The Journey Inward

We slept in a little bit, packed up, and had our last meal at the lodge. After checking out, we drove Betty back down to the park entrance for our fourth and final game drive.

We parked by a lake for a bit and watched the hippos. The water surrounded by the hills was beautiful and the bobbing hippos were adorable.

It was while we were sitting there that we saw the most extraordinary thing…

From there, we spent the next few hours driving around the park and getting our last looks.

On the ride home, we talked about what an extraordinary experience we had had. We also talked about silly things, like how in South Africa one word means four different things, while in the US it’s just two. In South Africa, they say paws to mean an animal’s feet and to take a beat, but also to fill a glass with a liquid and the little holes in your skin. In the U.S., we saw paws and pours.

He also told me that the speed bumps in South Africa are called sleeping police officers, because they slow traffic by lying in the road.

Reading our guidebook on the way home, I felt like a child checking off all of the animals and birds and footprints we had seen!

I also learned that Pilanesberg became a reserve in 1979, but originally the land was inhabited by the Tswane tribes. They had settled there in 1700 A.D. and were ruled by Chief Pilane in the 1800s, which is where the park got its name. These tribes cultivated millet, sorghum and beans and they kept cattle, sheep and goats. When the European settlers moved to the region, they farmed the land, producing citrus crops, wheat, tobacco and coffee.

The communities were relocated and all signs of farming removed. The 552 km² of land was rehabilitated by taking out any alien vegetation and introducing only indigenous plants. The town was destroyed and the only thing that remains is the Pilanesberg Center building, which is the old Magistrates Court. The game fence was erected, roads were built and a massive game relocation program brought almost 6,000 animals to the park.

Pilanesberg is in the crater of an extinct volcano. There are four concentric rings of hills that rise 700 m above the plains. They are known as the Pilanesberg game reserve alkaline ring complex and the only other places in the world that have that are Greenland and Russia.

Pilanesberg is situated between the dry Kalahari thornveld and the lowveld bush.

The archaeological sites in the park show evidence of man dating back to the iron and stone ages. Artifacts found confirmed that humans lived there between 40,000 and 200 years ago. There are even remains of buildings dating back to the 18th century.