The Chance of a Lifetime...

S. African craziness

This place is really just stunningly beautiful- the landscape, the animals, the resort, the people...everything.
Yesterday during the time between morning and afternoon drives we hung out on the deck and in our private pool!! Sooo nice, and the sun is rediculously hot!! While we were out there a herd of elephants walked by on the other side of the river!! And a giraffe was hanging out there too!! Soo cool!! When do you ever see elephants and giraffes from your pool?! Great!! Before we went out again at 4 for the afternoon/evening drive we were grabbing water etc and heard someone talking about being chased in the morning drive ha, turns out they had stopped to pee and grab a drink and a lizard ran into a nest of killer bees and disturbed them!! So the group had to run for about 200m before the bees left them alone but they each got somewhere around 10 stings! Crazy! Barney usually asks us what animals we want to find so I told him I wanted to see a kangaroo (and before you say anything, yes I know there are no kangaroos in S.Africa) so he laughed but went along with it and we went looking for kangaroos! No such luck but we did find 7 young lions hanging out, waiting for their mums to come back and get them for lunch! They were all pretty skinny, Andre didn't think they had eaten in a while and that they possibly even were suffering from a diease such as tuberculosis from Wildebeast that they eat. So that was kind of sad but they were still cute, one of them was trying to catch a fly buzzing around his head and another rolled over and stretched her arms over her head, super cute!! (Pics of all of this to come later of course). After we left the kids Barney spotted the mums not far away laying in the shade of a tree. 1 of them didn't look so great, she was really skinny, the other looked better but kind of mangey. I guess when you see this stuff on TV the animals all seem to be in good condition, even if they're being eaten!! But in reality these animals get sick just the same as any other and there aren't vets here, just nature. After this we found a couple of rhinos which were only the beginning of the amount we saw on that drive, we probably saw 10 in total. We stopped for a quick pee stop in "a semi safe area" as Andre said...sweet now I feel safe!! But I had to pee soo bad it didn't matter, I hopped out and wandered over to a termite mound haha probably not the best idea but that's where I was sent and I survived!! There was a Praying Mantis of the car when I got back so Andre picked it up and showed it to us, it was kind of cool. We kept going but didn't really see much else and it got dark but Barney did spot another White Faced Owl and that's only the 2nd Andre has seen in a year and a half! And the 1st was with us too :).
We got home and decided a time for dinner, got changed etc and met back then. Andre joined us for dinner too and heard more stories he probably didn't really care to hear but they're funny. Dinner was outside aeround a fire pit with lanterns and candles everywhere, it was really nice. As usual we drank our fair share of alcohol before dinner even started!! Dinner was delicious as usual and consisted of several different meats, so I tried Ostrich sausage and Wildebeast! I felt bad about the wildebeast but it wasntmuch,!! Andre tried some of mine too so I had even less!! Haha and that was the first time he had tried it too. Firsts all round! After everyone had eaten locals who are also staff came out and brought Sara a birthday cake!! They ang her happy birthday and then did some traditional songs and dances around the fire, it was beautiful and really fun!! They dragged Sara up to dance so that was pretty amusing and my mum joined in, of course!! After eating the cake we called it a night..man early one for this family!! We went back to our cabins with a storm rolling in. As our cabins, which really aren't cabins at all but I don't know what else to call them... Anywyas they're pretty much made of glass so you can see out into the wilderness but you can't be seen by others, so the lightning was amazing it was lighting up the whole area and the thunder was crazy loud b/c there is nothing here like building etc to buffer it!! But I was so tired I passed out ASAP.
This morning I woke up to the sound of the dude banging the cowbell on the door, but I think he was doing it for a while before I heard it ha, I was out! The weather today is kind of dull and it rained, well, misted while we were out on the drive- the day I wear a skirt, go figure. But there are blankets and rain jackets in the car so its fine :). Andre and Barney take good care of us. Today the car was facing a different direction when it picked us up, Barney said this is the direction that the kangaroos are!! Haha it was pretty funny. We didn't see many animals out today, we went looking for a leopard but couldn't find her, on the way we saw 2 seperate hyenas...I still think they're creepy. We saw a couple of male elephants, one was digging up a tree b/c they like to eat the roots- I took video of this on my camera and its siuper cool, you can hear some crazy birds in the background too! Another elephant was picking up sticks and stripping the bark off in his mouth and eating that only. We went back to where the hippos were (and the croc), the hippos were still there and there was a baby too!! Only a couple of months old, super cute! The croc wasn't there though. We went to a place close by where another group had spotted 3 grown male lions- with manesu hanging out on the edge of tjhe river but we couldn't get very close b/c of the terrain and the weather. Other than this we saw and named a lot of birds- Andre seems to know the name of EVERYTHING which is cool but I guess he could be lying since we wouldn't know the difference, but I trust him :). I spotted a golden tailed woodpecker ha. Andre pointed out a Goliath Heron which is the largest heron in the world, and he said their legs are steel and would break a crocs teeth, you can believe that if you want. Andre had us adventurous ones (Dave and I) pick a leaf off of some tree/bush- a Red Spikethorn- and chew it, it tasted like the peel of a Granny Smith Apple and it made our tongues and lips go numb! it was crazy! Aparently its good to chew and eat if you have an upset stomach...good to know?
We headed home and all ate a hot breakfast or at least a hot drink...its about 60degrees but wet and a little windy so it makes it kind of cold. So now I'm hanging out in bed haha. I think I'm going to nap and we're going to play Scrabble or something at some point before afternoon drive...hopefully we'll see more new animals...
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posted by Kirby @ 2:22 AM