The first day I also went to see a play called “Freak Country”. The title is supposed to be a pun on “free country” and it’s about Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has a lot of issues right now with, hyperinflation, Mugabe and the newly appointed Prime Minister. It was a comedy-tragedy type of play. It was about how an actor who lives in South Africa, born in Zimbabwe was traveling to his film shoot and had a connecting flight in Zimbabwe and got held at immigration. The head of customs wanted to kill him, but he found a way to escape. It was funny but the situation is serious, and I’m not South African, so it was hard to connect with the jokes.
(Genvieve and me with Table Mountain in the background)
The next day I woke up at 6:00 am to go on my Safari in Pilanesburg, South Africa. We flew to Johannesburg and then drove 2.5 hours to Pilanesburg where we had “high tea” and went on our first game drive in the safari. Our itinerary for 3 days was sleep-eat-safari. Within the first 3 minutes we saw so many zebra, and antelope type animals. Within the first 25 minutes we saw a huge pod of elephants. An entire family! They were so cute. Our guide was a little frightened though and had to maneuver the jeep in a position that he could take off if a mommy elephant charged…b/c they do that especially when there are many babies around. We were thinking that the safari would get boring because of all the animals we saw shortly into the first drive…but that wasn’t the case, we didn’t see another group like that. We did see one elephant at night, which was eating in his sleep. I spoke to a man who worked at the Athlete’s Foot in South Africa who said he was a park ranger and he lived close to Pilanesburg, and that his town tribe follows the elephant. There are tribes that identify themselves with game animals, and his is elephant because they like the way an elephant lives and they think elephants rule the land. Elephants sleep for 5 hours a day and eat ALL day…I see why one could idolize elephants. Not to mention a bull can weigh up to 4 tons—they are so strong too.That night toward the end of our night-drive when we were 3 minutes from the gate to the park the two boys on either side of me, who some refer to as “the lumberjacks” were being brave and hanging out of the side of the jeep…All of the sudden we see King of the African Land Male Lion. Our driver reverses the vehicle, the boys jumped inside the car, and they even shrieked. The lion was soooo awesome at a distance, until it started approaching our jeep. Reed was on my right, where the Lion was approaching, and he grabs onto me, and us three cram to the left side of the jeep away from the vehicle, the boys put their feet up to block the window so the lion couldn’t jump in. I am the one getting smashed in the middle of this chaos, but I try to take pictures even though our guide was telling us not to make a move or a sound…then the lion came ONE foot close to our window and just walked around back into the bush. It was sooooo scary! The guide was saying that it was a rare occurrence for the lion to come right up to the car like that…I think the lion was teasing us. It was scary to even look into his eyes. The funniest part about this was when we went back to the lodge to tell the other group about our stories, the boys made it seem like they were ready to tackle the lion…but everyone in our vehicle had to remind them that they both grabbed onto the smallest girl (me) on the trip to protect them. Of course they said they were ready to wrestle the lion…but we all know what really happened when Simba came close.
That night we enjoyed a barbeque at the lodge and went to bed early to get up for our 5am drive. They told us they’d give us wake up calls, but my roommate and I did not get one. Thank god she set her phone too, but all the groups left without us. She and I ended up going with some German tourists until we found another SAS group. They weren’t too happy that they had to come back for two American girls…oh well. This was by far the best drive though so it was hard to complain. We saw 2 sets of mating lions. This was remarkable—straight up National Geographic style. I have documentation…we were about 30 feet from the first “honeymoon couple” and we could see and hear the action. The second set of lions was even closer…about 10 feet away from our vehicle. The male lion got up and approached the jeep and roared a little, marked his territory a little and went back to his girly lion. We got back to the lodge at about 9am for breakfast and we had until 4:30 to relax by the pool and have lunch…by far one of the hardest school days in my life! We swam, worked on our tans, maybe enjoyed some mimosas and daiquiris, took a nap, showered and went back out on the Safari.The 2nd night drive we found sooooo many giraffe’s, which were really the one thing I hadn’t seen (other than Leopard, but no one expected to see them). We also saw a pregnant Giraffe who wandered by herself because she was due any day. The Giraffe’s are fascinating. We also got pretty close them—in fact we got really close to all the animals we saw. And it’s not off-roading because they are national parks that need to be preserved—there are pathways for cars paved, or dirt roads that animals hang out on. That night we watched a little bit of Rugby with some locals at the lodge. We met some businessmen who wanted to talk about Obama. Obama was EVERYWHERE in Africa. People either loved him or didn’t. Unfortunately because of Apartheid there is still so much racism and they don’t hold back and some people love him and worship him, and some think he’s a joke. I guess they were being disrespectful towards us, and were shamelessly bashing American Politics, and even though I don’t agree with most things they said, it was interesting to hear a different perspective. That’s one thing I’ve learned to be flexible with—we’re visitors in these countries and politics regarding foreign affairs has been a sensitive topic everywhere.
