We are visiting SA in May and June, and I have a couple of queries:
1. When I was there in 1990 I went on a budget tour to a private game reserve near Kruger, where we stayed in quite basic tents and cooked over an open fire. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the reserve or of the tour company, and I cannot find anything similar: all the tours now seem to be luxurious and very expensive (not much for less than 1800R pp/pn). Can anyone suggest anything simpler and cheaper?
2. I would like to hire a car with a bit of character, e.g. a Peugeot 504, but all the car hire companies seem to have the same bland modern cars: can anyone recommend a company that has more interesting cars?
Thanks
Chris

I am not one who knows much about makes of cars - 4 wheels and a motor and the ability to go forward, backward and turn corners is all I ever look for! But if you call Imperial Car Hire, they have a program called South Africa on Wheels. You get 100% coverage and I think you can get 4 x 4's [but don't quote me on the 4 x 4 bit :o)]They have pretty good deals if you book from OUTSIDE of South Africa.

In May and June you should be able to get better prices than R1800 pn/pp as it is the off season most places. I know that Garonga, which is pretty exclusive is R1375 pp/pn during those months so the less exclusive ones should be better than that price-wise. Hope this helps.
Karen

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I'm not interested in the character of cars either (and isn't the Peugeot 504 modern anyway?) but you can get a very cheap deal with a place called Apex, which glories in the locally notorious name of Rent-a-wreck. It's in the Rough Guide (which is an excellent book for SA by the way).

In March we got a deal on a very old Mazda 323. Now there's character for you - it must have been the last hire car left in the city, since a lot of cricket crowds were in town. But it worked just fine. It came in at around £80 sterling for five days, with 2000 kms free.

We were heading out towards the Kruger for a couple of days, but after one day driving around Gauteng a concerned business colleague of my father's stepped in and lent us an air-conditioned VW for the rest of the trip.

We didn't have time for the Kruger so we went around the adjacent Blyde river canyon area - stunning scenery and no malaria. No big game either, though we saw baboons in the trees and there are hippos as well apparently.

Earlier we had gone to the Pilanesburg national park, much closer to Joburg on the other side from Kruger. It's much smaller too, and enclosed, but they let animals roam and behave freely and the habitat is natural and varied. It's 25km in diameter so at the slow speeds you have to travel at (c. 20-30 kmh) it feels big. All the main game species are in there.

There are fairly cheap (£15-20) guided game drives through the park, but the real attraction is the extremely low cost of taking your own car in - only 20 rand plus 15 per person (that comes to about £4 for two) for as long as you like.

The added attraction is that the Sun city entertainment park is right next door, with lots of accommodation. Better is to stay in a lodge in the reserve itself. We splashed out on the kwaMaritane, a luxury place (£140/night for twin room) with its own hide by a watering hole accessed by a tunnel from the hotel pool. You can sit there and watch (and photograph) the animals come to you. And there are cameras that relay what's going on to your room television, so you can head down there straight away if anything interesting turns up.

On the car hire front, try http://www.aardvarktravel.net/cgi-bin/at/atsearch.cgi?Terms=car+hire+south+africa - I think you'll find something there that accommodates your needs.

Aaron

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