The Chance of a Lifetime...

Alcoholics!!

Tuesday night after dinner we retired to the bar and had a lot of fun! Difference- our butler- poured us more rediculously strong drinks, doubles all round- sweet!! Haha we were the only people drinking, all other guests went to bed- booooring!! Eventually the secretary type lady came over and told Andre she was leaving ha. Laura took Difference's name tag and pretended to be the butler/bar tender and Dave stole Andre's name tag and also made drinks...eventually Difference came back from clearing the dinner table and we told him that it was going to be a long night and that he didn't have to stay, he could go home to his kids...he did- after he got his name tag back from Laura..and my parents went to bed too. 2 weird guys showed up and sat with us as if they wanted to be included in the party, they weren't that lucky, they could only watch, although I think Dave got them some drinks...with Andre's name tag on. So we drank, drank, and drank some more...Sara revealed some things about her that we didn't know haha and stories which were pretty amusing, and she doesn't remember telling them to us so its even better! We finidhed 2 bottles of vodka, I finished a bottle of Captain and started on Malibu which was eventually finished in shots taken in wine glasses by Dave and Andre, then we found cider haha..mall the while we have to keep an inventory of what we're drinking so we added a lot to other peoples rooms haha we don't get charged for them, its all incusive so it was fine and hilarious- I have a picture of the inventory, its pretty amusing. We eventually went back to mine and Dave's room where we caused more trouble and a lot of mess! We also brought 1/4 of a bottle of vodka with us haha and we had the free mini bar...it was trouble. Dave liked another guide- paul- and we tried to call him to get him to come join the party haha soo funny...Andre was in charge of this and he called the other lodge but that got us nowhere and we couldn't find Paul. Good times had by all...although it didn't quite feel as good in the morning when we had to go out on drive at 5.30am. Although I think we were all still drunk, the hangovers didn't set in until we'd been out and about for a while. We explained to Barney that we'd had a rough night and he just laughed at us, no sympathy there, not even for Andre. Dave asked Andre what we were looking for, he replied something to the effect of "anything, bark, lizards, trees, flowers, birds, anything that moves, find something so that we can just sit there and look at it" haha hung over safari drives are rough. We did find a Cheetah though and there are only between 150 and 350 left in Kruger National Park which is massively humungous! The Cheetah was just laying around hanging out so we sat there in a hungover stupor for a while looking at it...and Paul hahah he was there with his group too, Andre had previously radio'ed him and told him that Dave liked him haha so everytime we saw him he was looking at us trying to figure out which one of us liked him. Barney also told Paul's tracker the same thing so we were the subject of conversation. After the Cheetah we went to see a pride of 8 young-ish lions wandering down a road, we followed them for a while, and ran into Paul again haha good times. We stopped for a "comfort stop" and when we asked Barney if he had packed us any food he said yes, muffins, we all got excitedn thinking huge muffins for our hungover bodies but he pulled out a pan with muffins about and inch in diameter haha it was soo funny, we all looked in the pan and then at Barney and we all just laughed- Barney too. It didn't take long to devour those!! While we were there Sara made a comment about how we could hear a lot of birds but couldn't see them, Andre responded "yes we'll we've heard a lot of stories about you but we wouldn't want to see them" haha too funny, we all cracked up, even Barney and he hadn't heard many stories. Good times... This drive was the same as a morning after recap with all of your friends, we all just started laughing at random times. Andre made another comment after randomly laughing "you look at Sara and she looks inocent, and then you hear the stories and she clearly isn't at all" haha so true!
Anyways, we kept going looking foir basically anything that moved...Barney spotted a giraffe up ahead, kind of up a hill in the brush so we were all looking for it, some said they could see it too, but when we got closer it was just part of the road!!! It was soo funny, Barney was kind of embarrassed but it was soo funny especially considering we were all hung over and some said they saw it aswell...soo funny! We did find a couple of elephants, and even though we'd seen plenty, they're still amazing animals and their size is just unbelievable. This one was fine while we sat and watched him but when we drove away he got grumpy and was flailing his head around and running, Andre stopped the car and then so did the elephant, but he did it again when we tried to leave again...perhaps he had a rough night too!
