Africa presents a veritable paradise for the sampler of exotic meats.  Here are some of the creatures I enjoyed whilst there:

Shown below is a plate featuring many of the above, courtesy of Momma Africa in Cape Town.  From right to left, crocodile with peanut sauce, springbok, ostrich kebab, kudu, and a sausage made of a combo of kudu and springbok.  The concoction on the left is a mash made from corn meal called pap n' wors, with tomato sauce atop.   

Verdicts?  

Starting on the right:  I've had alligator on several occasions which, to me, has been virtually indiscernible from chicken.  I expected something similar from its reptilian cousin.  In fact, the croc had a taste all its own.  It was interesting, but I found the peanut relish, depicted above as the orangeish heap on top of the meat, to be the best part.  The peanut relish actually added a bit to it, but the meat itself did not do much for me.  

The sausage had lots of malay spice in it, and that is primarily what gave it flavor.  It was quite tasty, but not sure it had much to do with the meat. 

I've also had ostrich before, and knew pretty much what to expect.  It is a fine beef alternative, and one which I will continue to eat with pleasure, but also not terribly unusual.

Which brings us to the highlights: kudu and springbok.  Both of these deer cousins tasted more beef-like than deer-like to us.  Given their red meatiness, Eva actually sampled these with me!  Between the two, our favorite was easily the springbok.  It tasted like an exceptional cut of steak.  Extremely flavorful, tender, and perfectly cooked.  The kudu was a strong second, but not quite as tender a cut of meat as the springbok.

We also tasted wildebeest at Ryan's Kitchen in Franshhoek, which was another tasty beef-like meat.  It was a tender medallion prepared with pancetta and a sauce made from a local stout beer and honey.  It was a solid protein, but the award for the meat itself still goes to the springbok (though Ryan's preparation put Momma's to shame).

Finally, we are left with the McDonald's of the bush, the omnipresent impala.  Ryan, the chef at Tanda Tula (not to be confused with Ryan of Ryan's Kitchen), made this into a stew, which was then cooked over charcoal.  The stew itself was excellent, although I am not sure whether it was the impala or Ryan's culinary magic.  It may well be one of those multipurpose meats that can be enjoyed in a wide variety of preparations.  

So there you have my recap of some of the more interesting animals we ate in Africa.  Some were tastier than others, but all were a wild adventure.

Note: Photos of springbok and crocodile courtesy of Google Images. All other images are from our travels.

From Tanda Tula, we drove about three hours south to Notten's Bush Camp, which is another family run game lodge located within the Sabi Sands game reserve.  Notten's is not a tented camp like Tanda Tula, as the rooms are actual buildings.  We decided to try two different safari camps in order to get a feel for these two different types of experiences, but more importantly, because Sabi Sands is geographically and environmentally different from Timbavati and hence you could potentially see different types of animals.  Specifically, Timbavati is rather open, spread out and vegetation can be very sparse at times.  Sabi Sands features some areas of very dense vegetation and other areas with wide open savannas.  

As mentioned, Nottens' accomodations are completed structures rather than the tents at Tanda Tula.  Here are some photos of our room:

Similar to Tanda Tula, Notten's has two game drives per day - in the early morning and at sunset.  Our group this time consisted of a very nice couple from Berlin who were working for the German embassy in Rwanda.  The other members of our group were two girls from Sweden on the first day, and a small group from India on the second day, as well as our guide, Thomas and tracker, Fox.

As we expected, we did get to see some different types of animals at Notten's and had some more great experiences!  Here are some of the highlights:

Cheetah!
According to our guide, these are very rare to glimpse in this part of Africa.  He said he sometimes goes six months without seeing any.  However, on our second evening drive, we spotted this guy sitting on top of a large termite mound staring out over the open fields.  

Lions
This time we came across a group of four female lions snoozing in a field on our morning drive.

