Just a short drive in a straight line from the Phalaborwa gate of the Kruger National Park lies the Marakapula Reserve. A Big 5 community-owned game reserve characterised by giant boulder hills, wild fig trees, and the Selati River, which courses through the property in its great, surging mass. On my first game drive I saw a leopard, crouching in the shade on the riverbank and looking quite wary of our vehicle. She was young and cautious and she quickly bolted into the long grass where her rosettes just showed through the greenery.
This reserve just looks like an animal paradise. Such an abundance of everything, from shade, to food, and water. One could imagine the smooth, chalk-coloured branches of sycamore fig trees being the perfect cradle for a lazy leopard, while the hundreds of butterfly-shaped mopane leaves flutter irresistibly in the wind, attracting elephants, giraffes, and kudus to browse. The roads have just the right amount of ‘bump’, as they are well maintained and graded, while the landscape deviates between riverfront lushness, golden grasses and stark winter trees, bare boulders, and baobabs.
This reserve is the result of a conservation effort to reintroduce wildlife onto the property and to promote tourism in an area that would benefit the Mashishimale Community of Phalaborwa. The land was returned to its rightful owners (the community) in 2007 as a 20 000 hectare piece of land that had been overfarmed and depleted of its wildlife. Over the years, in collaboration with the Kruger Park and a private company, Marakapula received its indigenous species once again, and the ecosystem resumed its natural order.
Nowadays, Marakapula – meaning ‘mountain that keeps the rain away’ – is home to lion, elephant, cheetah, leopard, rhino, hippo, waterbuck, baboon, kudu, zebra, giraffe, crocodile, impala, bushbuck, steenbok, and a wide variety of other creatures. The reeds along the Selati riverbank are alive with the croaking of frogs, while little kingfishers perch on the tall fronds swaying in the wind. Herons, cormorants, fish eagles, orioles, swallows, and barbets are only a few mentions of the incredible birdlife found here.
Elephants can be both seen and heard as they crash through the tall vegetation, determined to strip the bark and reach the inner layer of goodness. They break through the hard exterior using their tusks and release the red flesh, which they grasp with their trunks and then grind between their molars. At night, leopard and lion can be heard as they make their territory known, and early mornings are announced by the screeching banter from the troupe of baboons that come to drink in the light of day.
After years of being improperly used and without the community having the authority to reinvent their land, Marakapula was wasting away. The sheer beauty of the land, the life in the river, the intimidating presence of the giant fig trees and thousand-year-old baobabs were going uninhabited by Africa’s wildlife, and unnoticed by tourists to this country. Through the dedication of the local people and private companies, this wonderful piece of land now stands as an utterly unique destination for anyone wanting the grandeur of the Kruger National Park, and the undeniable sanctuary of a private game reserve with a luxury lodge to boot.
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