BEN - Well
today I had every child's Lion King dream fulfilled. We woke up, made a
quick breakfast and lunch and headed off with Corrine who was going to drive us
through the park. We got to the gate and paid our entrance fee (R38 for
South African Nationals, R150 for international, damn!) and just like that we
were in South Africa's 3rd largest national park with the two rules being 1. Don’t
get out of the car and 2. Do not run over any dung beetles. We started bouncing along some dirt roads
looking for animals. Within a few
minutes we had spotted a large tortoise on the road, some exotic birds, a fox,
a monkey chilling in a tree, and a dung beetle rolling a giant ball of some
kind of shit all over the place. The
whole park is covered in bush that when you look from a distance, doesn't seem
to stand very large, but is actually quite thick and is about 8-10 feet tall. This makes for a landscape where you can turn
a corner and find some giant megafauna that you have only seen in your dreams or
some talking cartoon. The first such of
these were zebra (pronounced ‘zeh-brah’ here) literally right next to the car
grazing, while in the distance a bunch of heartbeast, a type of antelope with
big curly horns. I couldn’t believe how
close we were. Multiple times throughout
the day I had to remind myself that I wasn’t in some theme park with animatronic
animals, I was in freaking Africa, and these were wild, beautiful animals. With every new animal came an absurd amount
of pictures as my telephoto lens did its job (although some of my pictures are disappointingly
washed out). We continued on and saw
kudu, ostrich, warthogs galore (very weird animals), and even a rock monitor
(big lizard trudging alongside the road).
Eventually we found a herd of elephants and watched as the mammoths came
out of the bush and meandered across the road centimeters from our car. There was even a little baby elephant with his
momma. So amazing. The other huge highlight of the day was the
lions, 2 males and a female who just happened to be lazing in the grass beside
the road. Where the hell am I?! There are only 9 lions in the whole giant
park. We got extremely lucky. Within the span of a week I have witnessed
the top of the food chain on both land and water (great white shark). It was clear they were the top of the food
chain, laying in the sun without a care in the world. They were just like my cats at home, rolling
onto their backs with their legs in the air; beautiful and terrifyingly
powerful at the same time. We stayed
with the lions for a bit watching their cat nap. On the way out of the park we had to drive
slowly as one lone male bull elephant was blocking traffic and walking down the
middle of the road for about 20 minutes.
We made our way back home for some spaghetti with the Alderman family. As we were helping cook, I asked John about
planning a trip to Lesotho, and how to do it.
Within five minutes he had called his buddy, and gotten us another
volunteer position at the closest hostel to Lesotho on a horse farm in the
mountains. Awesome. We are very excited about that opportunity
and both hope it comes to fruition. We
talked with John a bit as he told some funny stories about dealing with
thieves, and fights he’s been in. He is
quite a character. Another superb
day. T.I.A.
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