In the evening, after sunset, we came upon the same group waking up and getting ready to hunt.  We followed them for 30 minutes or so, hoping they would find dinner.  They walked slowly, single-file, evenly spaced, listening for any potential prey in the bushes.  Amazingly, they paid little attention to us or our spotlight.  We felt like we were on the hunt with them.  It was really incredible to see!

Here are some videos of the lions. Please note that the flashlight did not bother them since they are primarily nocturnal.

Buffalo
We saw many more buffalo at Notten's, including a group of about 8-10 grazing in a clearing.  This is the only time we saw our guide get a little nervous.  Some of the buffalo are more used to the safari vehicles than others.  Because the reserve is not fenced in, animals come and go from other areas of the park and beyond.  Those that are not as used to seeing vehicles and people can sometimes react unpredictably.  We saw a buffalo freak out when we got too close, and our guide quickly moved the vehicle away from the area.  Nevertheless, we got some great shots!

Wild Dog and Hyena
For such an elusive animal, we got lucky twice and saw more wild dogs at Sabi Sands.  We saw these guys coming, turned off the engine and waited.  Three dogs came right by our vehicle, barely paying us any attention.  Later that night, we saw a solitary hyena prowling around for food and captured a few shots, though he seemed a bit put off by us.  Even our guide, Thomas, could not believe our luck and the number of animals we were spotting, saying It's like a zoo out here tonight!

Bush Walk
After breakfast on our second day at Notten's we went on a guided walk through some of the local areas to learn more about some of the interesting plants and smaller animals one might not see on a game drive.  We soon came across a local warthog named Philemon.

We learned lots of interesting tidbits about the local plants, bugs and dung identification techniques, skills sure to come in handy one day.  We also got to see bones from lots of the local wildlife:

In addition to the highlights described above, here are some of the other interesting creatures we saw while at Notten's:

Notten's also featured all of the traditional aspects of safari life, such as sundowner cocktails in the bush and fun dining experiences with the other guests.  Notten's was fully booked while we were there (about 16-18 guests), while Tanda Tula was at most half full (10-12 people), which created a bit of a different dynamic.  We had a great time at both places and are glad we chose to try two different sites, as the environment was very different and we got to see a wide variety of animals.   The only drawback was the drive between the two camps, which was tedious due to slow mining trucks along the route and long stretches of bumpy unpaved roads within the reserves.  We unwisely rented a compact car instead of an SUV, resulting in some interesting experiences traversing dried up sandy riverbeds in the reserves.  It is a miracle we got the car back in one piece with no visible scratches!

We made the six hour drive back to Johannesburg, as the return flights from Hoedspruit and Nelspruit were very expensive.  This is another very tedious drive due to lots of severely potholed roads, more trucks, and curvy mountain passes.  If possible, we'd avoid this drive next time around.  

Overall, the safari experience was amazing and a highlight of our voyage so far.  We would highly recommend it to anyone and hope to do another someday.

As promised, here are more pictures of the younger of the two male lions we saw at Tanda Tula. We watched these lions for a good 20 minutes and had fun taking photos of this guy.  

From Cape Town we flew across South Africa to Hoedspruit, which sits just east of the Kruger National Park.  We had booked two nights at two different safari camps.  The first was located in the Timbavati Reserve, a large area of private game reserves that is open to the Kruger Park.  We chose to stay in these private reserves rather than in Kruger itself, as in Kruger, you are not allowed to leave the roads and thus your chances of viewing wildlife are more limited.  Within private reserves, game lodge operators can look for wildlife anywhere. 

We spent our first two nights at a camp called Tanda Tula, which was about a 45-minute drive east of the Hoedspruit airport.  Tanda Tula is what’s known as a ‘tented’ camp.  There were twelve individual ‘tents’.  We use the term ‘tents’ loosely as our tent was really more of an upscale cabin that happened to have canvas walls and ceiling.  Here are a few photos of our ‘tent’, #8.

Upon arrival we were greeted by everyone working at the camp - Harry, Smiling, Pretty, Ryan the chef and many others. Everyone here is very friendly and welcoming!  We arrived just in time for the first of many excellent meals prepared by chef Ryan. 

