Our Guide and Friend in South Africa, Kobus de Jonge
Some years ago we took a fantastic trip to South Africa, and friends have been asking about it ever since. We were not blogging back then, so it never made it onto these pages, but the questions always came back to the same two things: how do you plan a trip like that, and what about safety? The answer to both, for us, was Kobus de Jonge.
Kobus and his team built our itinerary around some of the greatest golf courses in the world, the great cities and small villages in between, and a finish at Kruger National Park for a wildlife experience we will never forget. We flew into Johannesburg and on to Cape Town, where Kobus met us at the airport, and once we had checked into our hotel the first order of business was Table Mountain.
Cape Town and Table Mountain.
The views from the top are tremendous, and they give you a real sense of how Cape Town sits between the mountain and the sea. That evening we asked Kobus to pick a restaurant and join us for dinner, and over the meal we went through the plan for the next ten days. We told him what we always tell a guide: we would rather eat where the locals eat than at the big-name places the tourists flock to.
Wine country and the road to George.
From there the trip became a string of exactly those kinds of local experiences, beginning with the wineries around Cape Town, among them the golfer Ernie Els's own estate and the cheekily named Goats do Roam.
Driving up the Garden Route toward George, it was Easter, and we pulled into a small town where the one restaurant that happened to be open was the J.J. Grill.
A roomful of local farmers were sitting down to their Easter dinner, and they would not hear of us eating alone, so they waved us over to join them. They were all of Dutch ancestry, and we spent the meal hearing wonderful stories of their families' histories in South Africa. On to George, where, while we played golf, Kobus tracked down a little restaurant that had once been the town meeting hall, fittingly called The Old Townhouse. We met the owners, Janet and Bryan, had a sensational dinner with a bit more wine at the bar, and enjoyed their company so much that we came back the next night and ate at the bar just to keep talking with Janet. Another great memory.
The train to Knysna.
The next day we took the old steam train from George to Knysna, with beautiful views out to the Indian Ocean. Kobus drove up to meet us, since one way on the train is plenty, and we spent the rest of the day taking in Knysna and its vistas over the water.
Kruger National Park.
Then it was off to Kruger, one of the greatest wildlife parks on earth. It was established in 1898 to protect the wildlife of the South African Lowveld, and today it sprawls across nearly two million hectares, about 7,700 square miles, with a diversity of life and a conservation record that put it in a class of its own. You go for the famed Big Five, but it is the sheer abundance that stays with you: elephants seemingly everywhere, buffalo in great herds, the giraffes that may be the most elegant thing in the bush, more kinds of antelope than you can keep straight, crocodiles sunning on the sandbanks, and, if you are lucky, a pack of wild dogs on the move.
The term "Big Five" came from the hunting days and meant the five most dangerous animals to take on foot. These days it simply means the five everyone hopes to see on safari: the elephant, the black and white rhinoceros, the Cape buffalo, the leopard, and the lion. As for the numbers, at the time the park counted something on the order of 100,000 impala, 25,000 zebra, 9,000 kudu, 5,000 warthog (everyone's favorite ugly duckling), over 1,000 leopard, and around 1,500 lions, and that is only the beginning. It gives you some sense of the natural super-abundance of the place.
About Kobus.
Kobus came to guiding by an extraordinary road. He served with the 7 Medical Battalion Group, the unit that provided medical support to South Africa's special forces. After completing special forces training he went on to become a combat paramedic, working in small teams of three to six whose job was to keep a wounded man alive in the bush for up to 72 hours until he could be evacuated. The first duty was to fight; the second, if someone got hit, was to save him. He went on to officers school, was commissioned a lieutenant, and was posted to 44 Parachute Brigade, where he became the founding commander of the 44 Medical Task Force.
His training reads like a thriller: Level 6 paramedic, static-line and free-fall parachuting, HALO jumps (high altitude, low opening), where his unit would leave the aircraft at 34,000 feet on oxygen, plus special forces tactics, guerrilla warfare, chemical and biological warfare, survival, and demolitions.
When the new democratically elected government came in 1994 and the military changed dramatically, Kobus, like many of his special forces colleagues, left the service. He went looking for something he could be passionate about that would put his skills to use, and he found it in tourism, founding Jewel of Africa Safaris in 2004. The rest, as he says, is history.
Today Jewel of Africa Safaris is a family affair, run by Kobus and his son Neil de Jonge, still building tailor-made private journeys across southern and eastern Africa. You can find them at joasafaris.com.
What started as a guide and his clients became a genuine friendship, one that has lasted ever since. Janice has a great deal more to tell about this trip, and a wonderful set of photographs to go with it, so there is more of South Africa still to come.