That night before bed, I suffered a traumatizing experience. I was getting ready for bed and putting my clothes on, and I was standing right next to the door, so I thought it would be a good idea to double check that it was locked. When out of the periphery of my eye I spot a HUGE shiny black scorpion. This thing was at least 6 inches long, with a spiny poison tail, and it was AN INCH away from my foot. If I stepped anywhere, a scorpion as big as a 3-pound Maine Lobster would’ve attacked me. Instinctively I started screaming, skipping, waving my arms—a serious freak out. My roommate was in the shower, and she comes out and I am standing on the furniture naked, shaking, pale as a ghost, my heart racing…my legs kept doing this weird jumpy, hop and kicking thing…I lost control. It’s hysterically funny to me now, but it was a scary situation then because all I could think about was the possibility of more Scorpions waiting to attack me in our room. Well the good news is I scared the scorpy out of the room and he crawled under the door--I don’t know how he even fit under there. When I called housekeeping, they sent Mona up with a dust brush and Raid to kill the “insects”. She had no idea what we called about because she didn’t understand, so then we decided to put a towel under the door and we all looked in the curtains, our shoes, under the beds for more. I felt like a little kid proofing my room of monsters. I took motion-sickness pill to help me fall asleep (b/c they make me drowsy) so that I could sleep without fearing the scorpions. And I didn’t have any scary dreams, and I woke up and went on a Safari game-drive.
The next early morning drive we didn’t see many animals at all. They knew it was Saturday so they all went into hiding from the tourists. Oh well. I still saw all the hippos, rhinos, elephants, LIONS, 3 sets of MATING LIONS, giraffes, pumba’s, buffalo, etc. I also cannot forget to mention that when we returned for breakfast, a Bull Elephant wandered into the Lodge grounds to take a mud bath. So from my breakfast table, right where I was sun-tanning the day before was a huge bull elephant playing in the mud. The rangers said they do that every once in a while because they have a little pond in the middle of the Lodge area. The elephants step right over the electrical fences to get in!
When we got back to Cape Town, I had dinner with Annie and Ashley from Fairfield, CT who went to Kruger national park. We exchanged Safari stories, and then went out to some local places after eating an authentic African dinner. I couldn’t even tell you what we ate…but the meats were Springbock, Kudu, Ostrich, and Beef (all animals I saw). We socialized with locals, girls and guys, and they loved us Americans. They told us where to go and what to eat. We went to this club called Tiger Tiger. They played a lot of cheesy American Music earlier in the night because they knew we were there, and the later it got they played the Euro techno-house music that I love to dance to. What I love about the culture is that their fashion is very similar to ours, the people were so nice, and the city is so YOUNG. It kind of reminds me of Boston and how everyone is my age. Even though the drinking age is 18, you still have to be 21 to get into clubs on weekends…guys had to be 23. They were also building the World Cup Futbol stadium for 2010 next year, so the town was buzzing with futbol excitement.The weather is perfect, the landscape and oceans is BEAUTIFUL and 20 minutes outside of Cape Town is the beginning of the wine regions.
The next morning we went on a wine tour through the Stellenbosch region. I organized a trip for 6 of my friends before we went back on the ship. Natasha, Gillian, Genvieve, Jessica, Annie and I went to three wineries and we learned techniques for wine tasting, how to select wines with meals, and we got to spend time with each other in the country side learning about country life. Our tour guide, Pim, was so funny, but I think we entertained him mostly. We went to Blaauwlippen Vineyard, Avontuur Estate, and Hazendal Vineyard. They all export to the U.S. so I look forward to seeing some of them at home.
Right now, I am sitting in Mauritius writing this. It is a beautiful volcanic island off of Africa, East of Madagascar. It is a vacation spot for Australian’s and Africans, and the island is about 40ft long. I woke up at 6:30am to watch us pull into port. Volcanic mountains are gorgeous, and the sunset behind them was one of the most stunning sunsets I’ve ever seen in my life.
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