Hello all! There is lots to tell since I haven't blogged in a while. Some of the previous blogs were altered/removed per hospital privacy rules. The past few days have been beyond breathtaking. We had our safari excursion this past week. Leaving at 4:30am last Tuesday, we headed to Cape Town International to catch our flight to Durban. Durban is another section of South Africa, which is northeast of Cape Town. The flight was about two hours - nothing in comparison to the distance from the States. The 14 of us, plus Ben Brown, Lisa-Marie, Vernon, & Dr. Guma hopped into two vans, and we drove about three hours to Hluhluwe. I took a million pictures on just the ride alone. The Hluhluwe/St. Lucia area is extremely rural, with farms, rolling hills, cows, goats, ostrich, native huts, & women walking with baskets on their heads. We listened to African music the whole ride, really getting to experience Africa from a whole new perspective. When we arrived in Hluhluwe we stopped at a small craft market to admire the handmade items, and then headed out for our "ferry" ride in this river. It was totally what you'd see on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. We got on this wide boat or raft-like vehicle floating on murky brown water. Not two minutes into the ride we saw 3 huge crocodiles sunning on the river bank. We continued on to see hippos (lots of them), a monkey, a few grey herons, and other birds. Hippos usually travel in pairs or groups. They don't swim, but spend most of their time in water, and are large enough that they can walk on the bottom of the river, with their heads above the water. If there is a baby hippo, he is kept in the middle of the pack, to protect him from crocodiles or other predators. For the night we stayed at a camp-lodge in Hluhluwe. Carrie-Ellen, Kari, Ashley, and I shared a "chalet". It was a pretty nice lodge with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a common area living room. Here it wasn't safe to drink the water, so we got bottled water for brushing our teeth, and kept our mouths closed when showering. The owners of the campground made us dinner - pasta with some type of ground meat, chicken legs, salad, soup, and bread. It hit the spot after a long day of traveling and sightseeing. Right on these premises were zebra, buffalo, bush babies, and impalas. The buffalo get overly curious and one started running towards us. The camp director told us previously that if this happens not to scream and, more importantly, don't run. Well, when a large wild animal is coming towards you, instinct kicks in. We didn't exactly run, but walked as fast as we possibly could back away from the buffalo. 5:30 am started our safai the next morning. We left the Hluhluwe camp and hopped into two Toyota canvas-covered off-roading vehicles. Our safari guide was great - he knew all the animal tracks and droppings so we could find different wildlife. We first saw buffalo, who started to fight (head-butting) each other, but soon resorted to grass grazing and going separate ways. We then saw giraffes! They were also eating - but treetops instead of grass. We saw probably eight or so giraffes, who crossed the path right in front of our vehicle. It's so neat to see animals in their natural environment. We were literally traveling throughh a large nature reserve, not knowing what we'd find, keeping our eyes peeled, and tracking down different animals. Rhinos were next. Our guide explained that rhinos mostly travel independently. When a baby rhino is born, he will stay with his mother for a short time, before she "kicks hims out" and he must search for another baby rhino and mother who will adopt him as their child and look after him. When that mother thinks it is time she will kick both baby rhinos out, and the two rhinos are left to travel together and help each other. When these baby rhinos get older, they will separate and go their own ways. Males will find a female to mate with & females will get pregnant. The cycle starts over, with the female rhino raising her baby until he reaches a certain age she feels he must leave. In addition to buffalo, giraffes, and rhinos, we saw Nyala (deer-like animals), warthogs, and zeebra - they were posing for us probably within ten feet of our truck. So...this whole trip we were hoping to see lions but our tour guide told us it's rare to actually find them (they lay low and sleep during most of the day, and hunt at night or early morning). Towards the end of our safari though, Seemo (our tour guide) spotted lion tracks. We drove about ten minutes more and actually saw three beautiful lions (two male and one female). They were lying in the grass behind some trees, but we were able to get some shots after zooming in. Everyone was psyched we actually saw lions! It was almost this creepy feeling knowing that if you stepped outside the safari truck you could be lunch. Our safari concluded - an awesome experience! We then drove back to Durban where we would be spending the next couple of days. Durban is a city, but also right on the water. We stayed at the Blue Crest Hotel, which was directly across from the beach and the Indian Ocean! Carrie-Ellen, Iris, and I shared a room on the 18th floor. We unpacked our bags and oogled over the view from our balcony of the waves and sand and palm trees. Ashley and I went with Ben to pick up Dr. Engler from the airport - he had just arrived in South Africa! Dinner was at Havana Grill, with all 21 of us (we included the two drivers as well). I can't complain about the food here - I got this amazing "Castro salad" with feta, cashews, dark greens, balsamic dressing, red peppers, and greek olives. Then the main course was green curried salmon and basmati rice. Dessert was friend bananas with vanilla ice cream. Yum.
No comments:
Post a Comment