We finally arrived a little after 3, saw monkeys and baboons right away at the registration office, checked into our safari tents, and then walked over for a snack that turned into a pretty decent meal, and which of course took longer than I had hoped as I was anxious to see animals.
One thing I learned while sitting there, enjoying my meal is that monkeys like sugar…a bunch of them ran into the restaurant, stole a fistful or mouthful of sugar packets, and then sat on the wall or the roofs eating them, some ripping open the packets and trying to pour the sugar into their mouths or their hands, and some just eating the whole packet.
We finally made it to the entrance of the park at 5 and barely made it in before they closed the gates (the park closes at 6). We were able to see a few things before we were pushed out – first were zebras, which of course were amazing the first time we saw them, but became less interesting the more we saw them, some springbok, and then finally some elephants on the side of the road – two of whom were sparing and pushing each other into the road.
One of them got a little irritated with us – his ears let us know he was ready for us to go, so we did.
As we were driving in the park, a car waved at us to stop and when we did we realized it was Heather H from school and her husband Mike who had driven up to hang out with us for a little while. Once we left the park, we all met at the safari tents, built a nice little fire in the raised, smallish fire pits, dragging chairs and bedside tables around the fire so everyone had a place to sit, watched the guinea fowl and springbok wander around amongst the nearby trees and had a nice hour or so conversation. After that we headed over to the restaurant for our buffet dinner – it was pretty impressive – kabobs with all kinds of different meats, pup, veggies, potatoes, rolls, stir fry. John sneezed four times!(He has synesthesia -- which we renamed synesneezia -- he sneezes when he's full)
Sunday
We got up early so we could get into the park right when it opened. I’m trying to remember some of the highlights, but there were so many and they all blended together after a while, so I’ll just list them out as they come to me and in no particular order.
Giraffes. Saw a herd of giraffes by the road and watched as several of them crossed in front of us, one actually stopping as he was crossing and stood starring at us. We saw another giraffe by itself munching away on a tree and used the binos to really study him – his long black tongue, the shape of his neck, his tuft/mane, his markings. I must have spent a good 15-20 minutes just watching and being in awe of him. One of the highlights for me was watching that giraffe and also just watching them move – as big as they are, they are so graceful and fluid in their movements
Elephants. Saw a herd of elephants by the road, but one of them got pretty pissed and started going after a truck pulling a small trailer that was driving by, at which point the truck started trying to turn around, getting more and more panicky, ramming into its trailer, until it had finally turned around. We were about to turn around as well, but then the elephant moved off into the bush and we were able to pass. (Something new I noticed about myself -- I start laughing when I get nervous/scared.)
The birds! The birds were the most beautiful little birds I’ve ever seen! There was one red-breasted bird with black feathers called a Crimson-breasted Shrike that was so striking! But my favorite one was an almost neon/iridescently colored little bird called a Lilac-breasted Roller with the most beautiful colors on any animal I’ve ever seen – teal, crimson, yellow, green. On our way back, we saw a whole bunch of these guys flying around and feasting on bugs that a brush fire was churning up.
Rhinos – we saw a group of rhinos by the road along with a bunch of other cars, which was cool, but later that day when we were way out in the bush and seeing nothing, we stumbled upon two rhinos grazing right next to the road…We weren’t sure if it was a male/female or mother child pairing. We turned off the car and just sat and watched for a while until the bigger one got annoyed with us, turned toward us and stomped its foot. We got the message and left them in peace.
Leopard. As we were driving, I briefly saw a head pop us and asked John to stop and back up…sure enough it was a leopard hidden in the grass. We only saw it for a few seconds before it disappeared completely, but it was awesome nonetheless.
Hippos – we only saw these guys from a distance and they looked like rocks and perhaps could have been for all I knew, but John was sure they were hippos so I’ll take his word for it. That’s all I can say.
Wildebeests – these were much more beautiful and interesting than I had thought they would be. I don’t even have an appropriate adjective to describe them – Serious? Intimidating? Other-worldly? They kinda look like they’re all wearing masks as the longness of their faces seems disproportionate to the rest of them, and their bodies are kindof hunched and hulky. They’re just really interesting to watch…They were all over -- we had a herd pass right in front of and behind our car at one point
Warthogs – saw lots of “Pumbas.” They are such funny looking little things and though I know they’re aggressive and jerky, they were just funny-looking to me with their disproportionately long snouts, protruding horns and short little legs and feet.
Lions Sadly, we didn't see any. We learned later that there was an area of the park where they all hung out, but we didn't get there. I guess I'll have to save that for next time
We were making Mapulang nervous with our sitting on the window ledge and on top of the car to get a better look at some of the animals.
A lot of the road was paved, but many roads were just dirt and little Olive turned into an off-road vehicle. By the time we left the reserve, we and all our belongings were covered in dust – in our hair, our ears, nose, eyes, clothes, backpacks, fingernails…
We had planned to get on the road at around 1 so that we would have time to take Mapulang (which we learned means mother of the rain) home and get home to shower because we were going to a hip-hop/fashion show in Soweto, but we got started a little late since we were enjoying the scenery so much and then took a wrong turn, so we didn’t get home until around 6, which was when we supposed to pick Sarah up. After a quick turnaround, we were ready to go into Soweto. After a few more wrong turns, we made it to the venue – basically a clothes shop and parking lot that had been enclosed. We were the only white people there and receiving some stares, but thankfully having Thubi with us and with the arrival of Tolo and Phila, our circle didn’t look quite so out of place. The fashion show was either non-existent or had happened before we got there, but the music was great – though often in Zulu. I eventually got comfortable enough to move a little to the music, though trying not to move too much – I didn’t want to act too obviously “white” – but Thubi was nice enough to reassure me that as long as you’re moving, you’re a good dancer. What a great guy.
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