February 19th, 2009

This morning I woke up for my Safari at 5:30 since we had to meet in the union at 6:30. I took a shower at some breakfast and because of my time paranoia I was the first one in the Union. Teachers and professors followed I started to wonder if there were any other students going on the Kariega Safari. Slowly kids came in. Katie who I bought my township visit from was on the safari, as well as Alex and Thomas who I had gone ATV’ing with in Namibia, oh ya and Laura who I met last night. It was nice to at least have a few familiar faces. Also both Dean Garret and my dance teacher were going on the safari amongst about 10 other professors and their spouses. 

 

We first took a bus ride to the airport and then waited for about an hour for our flight. While sitting in the airport listening to music waiting for the flight I noticed a group of boys all dressed in school uniforms walk up and sit across the way from me, they looked like they were maybe in high school. I looked a little closer and noticed a few of them were carrying water polo balls. I got really excited and decided to go talk to them. I was right they were in high school and were heading off to a tournament. They told me the sport wasn’t really big in South Africa but they enjoyed it. I talked with them for the next 30 minutes about music, food, school, everything and anything. I really enjoyed talking with them and don’t worry I even have a picture. They were all surprised when I asked them if I could see the ball he tossed it under hand to me and I threw it back correctly they all laughed. I said good luck as the left and one of them asked me to facebook them. That made me laugh that no matter how different our lives were we could still be connected through facebook. 

 

Soon after the boys got on their flight it was time to get on our plane. We went up to kiosk and then took a bus to our plane which we boarded outside. I think our group filled almost the entire plane. The plane ride was an hour and a nice way to catch up on the sleep I had been missing out on the last few days. After the hour plane ride we arrived in Port Elizabeth and then continued on a two hour bus ride before arriving at Kariega Game Reserve. The sties around me were amazing and it was hills of rolling green as far as the eye could see. We pulled up got our room assignment and hoped in the off road vehicles to take us to lunch. We had lunch in an amazing building that felt like we were in a tree top and overlook a valley. After a lunch of great food that I am not sure what it was, we went to our Challets to get ready for our first game drive. There were 6 girls to a Challet and the rooms were fantastic. The entire Challet had a dining room fireplace and balcony that rapped around overlooking the valley as well. My roommates name for the trip was Alexis and we got along right away. She is from LA and transferring to UCLA next semester. 

 

We then left the Challet to meet up for our first drive. As soon as we walked out the door Alexis screamed and said “Oh my god there is a monkey on our roof!!!”I laughed turned around got a quick picture before he scurried off. We then met up with our guides where they told us to make sure all the doors and windows in our rooms were closed because the monkeys would go in and go through our things. Alexis and I immediately looked at each other and ran back to close our bathroom windows we had left open. We then finally got into the off-road vehicles that held 10 people each and drove off. Alexis and I sat in the very back with a girl names Leah, who goes to Chapman. There were a few kids on the trip from chapman and another group who went to SDSU as well as a girl from Newport. I felt like I had a connection with almost everyone. 

 

After about 20 minutes of driving around the reserve our driver Shawn pulled up to two HUGE Male lions!!!! They were both sleeping and we got pretty close to take some pictures. Out in the distance we could also see the females under a tree with some cubs. I was in awe that after such a short period of time in the car I was looking at lions!!! After taking maybe 50 pictures Shawn told us we would be moving on to see the elephants that had been spotted about 45 minutes away. We finally made it to the elephants where I am not even sure I can tell you how many we saw. I think there may have been about 5 adults and 3 babies. Either way it seemed like 20 and they were fascinating to watch. They walked right along side the cars too and acted like we weren’t even there. Lastly on our drive back to the lodge while watching the sunset we came across some Giraffe. We pulled over a good distance away and had drinks while watching the sunset over one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen in my life with giraffe in the distance. After our drinks we hoped back in the car to head to the lodge for dinner. On our way back Shawn held a spot light keep on the lookout for anything else we might find and we did find some Rhino although it was too dark to really seem them and Shawn said we would find them tomorrow. Alexis and I had a great time in the backseat and felt like were on the Indian Jones ride the entire day, but we decided tomorrow we would sit closer to the front so we could hear all of Shawn wonderful facts about the animals. 

 

We finally made it back to the lodge to have another amazing meal, again I am not sure what any of it was but it was some of the most amazing food I have ever had. It was about 9 o’clock now and Alexis and I decided to head back and shower for the night because we would have to be up at 5:30 in the morning for our first game drive. Luckily I had a flashlight with me so the walk back to our Chalet from dinner wasn’t too bad and we kept talking about how we felt like we were at summer camp. A few of the girls in our Chalet made it back before we did and started a fire which was really impressed and pleased with. But there was one problem the power in our Chalet kept going off about every 5 minutes and nobody had anything plugged so we were all confused. Luckily me and another girl Lindsey had flashlights to find the circuit breaker and fix the lights. I got pretty frustrated after about the 5^th time and decided to go to find someone to help since our phone wasn’t working either. So Alexis and I walked up the road back to the restaurant and told one of the guides our situation. Shawn and this other guide gave us a lift back to the Chalet to see what the problem was. Although I was slightly concerned Shawn was worrying about our lights because he had been told to go take care of a bat that was stuck in some little kids room but apparently our lights seemed to take two guides and took priority over the bat. I explained what had been happening but they weren’t able to fix anything. Shawn just blamed it on the Chalet being haunted and told us to check under our pillow for spiders just to scare us. I think he was really amused with himself. Luckily our lights only went out one more time before we went to sleep.