Issue 3: Big Five

I enjoyed the view of East Africa highland while cruising from Moshi to Kenya International Airport in a little bus. My breathing was steady then, while my heart rate had dropped to sea level. I can feel the high altitude with “big white cotton” hanging on top of trees. The flight from Nairobi back to Johannesburg via Namanga was pretty smooth. I sent a SMS to Jeanny wishing her “Happy Birthday”, and wrote 15 postcards while waiting for my flight, SA 182, to sail me through the cloud.

Do International Airlines do posting of postcards for the passengers FOC?
I was pretty shocked when air the steward denied this practice, more surprise when South Africa Airline did not have free playing card for passenger to entertain themselves onboard! My friend, ShuiYen, had been collecting playing card of different airline. I thought South Africa Airline would be a good contribution. Karen who took Air Tanzania from Kilimanjaro Airport to Johannesburg was denied the free postage service and playing card too. Probably only few international airline companies offered that?

Karen collected the romantic purple car and had a little fun driving around Johannesburg before meeting me at airport. There are nine provinces in South Africa. Joburg is located in the smallest province, Gauteng, which covers 1.4% (17000km²) of the country with close to 18% of the population (8 million people). According to my Zambian friend, Aubrey, Johannesburg aka Joburg is the fourth largest city in Africa (Cairo of Egypt is the largest). The city is also nicknamed “Egoli” which means “Place of GOLD”! Think about it, 40% of the world’s gold has been found here! I do not have much time to find out more about this concrete jungle. Karen and me set off for the Safari at Kruger National Park (NP).

Unlike Mount Kenya NP and Kilimanjaro NP, Kruger NP is named after a person. Paul Kruger, President of Transvaal (South African) Republic from 1883 til 1900, established the NP in 1898. The NP grew in size over the years. Today it is one of the most important landmark of South Africa. The 20000km square NP was indicated on the map when I was flying in from KL to Joburg!

I used to believe if one needs to see animal, just go to the zoo. Singapore has one of the zoos on planet Earth. I would normally tell my foreigner friends, if there is one place you need to visit in Singapore, make it the Mandai Zoo. This is probably a good recommendation for most people except Aubrey. 7600 animals of diverse species and the night safari zoo can never match a NP in the eyes of a real nature lover. I respected that, and could not agree more. There may be less species of animal in a Safari, but one would definitely learn more in a safari than a zoo. Probably, this is one what my Prime Minister, Mr Lee, meant by “study less and learn more”.

Do you watch documentary about animals in the wild? Personally, that is one of my favourites. Others would be about travel and culture. I used to think the person who videoed predators ambushing their prey very cruel. They could have warned the poor veggies. Sadly, during the three days stay in the NP, I wished to see the cats in action.

I saw three of the "Big Five" (Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo, Leopard and Lion) except the cats. The three cheetahs kinda replaced the leopard. But nothing can ever replace the King of the Savannah! I love lions, this beast is often portrait to be the King, a leader with grace. The fact is he is a king when comes to reproduction. Male lions don’t or seldom hunt and but get to eat first. A male lion can mate up to 40 times, and sleep up to 20 hours a day. Think about it, if a lion is sexually active for three days, it has had more sex than a normal Singaporean man. According to a report by Durex, Singaporean men only make love twice a week. Probably all men need more than a wife, that is why we normally see a few lion but a lot of lionesses?

Cheetahs are interesting cats, they are known for the capability to accelerate to a speed of 100km/h in 3 seconds for 200-300m. Little is known that Cheetahs are the most “out-dated” cats. Cheetah can never retract their claws. The paw prints of a leopard and cheetah can be easily differentiated. At the turn of the nineteenth century there were about 100,000 cheetahs on earth in a range that included India. Cheetahs in India were wiped out by the 1950s. Today cheetahs are extremely endangered, with only about 12,500 alive in Africa. Namibia, with an estimated 2,500, has the largest population. Because there is only one cheetah species in Africa, the cats are particularly vulnerable. Seeing cheetah was definately more rewarding than seeing leopard?

But how can one tell the difference between a leopard and cheetah? Other than getting a supervising, conducting and safety officer for 100m sprint race, one can tell a cheetah from a leopard by the black tear marks running down its face. So far, only April identified it correctly. There is an interesting fact about leopards, they drink blood seldom water, and leopard would never change its spots. Do you know the size of human eyes will never grow? Now you know why you used to look so cute.

For more information, on big and small cats check out...
http://www.bigcats.com

Elephant, Rhino and Buffalo are veggies. There are nothing interesting about them. Haha… If Joanne tied three of them together, they would make good anchor points (easily up to 8000kg) for Ace Adventure Race III racers to do rappelling.

In animal kingdom, all predators are “Built for the Kill” and the preys would try their very best to escape. Giraffe and Zebra camouflage themselves. No two zebras have the same strips. Imagine a herd of zebras being chased by lionesses, the young zebras have to recognised their mothers using the stripes on their ass! Thanks to God, many cats can not see the camouflage prey well.

A good nature reserve is determined by the number of predators. I can not remember the exact figures, but it was said one hectare of good grass land can support one zebra, and it takes up to 100 zebras to support a lion. I believe I saw hundreds of antelopes (Impala, Kudu, Springbok), zebra, giraffe but NO lion!

Meow! Meow!!