Today A Monkey Pissed On Me (St. Lucia and Xhuhluwe/Imfolini Game Reserve)

Today A Monkey Pissed On Me...well, not me, but Jeremy (but I did get a bit of the back splash) and we will get to that story in a bit because I first want to tell you how we got there. After our amazing finale with the Lions at Kruger, Jeremy and I drove the 6 hour drive to a small town called St. Lucia, which is famous for their crocodiles and hippos. To get there, we drove through Swaziland – a country within the country of South Africa. We didn’t get to see much of it as we stayed to the major highways but what small amounts we did see was absolutely beautiful. In fact, it kind of reminded us a bit of Saskatchewan as along the route, there was dozens and dozens of farmer’s fields – the only difference was that instead of wheat or canola, they were farming sugar cane. When we reached our destination, the place we were recommended to stay was fully booked and we ended up settling for a pretty run down place. I asked the woman to see the rooms prior to paying but since she was the only one working the counter, she said she couldn’t leave but assured us that it was a very neat and clean unit. Clean was a bit of a tale, the room stunk and there were bugs crawling all over the bathroom – yuck! The only perk was that there was no one else in the hostile (go figure – we were taken) and so we were able to spread out in the kitchen and cook, cook, cook. The second let down came when we booked a morning tour on the St. Lucia Estuary to get close ups of the Hippo’s. I was down right bored. Jeremy kept himself busy by admiring the birds along the way. From there, we stopped at a market where we bought local produce from different sellers – they were so grateful for our support. We actually lined the food up on the ground and took a picture of it (look for the pic in the album). We purchased all of this food for the low low price of $80 Rands which is a little over ten Canadian dollars...pretty hard to believe! There was no way Jeremy or I could have consumed all of this food prior to it rotting so we made a little care package and gave it to a street vendor (whom we later bought a beautiful cloth painting from) as he was begging us to buy something from him as he was starving – his words of thanks were simple to us, he simply said, “God Bless”.

From there we headed to the Crocodile Sanctuary where by chance, we arrived just in time for the croc feeding (which is only done once a week on Sundays). By now, the temperature was above 40 degrees Celsius and it was only 11am. The feeding was so neat to experience and the lead tour guide was very knowledgeable and gave us tons of tid bit facts about crocs. For example, crocodiles have two penus’ which means they can mate on either side, they also swallow rocks to help break up the digestion of bones and the one I really find interesting is that the temperature determines the sex of the babies. So for example, if a certain region or park had a minority of females, then the crocodile sanctuary would incubate the eggs ~ between 30 -34 degrees and ‘voila’, a female croc would be produced. We posted a very cool video of the large crocodiles feeding. The one giant crocodile in the far corner, away from the rest, was taken in by the Sanctuary after it was captured or what I like to think ‘reprimanded’ for eating a baby and the mother. It was brought to the sanctuary where it underwent surgery to extract the body parts. The crocodile was named Meshesha which means FAST! It was given this name because within 5 minutes of it awaking from surgery, it was already mating with a female.

We then took a nice detour to the baby and juvenile croc center – this was also very interesting to see as they literally walked all over each other and fought like crazy over the chunks of chicken meat that were being fed to it. I of course felt bad for the under dogs because they were not aggressive enough and a few of them left empty handed as they were unable to grab any piece of meat. After touring around the sick wing (i.e. crocs that have been brought in after being trapped in poachers snares etc.) and checking out the ‘aggressive’ unauthorized wing (where in the past the crocs have actually charged the cages) we were free to walk around. This is where the whole monkey and the peeing thing comes in to play. Jeremy and I were busy running around taking tons of pics of the cute little monkeys that were jumping from tree to tree. Jeremy was extremely fascinated in a mother monkey that was carrying her baby and as he had his head tilted fully up snapping pictures, a monkey above decided to let mother nature run its course. It was pretty funny and I actually felt a bit of the splash...but because it was now the peak of the day (a whopping 44 degrees), I didn’t know if I should run after the monkey or thank it for cooling us down for just a brief moment – lol!

We finished off our St. Lucia experience with a Night time game drive. Luckily, we spotted a leopard (completing our Big 5 sitting) but that was pretty much the highlight as we really saw nothing else other than bush buck, zebras and water buffalo as it was much too dark out. We told the guide about the pee experience earlier in the day and he informed us that to get peed on by a monkey is actually good luck to the locals and therefore maybe was the reason that we were there for the first leopard sighting in the last 3 months.

The part we really found interesting about St. Lucia was that the locals, where ever you would go, would give you tips about what to do in the event of a hippo or croc. The Hippo’s are famous for grazing the grass in the downtown stretch at night and if one was ever encountered, we were told to not only run like hell but constantly make turns to confuse the hippo. The town also has a pair of leopards that have taken the area in as their home. We were told to never leave each other’s side because this would intimidate the leopards and stop them from potentially attacking. Desperate to see more of these fascinating animals, Jeremy and I drove around the town at night trying to spot them – we were unlucky in our attempt to spot a leopard or two but we did spot tons of crocs in the water and stumbled upon some Hippos out and about grazing – so crazy to think.

The following morning, we got up at 3:45 am and headed to the Hluhluwe/Imfoluzi Game Reserve where we spent the entire day aimlessly driving around looking for the beautiful wildlife (mainly the cats). We stopped at every bathroom along the way and I would completely drench my self from head to toe, but it really only lasted for fifteen minutes because after that time I was completely dried off due to the insane heat. We spotted every animal imaginable (except those darn cats!) and we noticed a number of zebras that were what we called the ‘lucky’ ones as they had escaped what must have only been an attack from a pride of lions – my heart of course went out to these poor (but so beautiful) creatures. One of our favourite parts of the park was a set of Dung Beetles that I managed to somehow see while driving down a road. Here, the beetles gather a chunk of elephant dung and roll it down the road and by doing this, the dung turns into a compacted ball which to them is a perfect place to nestle in and call home once the final destination has been reached. The other favourite from this park were the Rhino’s – seriously, the park should have been called The Rhino Game Reserve because everywhere we turned there were Rhino’s either in our way or in our line of sight. We encountered one particularly cool Rhino who had a horn that was at least 1m long. We showed our picture to some locals and they could not believe how lucky we were to have not only seen such an old animal but to have seen it in general. The parks are having a really hard time controlling the poachers and this horn alone they quoted us could sell for $250,000 overseas. In fact this year alone the rangers have discovered 23 rhinos dead in the park – carcass rotting but the horn cut off.

We treated ourselves that night to staying inside the park at the Hilltop Resort, which, like the name suggests was on the top of the hills. The view was beautiful and we are kicking ourselves now for not checking it out at night as the stars in SA have been vibrant. The following day, we slept in till 5 am and were back on the roads looking for those darn cats at 5:30. We left the park at 10am after spotting tons of animals and headed to Mtuzuni to meet up with Merv and Jane Wallace (brother of our neighbour up at the lake). There we spent the entire day and a night with them in their beautiful little paradise (their house was actually on a nature reserve). They entertained and fed us and gave us some indispensable advice about what we needed to see prior to the Garden Route. We left early in the morning (again after an amazing breakfast) and headed to the Drakensberg Mountains where, because of them, we have now checked in to this incredibly beautiful area for a whopping 5 days – I guess that is the beauty of not having plans...we can just go with the flow!