We met up with the rest of our group, who would share a guide, tracker, and safari vehicle together for the next two days.  We were very lucky as we ended up with a great guide (Scotch), tracker (Patrick) and group mates (Thomas, Sabina, Barbara and Ann).  Thomas and Sabina are from Munich and were vacationing in South Africa for a few weeks.  Barbara and Ann had both retired to Antigua and were beginning an African vacation as well.  We had a lot of fun with our group and shared a lot of laughs over the next couple of days!

We toured the bush in a Land Rover pictured below.  We could get very close to the animals without alarming them because they think the Land Rover is just another large animal. We had to maintain the shape of a the vehicle because if we were to stand up, the animals would think our vehicle was a different animal, potentially an enemy, and they would attack or run away. 

After meeting up with our group, it was time to get ready for our first game drive.  Typically, on a safari, you will go on two drives per day, one in the early morning and one around sunset, as this is when the animals are most active.  Therefore, at Tanda Tula, we had four separate drives, each of which lasts 3-4 hours.  Without going into each of the game drives specifically, here are some of the highlights of our time at Tanda Tula:

Lions
We came across two male lions catching some sun on a dried up riverbed.  The younger lion does not yet have a mane, which typically comes in when the lion is 6-7 years old.  They were taking turns keeping watch and snoozing.  We later caught the same two lions in a field.  Take note of the younger lion here.  He put on a bit of a performance for us which will be highlighted in a future post…

Elephants
The Timbavati Reserve and much of the Kruger region abounds with elephants.  In fact, there are too many elephants, which is a problem because they eat trees nonstop.  There was an attempt to relocate some elephants to Mozambique, however, they soon found their way back to Kruger.  At least we were able to benefit by seeing lots of them!

Rhinoceros
We saw loads of these guys too.

Leopard
This is apparently one of the more elusive animals to spot.  Unlike lions, leopards are typically solitary and are harder to find during the day.  On our second day, we saw this in a tree on our morning game drive.  This is a freshly-killed impala, pulled up into a tree by a leopard the night before.  We searched the area for the leopard but to no avail – in fact, we ended up with a flat tire after driving over some sort of small tree and had to abandon the hunt.

However, the next day, our fortunes were better.  We found this female leopard in the grass under a tree protecting a recent kill.  She also had two cubs with her!  The cubs ran off when we approached, but we were able to snap a shot of them heading off into the bushes…

Wild Dogs and Hyenas
Another animal that is fairly rare to glimpse is the wild dog.  These are similar to a large domestic dog, and they travel / hunt in groups.  We were lucky, and came across a pack of wild dogs that had just killed an impala.  Soon afterwards, a group of hyenas stole the kill, chasing off the wild dogs!  This all happened right next to our jeep and we got to see the hyenas fighting over the kill up close.  They also had a baby, which had to fight for a few bits of the carcass just like the others.  Hyenas are slow and therefore rarely hunt for their own kills.   They are, however, vicious, move in large groups, and typically take kills away from many other types of animals.  Unfortunately, this all happened after sunset, so our photos are a bit blurry, but it was amazing to see.

In addition to these, we also saw a variety of other animals including buffalo, warthogs, giraffes, monkeys, lots of different types of antelopes such as impalas, kudus and water bucks, and many types of interesting birds.  Here is a sample:

The animals were amazing. We saw all big 5 animals (elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, and leopard) in just two days at Tanda Tula.  In addition to the game drives we also enjoyed the traditional aspects of safari life. For example, every night at sunset we stop in the bush for Sundowners - a cocktail & snack.  The South African sunsets are stunning and it's also fun to look at a sky full of stars on the drive back to the lodge. 

After our game drive, everyone warms up with an Amarula hot chocolate before dinner. Then the entire lodge eats together - either fine dining style or a typical braai (BBQ).  We enjoyed many different game meats that Chris surely write about in a future Culinary Delights post!

We had an AMAZING time at Tanda Tula - stay tuned for more safari adventures from our next stop, Nottens Bush Camp!