More Zulu culture and a visit to St Lucia

Vusi continues to teach me, more patiently and more carefully than the others. And not just Zulu, but the Zulu names of the trees, the animal tracks in the sand sometimes too. He also often shares something of the Zulu culture with me. Listening to him describing how iqombothi (maize beer) is made I don’t always follow the Zulu, but his vivid description of bubbling mielie meal is brilliant. His hands perfectly mimic the drops of hot, white liquid spitting up into the air, plopping back into the pot as the bubbles of steam are released. The sound effects leave his mouth through a gentle smile. I smile back. I also learn that his family, or clan rather, the Dlamini’s, are forbidden from eating sheep. If he does it will make him crazy he tells me. Other clans are forbidden from eating goats, or other animals. Muzi, belongs to one of the luckier clans, the Mtshali’s – no food is off limits. Although for him his church forbids the eating of pork and various other foods.

“Frip frip frip frip!”, a small, greyish bird calls high up in a thorn tree. Fana knows this call well and goes to investigate. The bird flits off to a tree closeby, still calling incessantly. You can clearly hear the urgency. Fana follows the bird and I follow Fana. We both hope that this little bird, the lesser honeyguide, will lead us to a nest of sweet, golden liquid. We keep following and our little friend leads us on enthusiastically, for he knows that if we find a hive of wild honey that we will leave him a small piece of the comb, as a fee for his service. We scramble through thick bush. The bird waits patiently. And then we hit the fenceline. Passport on the other side, Mkuzi Game Reserve. Disappointed we turn back to where we are working, just a short ways away. The bird is confused, he thinks we have somehow lost him and flies back, fripping harder than ever. Birds don’t know about fences or about private property. Hopefully one day soon these fences will drop and the animals will roam a greater area with greater freedom. Eventually the honeyguide gives up and goes off in search of another accomplice with whom to rob the hive.

“I have some biscuits for you” Vusi tells me, excitedly, after we exchange greetings before a morning of fencing. He even takes out the packet and shows me, in case I didn’t understand. “But I will give them to you at lunch only.” Later we share lunch in the shade of the shed under which the tractor lives, at Mandatane. We sit on bales of lucerne, me with my pasta and him with his pap and beans. Chocolate Toppers for desert. Two packets, so I get my own one. They sell them for R5 a packet at a little staff shop at Izwe. It is a very humbling gesture, although I can tell he thinks nothing of it. I know I have made a real friend.

A weekend visit to False Bay Park takes us just down the road from Phinda, to a place I have been before, on a camping trip with Natal family when I was just a boy of five. The camp itself is closed, for the low water makes the main attraction of fishing in Lake St Lucia no longer possible. We are not there to fish though, so we go in for the day. A gravel road takes us from the depths of the sand forest, where red duiker scuttle out of our way, into the open lake shore. Miles of grey, dry lake bed stretch out, disappearing into reflections of mirages and eventually water. Driving parallel to the shore now, a patch of green appears up ahead, a small marsh that will drain into the lake after the rains resuscitate the streams. On a bush close to the road sits a crowned eagle, his tufted feather-crown dancing in the wind. He lifts effortlessly up into the winds as we pass and settles on some reeds closeby. The reception office and building around are rather neglected and all the signs are faded. One cannot help but imagine how beautiful this place could be with a bit of love and care. The scenery is complete contrast with the derelict buildings. Barren and dry yes, but hauntingly beautiful.

St Lucia will make the perfect little trip for my birthday and we set off eagerly in the morning. Sadly the camp at Cape Vidal is closed due to the drought and so we will stay in the town at one of the campsites. We drive through patches of thundershowers at Mtubatuba, and we are both wondering and hoping that this precious rain will reach Phinda. We wind through the town, under archways of lush, green forest, until we reach the estuary. A pod of hippos are making the most of the cloudy weather, grazing on a lawn, just below the dunes of the beach. Crocs soak up what heat they can on exposed sandbanks and terns take turns at performing impressive aerial displays between rest sessions next to the crocs.

 Watching all of this from the grass bank we soon spy a grey dorsal fin, and about a metre and half behind it a tail fin. These probably belong to a bull shark, about 2.5m long. Just 50m away and he is coming towards us. And then we spot the croc. About 3m long, heading straight for the shark. Neither gives way and the water erupts with slashing jaws and writhing bodies. Soon the splashing stops and they both move off, unclear as to who the victor is.

The Imvubu Trail seems like a good (and free) way to see experience the area and from the map it looks like it ends at the river. Binos and water bottle in hand we set off. The clouds have cleared and the afternoon sun shines down on the grass track ahead of us, leading us through open areas right up to the fence of the reserve. Three female buffalo graze peacefully on the floodplain below us, behind the fence. Further down the track we see a herd of female waterbuck looking on lazily as they lie in the grass, also on the other side of the fence. Passing a little stream we disturb the male of the group. He trots off towards his harem, holding his impressive, curved horns high.

We enter a small patch of forest, and a shy bushbuck flees from our advancing footsteps. Very nervous, and very reasonably so, for we have spotted several leopard paw prints in the sand, from just before the rain we guess. Perhaps last night.

At the junction a sign points us to the estuary. Soon we arrive at the fence. A faded sign indemnifies the Natal Conservation Service from animal injury we might sustain from encounters with the animals pictured in little blocks below. Buffalo. Elephant. Hippo. Crocodile. And Leopard. We walk up the ladder and over in the reserve. The sign we have just read definitely turned up the volume on hearing, sight and even smell. The area is very open, grasslands, with little patches of bushes and palms. Pretty good country for spotting dangerous animals but absolutely rubbish if you disturb a buffalo lying in the grass. Nowhere to hide or climb.

We walk the few hundred metres of grassland with no incident and soon we reach the mangrove forest, on the shores of St Lucia. We tread carefully in old hippo tracks, hoping that the sun would have chased any grazing hippo back into the water. We feel a bit safer when we spy hippo close to the far bank of the river. Some 100m away from us the pod of about 20 hippo huddle close to each other. A small croc drifts downstream, and we leave them to head back to camp. A wrong turn takes us on about an hour’s detour. Our feet are tired but at least they take us past great sighting of impala and zebra, somehow so different when you see them on foot. We head back to set up camp at Sugarloaf campsite, to enjoy a slow-cooked potjie with ice-cold beers. And later hot chocolate with Amarula, all under the stars.

We hit the Imvubu Trail again today for it is not often you get to walk alone in a game reserve with dangerous game. Along the trail, now inside the fence, we spy a beautiful male waterbuck in the distance, lying down. He hasn’t seen us yet. We use a small patch of bush as cover and sneak towards him. The wind is in our favour. We move out the cover and he is standing now, looking straight at us. We detect a hint of mockery in his expression for he is not that easily fooled.

We follow the trail, careful not to step on any of the many dung beetles busily transporting perfectly formed balls of dung with which to court the females.

Buffalo. Three of them. Just 70m ahead of us! We should have been paying closer attention. It is a stand off, us with no cover to get to and them, unsure of how much of a threat we are. The buffalo give way and trot off. Probably the three females we saw yesterday.

We spend the rest of the day in the park, walking on the beach at Cape Vidal, looping around past the salty shores of Lake Bangazi, through the smoky haze of burning reeds. The landscapes are just spectacular and the animals plentiful.