged from the water, a black soccer team trained on the sand.

Durban wasn’t all wonderful. I left without much sense of its racial history — perhaps because I found the place dedicated to that topic, the (free) KwaMuhle Museum, hard to navigate and confusing for anyone without a working knowledge of, say, the 1959 beer hall riots.

And the city is a bit rough-and-tumble. In the bustling downtown area known as Grey Street I witnessed a disturbing scene: a pickpocket chased down by a security guard and beaten bloody rather than turned over to the police.

“Rough justice,” explained a taxi driver named Krish Moodley, who turned out to be the experience’s silver lining for me: He promptly abandoned his front spot in a taxi line and took me to a nearby Pakistani restaurant, Al-Khair. As I ordered prawns karahi and garlic nan, he gave a more coherent version of Durban history, through his own experiences, growing up nearby when the area was almost entirely Indian.

There were other downsides to taking the alternative route. I found out later I had missed Swaziland’s Marula Festival, which celebrates its namesake fruit and the “beer” made from it, at the very royal residence I had purposefully avoided. (Instead, I tasted marula beer in a traditional home during a very unscripted 40-rand village tour in Shewula.)

But as for finding yourself utterly alone on a winding dirt road, eating your lunch as the rhinoceros 10 yards ahead eats his, I’m not sure there’s an alternative to that at all.

 

Correction: April 1, 2014
An earlier version of this article described incorrectly Cape Town’s location along South Africa’s coast. It is situated down the coast from Durban, not up.

IF YOU GO
Whether you’re willing to camp or need somewhat cushier accommodations, a trip to Kruger or other African parks like it will be far cheaper than moderately priced package safaris. Here’s a guide to planning and pricing.
Make sure your dates in Kruger do not coincide with school holidays in South Africa (schoolterms.co.za), when you’ll be competing for space both at campsites and on the roads. Avoid weekends as much as possible.
Book a flight. I was shocked to pay only $1,175 for a round-trip nonstop from New York to Johannesburg on South Africa Airways; as of this writing, a $1,198 fare is available online for many spring dates.
Rent a car. I did at the huge Avis operation at the Johannesburg airport for $23 a day. If you take a quick flight to Nelspruit, you’ll avoid the four- to six-hour drive to Kruger — but it can be a pleasant one, especially if you listen to SAfm, which is like NPR except with awesome accents.
Budget for gas. I used about 120 rand ($11.50 at 10.5 rand to the dollar) of gas per day in Kruger, about a quarter of a tank; you’ll also need gas to get there and back.
Stop at a supermarket on your way to Kruger, but only for basics. I spent $30 for three days and didn’t eat half of what I bought. Stores within Kruger have most of what you’ll need anyway, at reasonable prices. For a couple, $15 per day is more than enough.
Calculate park admission, called conservation fees. For short stays, adults pay 248 rand per day in the park, children under 12 pay half. But anyone staying six days or more should get a yearly pass called the Wild Card. It’s 1,610 rand for an individual, 2,610 per couple and 3,120 per family. A couple staying a week ends up paying 373 rand a day.
Book lodging. There are about three dozen camps throughout the park, which is about the size (and shape) of Israel. Accommodations can get luxurious, but budget travelers should opt to camp (about 215 rand per couple per night) or take one of the lower end options, like “safari tents” with comfortable beds, a fridge and a porch (but communal facilities) for about 470 rand. Book at sanparks.org/parks/kruger.
Other tips. Buy a map of the park and a basic bird-spotting guide at any camp store; they’re cheap. Follow the advice of Danie, an Afrikaner and a Kruger veteran who camped next to me one night, and drive in the park with windows down, radio and air-conditioning off and ears open. Ask people what they’ve seen and where. Don’t be in a rush — sit still and watch; allow scenes to unfold. And a final tip from me: Don’t forget to look in the trees for birds — and leopards.
Seth Kugel writes the Frugal Traveler column. Read more of his southern Africa reports at nytimes.com/frugaltraveler.
Follow Seth on his frugal adventures via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

A version of this article appears in print on March 30, 2014, on page TR1 of the New York edition with the headline: D.I.Y. Africa
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/travel/diy-africa.html?_r=0