October 13, 2007

This morning was the morning we woke up and I heard Carrie yelling for me to go out on the to balcony! I ran out there and saw in the ocean across from our flat half a dozen dolphins swimming and surfacing in the water! Every one and a while I could see their dorsal fin pop out of the water as they swam closer to Summerstrand! We took the sighting to be a good sign that we would see many animals on our safari today! At 9:00am,we met our tour guide and safari driver, Peter, and he drove us to Addo Elephant National Park. When we arrived at Addo, Peter began to give us the history of the park, which was enclosed in 1931, and it enclosed 11 elephants. That number has increased to over 400 elephants in the park today, and in the 76 years of the park’s existence, only two have escaped from the park. Peter explained that the families of elephants are led by a matriarch who passes along her wisdom to the senior daughters who will form their own families when they have grown. Elephants eat 200-300 kilograms of vegetation every day and they can drink 200 liters of water each day. Since they are taking in all of this food, each day they can produce 75 kilograms of waste! We had an amazing view of an elephant right off of the bat and it was right outside of our van. Their trunks are incredibly flexible and they have 60,000 muscles in their trunk alone (that’s right, I didn’t mistype, 60,000!) We drove through the park for about three hours and we saw over 120 elephants, many were in groups by the water, either politely waiting their turn to have a drink, splashing around, or wrestling beside the water. It was so much fun watching the babies trying to get in and out of the water! They would slip in and out and as they walked away with their mothers they would lose their footing and slip around! We also saw other animals like the leopard tortoise, kudu, many warthogs, and a dung beetle! I took too many pictures of the animals but it was well worth it because all turned out amazing! On one of our stops in the elephant park we sat and watched the elephants in the water and one came up to the van. It was so darn close! Then all of a sudden we looked at two came running across the road right next to us, but we didn’t even hear them, that is why elephants are called the silent giant! For this reason, elephants are part of the Big 5 animals in South Africa. The Big 5 in South Africa is not based on the size of the animal, rather hunters have created a list of the animals that are the most dangerous to hunt. The other animals on the list other than elephants include, the buffalo (the most dangerous), lions, leopards, and rhinos. During our day on the safari we saw four of the five (all but the leopard)!

Around 1:00pm we left the park for the restaurant for lunch. We ate a quick lunch and then we headed to Scotia, a private game reserve to see more of the animals. We (Denise, Katherine, Laura, Kasy, Brenna, and I) began the safari looking for as many species of animals as possible. We saw the warthogs, and wildebeest, kudu, Red Hartebeest (or the bikini bottoms as they can be referred to because of their tan legs and white bottoms!), the cape cobra (which slithered across the road), a yellow mongoose, ostrich, wild pig, impala, porcupine, springbok, and buffalo. As we were driving across the planes, we saw seven zebra grazing on the grass, we were able to stop and take pictures and after a few minutes they galloped away from us! It was so beautiful watching them. A fun fact that many people don’t know about them, #1 their stripes are unique to each zebra, and #2 they have black and brown stripes! After the zebra we went up a hill and saw a dozen giraffe eating from the treetops! We were able to get up close and take lots of pictures. Peter told us about the giraffes and we learned many things, such as giraffes have seven vertebrae in their neck (just like humans) and they never lie their heads on the ground (even to sleep) because their necks aren’t strong enough to lift it up again! When giraffes walk they don’t want with the opposite front and back foot but with the same together, and their tongues are 18 inches long! We continued on the drive and we came across two hippos lounging in the water! Hippos are herbivores, but they are responsible for the most human deaths caused by an animal because they will trample people if they are in the way and their mouths are very strong that they will clamp down on people when they are swimming or tip in a canoe! Luckily these two hippos were content to be in the water! They looked like rocks just standing their nice and still with only small parts of their bodies sticking out! The next animal that we came across was a rhino and we were able to get very close to him. I never really felt scared on the safari, until Peter told us that the rhino could tip the safari van over if he wanted to! It was a little nerve wrecking but he just kept eating away! When he ate looked just like a vacuum moving along the floor, inhaling the food!

After seeing the rhino we went to the camp area and we had tea and fried bread then we were back in the truck heading to the north part of the park to see the lions! On the drive we stopped by the pond to see Steve the crocodile, who we learned eats everything that comes into his pond, including the reserve owner’s dogs! We went up to the North Park and as soon as we started into the gates we saw the three young lions! There were two females and one male and all three are 20 months old. We were able to get very close to them, and it was a little freaky when the male lion would look right at the camera and almost stare you in the eye! One of the females was a little skittish and every time we would come closer to her she would get up and move away. Before we left the male gave a big yawn and I got a nice picture of him! It looks like he is roaring at us! We continued on in search for the male and father of the three young lions. We found him running through the savannah and we followed along side of him and we would pull ahead of him to watch him run toward us. We followed him down a hill, where he stopped for a few moments to pose in the setting sun (absolutely perfect!) and we drove along side of him down to where the springbok were feeding. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see him feed but it was fun watching him on the prowl. He walked along side of the safari truck and was within two meters of us and Peter told us not to make any sudden movements. It was very quiet and everyone held their breath to watch him! He came to a stop at the bottom of the hill where he laid down in the grass to entertain us for the next half hour. We watched him lick his giant paws and clean his front legs. He would yawn for us, almost like he was posing, and would look right at the camera. He was so beautiful as he sat there with the sun setting on him. His mane was so neat as if it was combed, and it would blow lightly in the breeze. It was so incredible sitting there watching him and being so darn close to him in nature. There was no glass separating me from the lion and yet he just sat there looking back at us and not caring that flashes on cameras were going off every two seconds! We decided to move on and try to find the last lion in the park, the three year old female. We found her along the Addo fence line accompanied by two male lines on the Addo side. So today we saw seven lions, four male, and three female! This female has been at the reserve for eight months and is still a little skittish of the trucks, so she would get up and move quite frequently when other trucks would arrive in the area.

The sun was beginning to set so it was our cue to leave for the camp to eat supper. We arrived and we were greeted with wine and other drinks from the bar. We sat around the bonfire sipping wine before dinner was ready. After twenty minutes of sharing and comparing safari stories we were served our meal of mashed potatoes, impala, chicken, carrots, peas, gravy, and fried bread. It was extremely delicious and I enjoyed the impala! We were served dessert and soon we found ourselves back in the safari truck driving in the dark of night through the reserve! Peter would shine his light so we could see animals and we saw a red hartebeest very close (almost too close…we almost ran him over) and before we knew it we were out of the reserve and piling into the van to come back to PE. I have now loaded my pictures and updated my blog. Tomorrow’s task on a study break is to label all of my pictures, but for now, I am wiped out…it’s bedtime!