November 18, 2021

 

Letaba Restaurant, 1000

 

Yesterday evening drove around in beautiful light. A few things to shoot, but nothing that left me feeling that I had the shot of the month. There’s a point in a trip like this when you realize that time is ticking away, and that you’re way closer to the end than to the beginning. Like life, you know? So, drive, no leopard, go home and fix pasta, a ginger beer and a glass of wine. Power off/on/off/on throughout the night. The South African power grid is subject to rolling black outs. Park camps are all supposed to have backup generator power, but it varies in terms of how well that works. Eventually the generator is fired up but then it’s like someone parked their idling locomotive across the street from your house. But it’s good and slept with windows open. Lots of typical hippo drama and somewhere in the night a hyena sang.  Hyenas have all sorts of vocalizations, but this was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard a hyena make. Truly the Linda Ronstadt of hyenas.

 

Up at 0415, light breakfast and out the door, heading to the Matambeni hide. This is a place with many memories for me. Saw a red-wing starling allowed by a klipspringer to perch on its head and eat something pulled from its pre-orbital gland. Bizarre and unusual. Had a bull elephant once approach the hide in very beautiful light. So close he could have touched me. And this is where the haunted plated lizard Ahab visited me once. 

 

On the way, found a large troop of baboons, relatively stationary for once. Baboons are a blast to observe and can be great to shoot. But it was pretty dark, and I don’t think I got much. I drove farther along this little offshoot of the road and got to the place where several years ago Gina had spotted the Verreaux’s Eagle Owl, sitting with his genet prey in a beautiful tree, in beautiful light.

 

The roads in Kruger are still reasonably well maintained, but these little pull-outs, found mostly around riverbanks are not, and require constant vigilance and care not to get stuck. As I carefully worked my way around, back toward the road, I saw an elephant cow and her calf feeding in the lane about 50 meters ahead. I backed up and searched for some alternate way out to the main road. But no luck. So, I sat and waited and eventually mom worked her way off of the lane a bit and I scooted through, annoying the youngster who undoubtedly filed away a mental note to the effect that cars are jerks.

 

Elephants peppered the rest of the way to the hide. Kruger has several hides like this spread throughout the Park. Small, narrow wooden structures with openings on the side facing a river or water hole and crude benches. They’re dark and quiet and cater mostly to birders. I noted the mud dauber home in the hide and gave her some space and watched hippos. It was quiet there. Not much to shoot and light was in and out throughout the morning. I saw a huge elephant herd approach the river from the opposite side and crash through the waters, eventually swimming with trunks up as snorkels to the other side and then disappear into the dense bush.

 

While there, some sort of hornet kept buzzing around my face, daring me to fight, like I was a tourist on a subway in a bad part of town. I just averted eye contact and ignored it, minding my own business and he did not sting me. And I’m very grateful for that.

 

Uneventful drive home on this humid, hazy warm morning. And now enjoying a bran muffin with a side of bacon and drinking my second double espresso made by Veronique.  Veronique sings when she works. You can also tell that Veronique is bossy and used to getting her way. Or at least, that’s my story for her.

 

This used to be a fantastic restaurant. When I first started coming here, part of the charm of it all was that the camps were all different. That also meant that each camp had its own restaurant, and the staff were employed by the camp.  Menus were all different. Some were great and some were not so great.  Satara and Lower Sabie used to do big braiis and Satara had sort of cafeteria style dinning. But Letaba had the best restaurant in my opinion, managed by Timothy. You’d have to sign up early in the day to have a table on the deck for dinner. I’ve had awesome chicken curry and chicken schnitzels here, and it was here that I was introduced to bobotie (sort of like a shepherd’s pie, with curry spiced ground beef) and impala potjie, which is a traditional venison stew.

 

After a couple of years though, everything changed, and the Park began to outsource management of restaurants. They’ve gone through several different contracts since then. At one point they contracted with Mugg & Bean, which is a big South African franchise. But they largely failed and now only provide food at the Lower Sabie camp (amusingly though, many of the camp restaurants still carry all sorts of Mugg & Bean branding, but with anything that specifically says “Mugg & Bean” literally scratched out). Olifants and Letaba are managed by an outfit called Tindlovu and both offer the exact same, and pandemically very limited, menus. 

 

It seems like a shame to me, but it’s the same steady march toward corporatization that you’d find in the States. SANParks’ original justification was that they’d gotten complaints from customers that they could get a meal at one camp but then go to the next camp and it wouldn’t be on the menu. People just didn’t know what they were going to get…. While I can imagine a grumpy Afrikaans dude complaining about that, that’s of course not the reason for the switch. Money is involved. It’s sad, but my guess is that most people here are completely oblivious to the fact that it was different (and better). And now I find myself sounding like a grumpy old man, complaining that things aren’t as good as they used to be. So, I’ll stop. But I’ll also take a moment to remember Timothy and to be grateful that I got to be here while it was still unique and special.