5 Things I've Learned About South Africa

In the spirit of my Iceland and British Isles posts from previous years, we are deep in the planning phase for our South African vacation. We just about have a finalized itinerary, and have come across a few notable things in our initial research.

1// There's a Hole in the Country
I'm not even talking about the largest hole excavated by hand, although you can find that here, too; I'm talking about the Kingdom of Lesotho, one of only three nations in the world that is completely surrounded by another country's land.  Our trip will take us from Cape Town to Johannesburg with a pit stop in Lesotho (pronounced Le-soo-too) along the way.

Source

2// A Country by Some Other Name
We'll just make these first two points not actually about South Africa and continue on with the news that as we were planning our brief itinerary into the third and final country of this trip, Swaziland, we learned that Swaziland was no more...and had been renamed the Kingdom of eSwatini. King Mswati renamed the country during the 50th anniversary of Swazi independence, apparently to eliminate the country's repeated confusion with Switzerland as well as to break from the country's colonial past. 

3// Our Dollar Goes Far
We picked up our foreign currency recently to have some cash on hand as we travel around the country. Our largest bill is worth 200 South African Rand. In US Dollars, this is valued at $12.93.

Actually, this value has fluctuated a fair amount; checking in again today, a few days later, 200 Rand would be worth $13.54. The majority of our lodgings cost less than $40 USD per night. Honestly, this is most likely going to be our most affordable trip EVER. I will have to do a more detailed post on this at some point.  

4// Affordable Safaris

In my mind, safaris were a crazy expensive thing. And they can be. We ran across many private game reserves where you could expect to pay upwards of hundreds if not thousands per night. We booked our two-night stay at Kruger National Park, one of Africa's largest game reserves, and we paid $167. This includes two nights of lodging and two guided safaris for two individuals. And that's not even the cheapest option. We decided to spring for the A/C. 

It's 331 Rand or around $22 USD to enter the park, and you could even elect to do a self-drive safari and not pay anything additional. Tack on maybe another $20 for a guided safari. I had no idea you could do a safari for $40. Other game reserves are even more affordable!  

5// The Big Five
If you'd asked us originally, we would've gotten around half this list correct, but we made the repeated mistake of tossing giraffes and hippos into this mix. Here is the actual definitive list:
Lion
Leopard
Rhinoceros
Elephant
Cape Buffalo
This term was originally coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. This reference was then adopted by safari tour operators for marketing purposes. These animals were chosen for the difficulty in hunting them and the degree of danger involved, rather than their size. The big five are among the most dangerous, yet most popular species for big-game hunters to hunt. The 1990 and later releases of South African rand banknotes feature a different big-five animal on each denomination.

I've tried to balance out the seemingly unending research with just looking forward to the experience and learning as we go. I think we're both a little intimidated by South Africa, but also really looking forward to this amazing experience.  Do you think we'll see the Big Five?