kruger national park

Monkeys vs. Squirrels

/ Tara Taft / 2 Comments

Brown and gray and furry, they grasp small things with their human-like hands, stopping on their haunches to chew. They’re cute and resourceful, nimble and mischievous and in almost everyone’s backyards. In the U.S. we have squirrels and raccoons, but in South Africa they have monkeys and baboons.

When we visited Cape Point and Cape Vidal, we saw evidence of the nuisances they have become: signs posted, “Beware of baboons” and “Don’t feed the monkeys.” We watched a woman feeding the monkeys in St. Lucia and took photographs of their innocent looking faces in the trees.

In Durban, we discovered how much more trouble these animals can be. As our friend and host drove home one afternoon, she noticed several monkeys carrying food as they loped along her driveway. Inside, the kitchen was a mess. A bowl of fruit was eaten, bread and cookies left on the counter nibbled, stolen, or devoured. Her son was home sick, a window was left open, the house was too quiet and the monkeys, ever the opportunists, jumped in. When was the last time you had a squirrel in your house?

In Kruger National Park, we were warned. Garbage can lids were held together with rubber bands and signs were posted, but scattered garbage was everywhere, indicating the park rangers’ ploys were not working. Yet we were still surprised at the aggressive behavior of these “cute” animals. While enjoying breakfast on the deck of our tent cabin one morning, a monkey appeared on the railing ready to pounce on our food. We yelled, and he hissed with bold animosity. We scurried inside the tent and heard his feet running along the canvas roof.

We met Australians a few days later who reminisced about the cute squirrels they’d seen while visiting the States. The cuteness level seems to increase with the unknown, the unusual versus the usual, the uniqueness versus the common.

Though fighting with squirrels can become quite a sport, as bird lovers try to outsmart the squirrels from stealing food from their bird feeders, and raccoons may raid a garbage can, visiting the monkeys helped me appreciate my neighbors back home.

Snacks in South Africa

/ Tara Taft / 2 Comments

At home, we limit the sugared and processed food in our house. Soft drinks only appear at parties, potato chips are never bought and cookies are usually home made. But on vacation, we relax a little, especially when traveling in a unique place. Don’t you think eating the local food is part of the cultural experience, even if it’s not necessarily good for you?

I used to think the U.S. had all the choices, but in South Africa, my kids were overwhelmed and excited by the variety of potato chip flavors they’d never heard of or sampled before. The few times we stopped at a petrol station looking for a snack, they searched for the new and different. There were Korma Curry potato chips, Caribbean Onion and Balsamic Vinegar, Thai Sweet Chili, Beef and Biltong flavored potato chips and even Sweet Chili flavored Doritos. We each chose a bag and shared tastes, some preferring the more spicy chips, others the sweet.

Although pineapple Fanta was the kids’ favorite choice to wash down the salty chips, they also enjoyed orange and grape Fanta as well as Grapetisers and Appletisers, just juice and carbonation, no added sugar.

And of course we had to try the biltong. Similar to beef jerky, biltong is strips of meat that have been marinated or seasoned and then cured and dried. It is sold in small packages in grocery stores and convenience stores or you can buy it shredded at the mall or at the butchery where it is sold by weight. You can eat beef or kudu, ostrich or springbok, eland or gemsbok. The thickness and flavor of the biltong varies, depending on the meat, the cut and its preparation.

We tried biltong a few times. In Lady Grey, we bought beef biltong from a butchery, where the butcher filled a small brown paper bag with shredded pieces cut from a big slab of beef hanging from the ceiling. We bought packaged kudu and springbok biltong in Kruger National Park. I winced as I tried it, thinking of the kudu we’d just seen running by the side of the road.

If you can’t make it to South Africa and really want to try out biltong, try making it yourself (there are plenty of recipes online) or check out the website www.southafricanfood.us. Based in North Carolina, this company imports a few South African items for sale in the U.S. including biltong and Appletisers.

Fanta photo by Tommy Taft.