We eventually headed back to the lodge, it was pretty sad, I didn't want to leave the animals!! And definitely didn't want this part of the trip to end :( We ate a fried breakfast in the hope of killing the hangovers, then went back to the rooms. We had to pack and be out in an hour and a half so Dave and I opted for a nap and then shower before packing...well even though we slept on the floor, we overslept and ended up with 10 mins to pack. Needless to say we had 2 rediculously badly packed packs which felt heavier than they really should have. We took our stuff out and checked out, then hung around in the lobby area for a while. I lost my checklist of animals we had seen so I started to fill out another. After a while we ate another amazing lunch before Andre and Barney came back to take us to the airport :(
Barney took our luggage ahead of us and then Andre drove us. Dave sat on Barney's seat and spotted the airport ha. It was a prety quiet ride, no one wanted to leave Singita. Once we were at the airport...which isn't what you might think of as an airport- more like a hut on a runway, though fully stocked with alcohol ha we bypassed that! We had to wait a while for our plane so Andre helped me fill out the checklist, so now its definitely right!! One of the other guide's, Derek, showed up to collect new people...he was the guy that everyone thought was cute on the first day or something- before Paul- so Andre strategically tried to get him in a picture with Dave, it was pretty funny b9/c Derek kept walking away...eventually Andre told him he wanted a picture...so now Dave has a pic of Derek but not Paul...perhaps one will arrive in an email from Andre.
Our plane showed up eventually and it was pretty hard to say goodbye to Barney and Andre, we had soo much fun there and we definitely haven't stopped talking about it since! Andre and Barney stayed by the runway and waved to us as we took off...cute, we're going to miss those guys...good times.
I forgot another quote- Andre stopped and turned off the truck to point out an animal, Sara looked at the petrol/gas gauge and it was on "E" b/c the engine was off and Sara freaked out "we ran out of petrol!!!!" Haha we all laughed, Andre said "in this vehicle F means empty, E means full!!" Haha.
We flew into JoBerg and then connected to Port Elizabeth, I slept the entire time, landed there and it was sooo cold!! We hired a car, well more like a van, and drove to a hotel...it was pretty nice but I passed out w/out even eating dinner.
Today we left Port Eliazabeth and drove towards Capetown (west), about 2 1/2 hours and found our hotel...except we passed it and hit a roadblock...it was Animal Disease Control, and they were checking for pigs or something b/c of a disease outbreak?? I can't remember exactly.
This hotel isn't really a hotel at all, more like a home, and that's what they said when we got here...its a huge ranch with polo grounds, about 100 horses, a couple of pools, a library :) quads/4 wheelers- for free!! Its cool. We took full advantage of the quads and went out on our "Self South African Safari" it was going pretty well until Dave drove her and Laura through a bog and got their quad stuck! So we had to pull it out haha it was really funny..shin deep in mud!! We even spotted tons of animals!! A frog, a shetland pony, egrets, butterflies, dalmation, ducks with red heads, some kind of stork or heron with huge beaks, horses, cows, we heard an owl haha, donkeys, people, mud, a cat...it was great!! We went through a fence that said "Alsation on guard, enter at own risk" but it didn't say no trespassing or anything so we went through hahaha next thing we know, 2 dogs came running at us barking hahaha so Sara and I spun around hit a tree and kept going hahah soo funny!! Dave and Laura couldn't reverse and were freaking out haha Sara and I just took off out of the fenced area!! Laura and Dave followed soon after, Sara and I were practically peeing our pants, the looks on their faces were hilarious...priceless.
We came back and hosed of our feet and legs and now we're just chillin by a fire on the veranda.
Tomorrow is going to be a hectic day...lots planned!!
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posted by Kirby @ 10:04 AM