Ngala Safari Tours 2012

Posted on Monday, February 06, 2012

For many of us, traveling to South Africa is synonymous with going on safari. Visions of deep forests, herds of animals near muddy water-holes, and leopards lazing in the trees come to mind when thinking about a safari. But safaris are not inexpensive. Not everyone has the opportunity to pay $1,000 a night for the opportunity to have this experience, the cost of staying at some of the pricier private game reserves. The good news is that very high-quality safari tours can be found at half that price or less, and one of those tours is in the Ngala private game reserve.

I recently stayed for five nights at Ngala, a privately-owned game reserve that shares an open border with Kruger national park (one of the largest game reserves on the African continent). Why a private game reserve? The biggest reason is, simply put, more adventure. Kruger is set up in such a way as to minimize human impact, and while the goal is laudable, it makes animal tracking much more difficult. In private parks such as Ngala, the rules are much more flexible. And believe me, the first time the driver pulled our safari truck off the road and drove us straight into the bush in order to keep pace with a group of rhinos I began to see the advantages to safaris on private reserves.

Don’t think that this is reckless behavior. The two guides—one perched on the gun-seat bolted to the front of the truck, rifle in hand—are experts in animal behavior, and know the area inside and out after going through a rigorous training process. We were fortunate enough to be a part of the fun. As part of the vetting process, the guides-in-training are set down in a random spot, and have to make their way through more than fifty miles of terrain without being spotted by anyone (and of course, without being eaten by any of the many leopards, lions, cheetah and other animals frequenting the area). Our guide encouraged us to keep a look out for one of the trainees, stopping at one point when we saw boot prints on the side of the road. The trainee was able to escape our eagle eyes, and managed to get back to camp the following evening, though limping badly from a fall he’d taken climbing a rock face earlier in the day.

We weren’t able to find our human quarry while out on safari, but we saw as many animals as we could hope for. We sat less than ten feet away from two feeding lions, an experience that’s just as viscerally exciting as you can imagine. We even saw two leopards, a very unusual experience due to the reclusive nature of the animal. Keep Ngala in mind when planning a trip to South Africa. The experience is well worth every penny you’ll spend.