Walking trails in southern African national parks and game reserves are growing rapidly in popularity. The Kruger National Park is known for some epic multi-day all-on-your-back trails, but in keeping with modern realities of limited time, softer, luxurious glamping versions have staked their tent pegs in the sand.
“Go on, put your hand in, feel it,” says guide Clement Kgatla from his position atop a termite mound, daring the young Dutch woman. The mound is near the eastern edge of the Kruger Park’s privately managed Timbavati region, not far from the invisible boundary with the Kruger “proper”.
Aside from the cicadas, grey loeries (Note from the author: I feel the now official “Go away bird” name robs the Grey Loerie of its houding, a Dutch word that describes a way of standing, a pose, but which in Afrikaans has come to mean a way of “being”, an intangible essence) and woodland kingfisher, it is quiet here.
The termites’ home, constructed by the secreting endeavours of thousands of these industrious creatures, boasts a few “chimneys”, as they broke open their roof to regulate the heat in their giant house of sand. Rushing to the edge of one such air vent as the young woman lowers her hand are the warrior termites, on standby to deal with the foreign intrusion. The wave of warmth is intense.
