October 6 2010 / Kariega Game Reserve, South Africa

Early morning—woke up at six in the morning and went up to nom some breakfast.  I went into the Union just to be told that if I don’t have a jacket, I need to go back and get one, because apparently group A’s safari was rained on the ENTIRE TIME.  Which would definite suck, so I’m really hoping it doesn’t rain.  I went downstairs and changed out my fleece for my SAS sweatshirt and hoped for the best.  Around 0800 we were out in the bus and on our way—one student staggered over to the bus at the last minute.  In our bus there was a tour guide named Buz, and was the Extremely British (er, South African) Minister of Useless Facts, and would tell us all about the city as we drove off to the airport.  He was hilarious and did indeed tell us all sorts of useless yet interesting facts.  He also told us that in his 63 years here he has never seen a leopard in the wild, and that he would not talk to us if we saw one.  I am not really expecting to see a leopard on my safari, though it would be cool if there was one.  He also mentioned that the other group saw lion cubs—I would die, I think, if I saw lion cubs in the wild.  I would be so excited. 

The airport was only about twenty minutes away, and we bailed out of the bus to check in.  It only took about five to ten minutes for our entire group to check in, and then another ten to get us all through security—and there were thirty of us, mind you.  I think San Francisco should adopt their security protocol—they were so mellow I could even bring my shampoos and water bottles and things like that aboard the plane.  Andres (my across the hall neighbor) and I sat with a couple of lifelong learners just talking as we waited for the plane—after a while, we all piled into a bus and drove out onto the tarmac to our tiny, tiny plane from South African Express.  It was so small that we took up the vast majority of the seats on the plane!  The flight was one hour east into Port Elizabeth, and the airport was covered in pictures of Nelson Mandela, as well as picture signs warning about human trafficking, which I thought was really interesting.  I wanted to take one, but I am sure that kind of thing is generally frowned upon, so alas, I did not. 

We got onto a great big bus where An Extremely Irritating Woman told us things that we did not need to know over the intercom while everyone was trying to get some shuteye.  She was extremely loud and it was just very unpleasant.  Still, about an hour in I was able to kind of doze off, and woke up about an hour later as someone shouted “ELEPHANT!” as loudly as possible.  We were driving by Kariega at that point, and we all looked out to see the rump of an elephant who stood in the distance.  Nearer to the fence in front of him were a couple of warthogs running, as well as some blue wildebeest (which, I just need to say right now, look EXACTLY like they do in The Lion King).  As I was looking I saw some pole shapes in the distance, towering above some trees.  As I watched, one of them leaned over and munched some leaves.  “GIRAFFES!” I shouted.  And indeed there were three giraffes hanging out on top of the hill.  It was ridiculously exciting—we’d already seen one of the Big Five (and several other more awesome critters) without even going inside the park. 

We drove for a little while through the park, past impala and nyala herds, to the reception desk.  Everywhere were big grass fields, with some shrubbery around as well as big clumps of trees.  Hills were everywhere.  We signed in and then were off to our “chalets,” which were lots of cabins along a dirt road nearby the restaurant and curios shop.   Get this—in our cabin there were four of us.  There were four bathrooms each connected to one of four bedrooms, TWO with KING SIZED BEDS.   I shamelessly claimed one of the king beds—you snooze, you lose.  I would be sleeping diagonally every night there.  We also had our own patio that we could look out upon tons of trees.

The restaurant had an amazing lunch there.  The place itself was wood with massive glass windows so you could see across a valley of trees.  The soup was cream of potato-y, and the food was just. SO. GOOD. especially in comparison to what we had been eating on the ship lately. 

