Africa Cruise – Port Elizabeth

By coolgrandparent on June 16, 2025

After 3 days at sea, with rough weather and lots of big waves, we were ready to be in port. We had 3 stops in South Africe, with the first being Port Elizabeth aka Gqeberha. We arrived late in the afternoon and we had a mandatory Face to Face Immigration with the South African authorities.

That evening we used our star tracker to find the Southern Cross and Gemini constellation

South Africa has 9 provinces and Gqeberha is located in the Eastern Cape Province. It was founded in 1820 when 4000 British colonists settled on Algoa Bay. The name Port Elizabeth was chosen by Sir Rufane Donkin, who was the governor of the Cape Colony. He named it after his wife who had died in India. The name Gqeberha comes from the Xbosa name for the Baakens River that flows through the city. The name change was official in February 2021.

The Eastern Cape Province is considered the poorest province, but it has the most natural resources, so it is known for it’s protected game reserves. Due to it’s 600 km of coast line, it also has excellent places to whale watch, scuba dive, and surf.

We chose to a tour to Sibuya Private Game Reserve. It was an hour and a half drive to the park. Our guide was Tania and our driver was Queza.

As we drove through the city of Gqeberha. Tania shared the following with us…Due to the British colonization, the older architecture has a very European look. The urban population is 1.5 million residents and is comprised of 38% whites, 30% Black Africans, and 27% Coloreds. It was interesting that the most famous person born in the Eastern Cape Province was Nelson Mandela but they use the term coloreds as in the United States that is considered racially offensive. It is the Black Afrikans term for biracial. The languages spoken in Eastern Cape are Afrikaans, English, and Xbosa.

The main industry in the area is auto production. The vehicles are shipped to the UK, Australia, and Singapore. Following automotive production is finance, textiles, engineering, and tourism. Even with the success of industries, the Eastern Cape area experiences 41% unemployment.

Gqeberha has had railway service since 1875. With the introduction of vehicles, passenger rail useage declined. Due to the Covid pandemic, vandalism and theft, there is now limited service, and the rail station is used as a bus depot.

Sundays River is considered to be the fastest flowing river in South Africa. It is 160 miles long and empties into the Indian Ocean at Algoa Bay.

South Africa produces 36% of their vehicle fuel (petrol) through synthetic means, and 66% is derived from imported crude oil. Gas is $4-5 USD per gallon depending on location. It’s electrical production is changing as it’s location on the Indian Ocean, makes it ideal to switch to wind power as an alternative to the current coal-fired power stations.

The area surrounding the game reserves are farms. There are no dangerous animals, such as lions, allowed to roam in South Africa, as they reside in the large fences game reserves. If a game reserves wants to expand, it must buy the farm land surrounding it. Since there are not free roaming lions or jaguars, the cattle industry is thriving. Reunion Island actually imports all of it’s beef from South Africa.

At the Sibuya Private Game Reserve, we were assigned a safari truck. Reese was our driver and also our guide. He is a nature conservation major from Cape Town, and was at Sibuya doing an internship. Our tour of the reserve was approximately 3 hours and included a boat ride on the Kariega River, which means “small antelope”.

Sibuya contains numerous types of terrain, such as river plains, grasslands, and shrubland. It has more navigable riverfront than any other reserve in South Africa. Several farms were bought in 2003 to begin the process of developing the reserve.

The game reserve has locked gates

Lions, Elephants, leopards, rhinos, and Cape buffalo roam the reserve along with 45 other species of creatures, such as zebra and buffaloes. It is also home to more than 400 bird species. It cover 12000 acres. The area is left as natural as possible and the animals are allowed to live as they would in the wild.

South Africa is the only known place for the shrub Fynbos and they grow at the reserve.

As we started into the reserve, Reese gave us an introduction…1) we were given an animal guide to record our sightings 2) we were told to be careful as the sap of some of the trees and bushes could cause a 2nd degree burn to your skin, but elephants use the plants to help their digestion as it causes them to poop…lol

Our first sighting were the Cape Buffalo. The males can weigh 500 kilograms or 1100 pounds

There is a young Cape buffalo that was born with a bad leg. She hobbles around on 3 legs following the herd. Reese said that she does pretty good to keep up, but as she gets bigger, her 3 legs will no longer be able to support her.

The grassland were covered in warthog dens/hole as well as warthogs. They are extremely quick, run funny, and hard to get a picture of.

Zebra are very common and like hanging out with the Water Bucks

Ostriches

We stopped at the Kariega River, and took a short trip on a boat to cross the river where another Safari vehicle was waiting for us.

While on the boat, we were served refreshments

The holes in the river bank are made by a variety of Kingfisher birds.

Every game reserve that has rhinos, has poacher game wardens. They are here to mostly protect the rhinos. Poachers will sneak in, drug the rhino, and then cut off their horn. The rhino does not die from the the horn being cut off, as it is like a toenail getting clipped. They die from either a drug over-dose or from infections when the poachers cut too deeply. In 1980 all of South Africa had only 300 White Rhinos, but due to the efforts of the many reserves the population is now at 18,000. Rhinos eat 60 kg/ of grass per day. They have terrible eyesight and when the wind blows, they hide in the thickets, since the can’t hear predators coming toward them. We were later given a “Sample” of rhino dung to look at…lol

Nyalas liked the shade of the trees.

We also saw impalas….when the reserve first started there were 95 Impalas on the property…today there are over 1300. Impalas and Nyalas like to give birth in the thickets.

Back in our safari truck, we came upon a tower of Giraffes

The lions live in a separate fenced area within the reserve

Because of the dangerous nature of lions, they are tagged and tracked, so it was easy for Reese to find them. He told us we needed to be very quiet and let them decide if they wanted to come out of the thicket

The lion couple was very well hidden

A another guide had reported an animal caraccas nearby, so Reese said that they would probably be going to eat soon. The female was the first to emerge…

Then the male decided to follow…

And he was off

The are had many termite mounds, which can have up to 200,000 termites

We drove out of the lion reserve, back toward the river. It is a very interesting and beautiful area.

A kudu walked out of the bush and surprised us…wow they have crazy horns.

No elephants but there were round tracks on the road, from an elephant. Just like the rhino, they hide in the trees as they can’t hear predators coming in the wind.

We saw over 30 different animals and birds. It had been a fast and furious 3 hours.

At the stagging area, we had an amazing lunch that included grilled rooster bread. We even got to meet the humble chef. Each guest was provided with a water battle for the drive through the reserve and we were allowed to take it home as a souvenir. They had a small gift shop and we decided to buy a warthog as that was our favorite animal of the day.