In her book Bossypants, Tina Fey writes, “I have no affinity for animals. I don’t hate animals and I would never hurt an animal; I just don’t actively care about them.”
Tina, I totally feel you on this. Thank you for being so honest and allowing me to feel I can finally come out of the closet regarding my Animal Indifference.
Animals are fine. I grew up on a farm. My childhood home was always overrun by dogs, cats, chickens, goats, sheep, donkeys, pigs, and the occasional ox, horse, or baby deer. I obviously think nature is awesome, and I usually consider wild animals to be much better at life than humans. It’s just that I am somewhat “meh” towards animals, as a group. Thus, I never thought I’d be interested in going on a safari. The idea of sitting in a hot 4×4 with a group of strangers, driving slowly through fields trying to spot a rhino or chasing down lions, sounds absolutely heinous/pointless to me.*
But then my colleague Matt, his partner Mandy, and I drove our rental car through Kruger National Park and…Mind: Blown.
If you want to get the thrills of the animal kingdom without pulling a Bear Grylls, drive a tiny rental car through the wilderness where you may just come face-to-fender with animals bigger than your vehicle (scary/awesome). Kruger National Park is the size of Massachusetts and has every crazy exotic African animal you can possibly think of, roaming free. We drove our baby car up and down Kruger’s red dirt roads for a day, and saw one million animals. Really. I counted.
There was definitely something cool about our self-made safari. I think it was because A) I wasn’t surrounded by tourists (I am tolerance-challenged when around other tourists – I know, the hypocrisy, WHATEVER!) and B) we found these crazy wild beasts all on our own, without the help of a guide or a radio or anything but our own eyes and Matt’s stealth-driving tactics. So, I rescind my previous comments about animals being “meh”. At least, rhinos, elephants, giraffes and water buffalo, when seen at close proximity in their natural habitat, just being totally free and huge and beastly, are very much not “meh”.
*Of course, I don’t judge people who go on safari. Just like I don’t judge people for having pets. These things are totally normal and fine activities for humans. They’re just not for me.
Photos!!!

One of many phenomenal giraffe sightings! Giraffes are weird-looking up close, by the way. They might be dinosaurs.

The last animal we saw was this elephant. We rounded a bend and there he was, munching on a giant bush, about 8 feet from our car. It was really cool until I realized he could kill us in 5 seconds and make it look like an accident. Then it was really cool and also a tiny bit panicky.
One serious adventure we had in Kruger was a rhino-induced traffic jam. The following slideshow tells this story. It was all very wilderness-meets-the-modern-man.
- We were driving along and came to this white Toyota parked in the road in front of us. Soon, we saw why: This HUGE rhino lumbered out of the roadside weeds in front of the Toyota.
- The Rhino meandered out into the middle of the road, where he proceeded to stand quite stoically, looking at the Toyota and our car behind it, and turning in slow circles.
- Soon another small car approached from the opposite direction. I should note at this point that the rhino was bigger than our car, and most of the other cars in the ensuing line-up.
- The rhino became increasingly nervous, but we couldn’t do anything or go anywhere because 4 or 5 cars had now lined up behind us. We were stuck. Sometimes the rhino would go out of our sight, but we’d know he was “too close” to the Toyota because suddenly the Toyota’s reverse lights would come on and it would quickly start backing up towards our car.
- This rhino road-pacing continued for about 15 minutes. During this time, we couldn’t do anything but sit there and think of how much we’d failed to accomplish in our short lives that would now be ended by rhino-car-squashing at any moment.
- This picture is for scale. That motha was a beast. He could have easily totaled any of our vehicles.
- The cars kept coming, trying to figure out a way past the rhino. We were smart (read: scared) so we simply sat there, allowing other cars to pass us by, knowing they’d be the first to go when the rhino suddenly got angry and decided to charge.
- Finally, after we’d all suddenly become religious and reconsidered the course of our lives (“Please, animal kingdom gods, I promise to be a better person/friend/animal-lover if you let me live!”), our dear rhino friend took a half-ton shit on the edge of the road and then disappeared into the bushes on the other side. And we all drove away unscathed. The end.
After a full day of quietly sneaking up on dangerous animals in our teensy vehicle and leaning precariously out the window to take photos, we exited Kruger and headed to a backpacker’s in Nelspruit. The next day, I left the wilderness behind in exchange for a second trip to Johannesburg and then some Cape Town exploration. But I am happy to have experienced this self-made safari. It’s possible that it was, at times, a bit…unsafe. But it’s also possible that it was worth it.

Sunset as we drove out of Kruger. You can see a giraffe’s silhouette in the distance. Oh, Southern Africa. Love love love.