Around four o’clock (after I had gone back to my cabin, digested my food, and written a couple of postcards out on the patio) our guide, Phil, came to pick us up for our afternoon game drive.  Phil kind of looks like Alan Rickman in his face shape—it must be a British thing (he’s from England).  So anyway, a bunch of girls pilled into his car and off we went.  Our objective was to find either elephants or lions before dinner, as well as anything else that we could come across.  So we drove off, crossing the lane of freeway that separated the two reserves—one of them kept lions and elephants as well, away from where the rangers and tourists lived.  So anyway, we drove along until we stumbled across a bull elephant!  He was as happy as could be, reaching up with his trunk by the side of the road and pulling off leaves absently.  Instead of stopping, Phil drove right past him, off road and up into a little clearing.  He killed the engine, and presently we realized that there were three elephants right in front of us, eating leaves off the trees.  Suddenly, THE ENTIRE HERD OF ELEPHANTS (and there are like twenty of them or so!) came tromping through the trees.  Many of them had young elephants trailing after their moms, and even the Matriarch elephant came tromping down, her calf beside her.  They ate leaves slowly before passing our car—I could have reached out and touched their rough, wrinkled skin if I wanted too, though I didn’t… I was too busy being completely in awe.  As I watched, two bulls would wrap their trunks around each other’s and put the tips in the other’s mouth—an elephant hug.  As they tromped by, Phil decided they were going to the water hole, so we followed.

Now, the water hole?  What’s so great about the water hole?!  I will TELL YOU.  There are ELEPHANT BABBIES splashing around and wrestling in the water—they climbed on top of each other, would pick up leaves and put them on their heads, and we even watched one of the baby elephants nursing from the matriarch.  It was absolutely amazing.  And this was all right next to us.  They essentially knew we were there but didn’t see us as a threat, so they would come by our car frequently.  Trumpeting sounds a little like screeching cars, and all the other elephants would look around confusedly whenever another one did it.  They were giving themselves dirt baths to rid themselves of ticks and one of them actually sprayed the car with dirt—guess he was trying to help us out!  Another one did an eleFART, which is EXTREMELY UNPLEASANT.  I thought Luna was bad.  They are just such absolutely intelligent animals, though—the guide was talking to them whenever they would come by kindly (he loves the elephants) and if they got too close he would change his tone, which gets the attention of the elephant and they know not to come closer.  SO AMAZING AUGH.  We stayed there for an entire hour at the watering hole, just watching the baby elephants swim around and take rests flopping down in the mud.  I loved it.

Next we went off to find lions, which all the females were on a hill, stalking kudo.  I couldn’t even really see them, even though binoculars—they were just little white specks.  There was just really one furry paw sticking up in the air where a lioness was on her back, and otherwise they looked like rocks.  Was kind of a bummer, but maybe we would see more later, so drove off.  “There bones were a giraffe,” said Phil absently as we drove over the crest of a hill—huge shoulder bones and leg bones were speckled everywhere. 

We learned a little that kalahari lions (black mane lions—yes, an entire group of Scars) tend to let the cubs eat first, the male even running the females off so the cubs could eat first, which I thought was cute.  Daw, protective daddy.  <3  Anyway, we drove off to ANOTHER mountain where we looked at ANOTHER hill where we could see the male lion.  He was a lot clearer but still disappointingly far away—I could see the shape of his body and his tail twitch once through binoculars.  We drove off again and saw little game then—impala, nyala, waterbuck, bushbuck, and blue wildebeest, and by the time night fell, we decided to turn in for dinner.  I sat with a pretty exciting table for dinner, so afterwards we decided to get a couple bottles of wine (there were five of us, so it wasn’t particularly “high impact”) and walked to the boy’s chalet (there were three guys and two girls).  We moved the main table outside onto the patio and played Spoons, as well as Gin, while having out glasses of wine and talking about how our game drives had been going.  Around eleven I decided to head back to my chalet, as we were waking up to 5:30 to see if we couldn’t find a better view of those elusive lions.  And I must say, walking around in the dark was pretty incredible—the stars out were beautiful, and you could hear crickets and bugs and all sorts of things out in the brush.  It was a little eerie when it got to me being the only one walking the minute back to my chalet, but it all ended just fine—I crawled into my KING SIZED bed, snuggled up into the pillows, and fell happily asleep. 

For those of you who are concerned about my lack of updates (are people concerned? probably not), I have been absolutely swamped studying for midterm exams.  I would give spend the time on these South Africa blogs that they deserve than throwing something together, so fear not—they will arrive, if slowly and steadily.  :)