Yesterday we drove from Shingwedzi to Skukuza. That was a very long drive--you can only go ~30mph in the park--and uncomfortable. A safari truck is really like a pickup with benches in the back, it can be very windy and dusty at even just 30mph. It took us about 8 hours, but because we weren't in a hurry we spent a lot of time spotting game and stopping a lot. Inside the park there are lots of these little villages called Rest Camps. Some are big--Skukuza has an airport and a school and a bunch of restaurants and a cricket and soccer field, it's a little city. Some are small--Shingwedzi had only a little restaurant and gift shop and guest houses. I think the South African candy and snacks are really interesting. One of my hobbies, after all, is sampling foreign candy. I'm doing a pretty good job of it, too! I also tried some wild buffalo jerkey. It was delicious, and free range.
We stopped at a very small elephant museum inside one of the rest camps. This is how big I would be next to an elephant. But, I don't walk up to real elephants because they are dangerous.
This is a big baobab tree. It is not dangerous, but it is very big. Bigger than an elephant even.
This is a bushbok, it is not dangerous and I could walk right up next to it. This is in the same rest camp that has the elephant museum.
These are blue wildebeast. I think they might be my favorite animals here. Every time I see them they're bucking all over and kicking and generally acting ornery. See the one in the middle? He's mid-buck. These wild-lifes are easy to spot, but sometimes when you're looking so hard for hours on end..every rock or stump or tree looks like an animal. Can you find the animal in this picture?
That's an actual rhinoceros. About halfway through our drive we had a few false alarms when HA kept telling the driver to "stop, backup, I saw something" only to discover that it was a stump or rock masquerading as an animal. So then we had a nice game of naming every stick, rock or tree as a new form of wild game. Here's a list we came up with:
Rock-opotttamus
Rock-a-nocerous
Tree-raffe
Stick-retary Bird
Elestump
Rock-allo
It was a long day...ok?
Eventually we made it to Skukuza. Here's the view from my back porch. AWESOME! That's a little river down there and so far we've seen a heard of elephants and a hyena there.
When we were relaxing with beers last night a couple of us climbed up to sit with our legs dangling over that wall. I was talking to Low, one of the South African students, about Apartheid. It was really interesting to hear him talk about it. I don't think I'll repeat much here, but my take on it is that the country still has some growing pains. I'm sure that doesn't surprise anyone to hear. Anyway about 20 minutes into this he put his hand out in front of me and said "Do you hear that?" I said "huh? whaaaaaaa?" He said "Shhh! It's a hyena!" Sure enough creeping out from behind that tree there was a baby hyena. He was a lot cuter than I thought he would be--because everything I know about Africa, I learned from the Lion King--he had these cute little round ears and fluffy coat. Still, I was scared. I don't think we could have gotten off that wall faster if we had been pushed. "They don't jump do they? Low, do they JUMP?! because I've seen coyotes jump and this wall isn't high.." He stopped me "no, they don't jump" Ok ok, so the hyena came right up to the base of the wall, tail tucked between his legs, and gave us a good look before he slunk away. Oh, and they really do laugh.
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