The Blind

One of the things I have been most excited about during our trip is a night in a bird blind. As the park gates close, you lock yourself into a small wooden building with a viewing window that looks somewhat like a old WWII pillbox, overlooking a river. You are in for the night, just you and the animals. Leaving the blind during the night is not recommended. There is a small boma, (a round area for a fire and a grill), where you cook your own food, fold down beds from the wall and a chemical toilet. Here is an account of our night in the blind.

4:15pm – We just arrived and a giraffe was walking away from our lovely accommodation for the night. As we entered the blind there is a pod of hippos playing in the river, opening their mouths and play biting each other. It’s like you are watching two of your children playing in the swimming pool.

6:00pm – John and I left the women watching the kids in the pool as we went to get provisions, Paul is bringing the food. The park supplies mattresses, water, a gas lantern and cutlery. Who would have ever thought that Lou and Lynne would be okay with being left alone in the African wilderness? We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Paul, Jason and Daniel.

6:45pm – Paul and the boys just got here. They are amazed, Paul and all of his friends were not aware that you can sleep in a Kruger bird blind. We are all watching the kids in the pool, a croc has joined the group. We are settling down for a fun evening.

7:30pm – It’s dark now but we bought a good spotlight and we are watching a couple of hippos fighting in the river for dominance.
Paul is telling us stories; at one time he owned a bakery and was vying for the concession for all the baked goods for Kruger Park. Running behind, he was in a rush to make the interview, threw on some dress pants and headed out. This is a big deal for him and his bakery.

After the interview he was trying to get back before the gates closed and gets stopped by the police. The cop is ready to write him a ticket when he looked down and noticed that Paul’s zipper was down. He started laughing about the zipper, and then he looked down and saw that Paul had on two different shoes. He was laughing so hard he decided not to give Paul the ticket. Paul ended up winning the business in spite of an open zipper and two different shoes for one of the biggest interviews of his career.

10:30pm – We got the grill and fire started and dinner was started. The only problem is that we were attacked by stink bugs. Stink bugs were in our hair and going down our shirts. If you kill one it puts off a terrible odor.

We started grilling lamb machonchos but they kept getting stink bugs on them, what started as a nice barbeque became a race to eat meat and no bugs. We had a salad but we felt it was a lost cause to try to eat a salad with all the bugs. We can hear hyenas calling as they smell our food cooking. We cooked steaks, instead of putting the steaks on a plate we just ate them as steaksicles on the end of a fork.

We can hear the great hippo battles going on in the river but our wonderful 2 million light candle spotlight just died on us so we have continuously take dashes to the car to charge the light with the cigarette charger hoping we don’t become a lion’s next meal.


11:00pm – The campfire is blazing, everybody is having fun. We started making smores, they are delicious. The boys are having a blast, the hippo battles continue on the river, most of our flashlights have died, but so far so good, the lions are still hungry.

1:00am – It’s just Paul and myself still standing, everyone else has gone to bed. I just thought I heard a lion but realized it was just John snoring. Wow, can that boy snore. As Paul and I jumped into bed it sounded like we have two of the three bears, papa bear (John) and mama bear (Lynn) snoring away. Paul and I fell asleep to a chorus of grunts from hippos and the two bears in the African night.