Safari Notes Courtesy of Scout

Safari: It was very green when we went because of recent rain. The natural watering holes disappear in the summer

1)      Ostrich

2)      Egyptian geese

3)      Kudu (you can eat it!)

4)      Angulite tortise (crossing the road in Addo)

5)      Dung beetle

6)      Elephants—because of inbreeding in Addo, the males have small to no tusks. They recently brought in males for Kruger to help remedy the problem. Walter M. was the elephant from Kruger we saw. He has the biggest tusks. Elephants eat cactus. Only 7 females in the park have tusks. Elephants sleep standing up.

7)      Stanley’s bastard—the heaviest flying bird. I thas to take off and land in the wind

8)      Zebra

9)      Yellow orb spiders

10)  Red heartabeast—2^nd fastest animal in South Africa. Black speed stripes on legs and bikini tan on bum.

11)   Imparla—black M on bum. Also live in Great Britain. Young males get kicked out as they get older and form a bachelor heard

12)   Candelabra lily

13)   Blue wildabeast—make very large holes because they are aggressive territory markers that use gland in face and hooves. The dominant male is always the largest in the herd. Also the black wildabeast. Communicate by sound of swishing tails. 26-27 million used to migrate between port Elizabeht and New London

14)  Warthogs—males have 4 warts and females 2. Are the chocolate for lions and jackels

15)  Burchell’s zebra—have a shadow stripe between the white and black

16)  Helmeted guinea fouls—are eaten by lynx so sleep the night in the trees. Mate for life

17)  Blue Monkeys

18)   Yellow Mongoose. Like rickyticky Tavi!

19)  Hippos. They have lots of spots that secrete a pink liquid that is like sunblock. Hippos kill more people each year than any other mammal. Its teeth are about 30 cm long and they can run up to 40 kn/hr. More than 90% of their diet is grass. Sometimes they will force lions to share their meat

20)  White rhinos—eat grass whereas black rhinos eat leaves. The section between their ears and eyes is longer because they need to reach to the ground more often. They cannot see well. Only 8 meters in front of them and its blurry. Last year 333 rhinos were killed for their horn. The skin is 4 cm thick. Named Bonnie and Clyde

21)  Spring bock—jump with all 4 legs and up to 4 meters high. Their main predator is the cheetah which hunts by tripping its prey

22)  Nyala—red and white vertical stripes. Males are dark gray

23)  Blaze bucks

24)  Termite farm

25)  Lions—the cubs were 6 months and the males 2 and ½ years old. Lions are sprinters. Hyenas and wild dogs are marathon runners!

26)  Giraffes—eat bones to get calcium. Have the same number of neck vertabrae as we do. Rely a lot on eyesight. White ears help them to see each other at night. Are pregnant for 14 ½ months. Sleep for 20 mins a day. Ruminate

Spring/Fall Break/Holiday 2011!!!

So spring/fall break started Saturday, March 26^th. I was traveling with three other people along the Garden Route, which is the coastal area in between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth: a major tourist attraction. In the morning we boarded the Baz Bus, which is a bus that travels the Garden Route everyday picking up and dropping off passengers at the doors of their hostels and backpackers. The first day we spent 8 hours traveling through farmland, scrub brush, mountains, and forests and finally ended up in our first stop, Wilderness. We stayed at the Fairy Knowe backpackers, which was nestled in the woods and so so so tranquil and relaxing, it was the exact atmosphere I was looking for this vacation. Then we walked down to the main town area to get some food and stopped at this restaurant called Pomodoro. The meal ended up being one of the best I have had in South Africa. My pizza was incredible, my salad did not consist of iceberg lettuce (very unusual for SA) and to top it off we had cheesecake that was voted the “Best in South Africa.” Later we found out it is made by this local guy and with goats’ milk. Yum! It was mind-blowing; I don’t think I can ever eat cheesecake again. We walked back to our hostel in the dark and it was quite refreshing to be in a safe area where we could walk about and every house wasn’t covered in razor wire and electric fences.

The next day, Sunday, we went on a nice hike to a waterfall and then rented bikes to ride down and have a picnic on the beach. This hike also brought about the nicknames for our group. Karina was to be referred to as “BOOTS” because she was the only one of us with hiking boots that she would casually wear with any outfit throughout the trip. Also, “Boots” was the only one to develop blisters from hiking. Megan was to be known as “Scout” because of her fearless attitude, and her experience guiding boy scouts through the Canadian wilderness during the summer. Nathan was called “Legs,” though his name soon changed, because he had to hike his shorts up really high to wade through these pools of water at the waterfall and ended up showing off half his bum to a number of foreign families. I was given the rather obvious name of “Freckles” for reasons I have no need to explain. We then headed back to our hostel in time to clean up and hop on the baz bus. Our next destination was Storm’s River, and it was definitely a highlight of our trip. The night when we got in we were the only guests in the entire hostel and our receptionist/bartender, Freddie, took it upon himself to show us a good time. First, he started pumping Nathan full of shots because he was going to bungee jump the following morning. Do not ask me why anyone would think drinking a ton the night before bungeeing is a good idea. Then Freddie’s friend came over and we casually drank and played pool. Then they invited us to go to the township pub just around the corner. Freddie’s friend was actually a police officer, so it seemed fairly safe and we decided to go. The township pub was definitely an experience I don’t know how else to say it. It was cool to be there and experience it but it was also sobering as well as damn entertaining. We didn’t stay too long because we had a long day ahead of us but nonetheless by the time we got back, Nathan had sufficiently gotten himself sick, spending most of his night in the bathroom. Thus, his true nickname came into existence: “Chunder Thunder” or “Chunder Wonder” depending on ones mood (to chunder means to throw up in SA, if you didn’t get that one through the context clues).

Early the next day on Monday we got Nate’s ‘hanging’ (SAs version of hung over) ass up and headed to the Bungee site. This Bungee jump is touted as the highest in the world standing at 216 m, however, after some independent research it was discovered that it is not in fact the highest bungee jump but rather the highest from a single arch bridge (funny they seemed to leave that detail out…) It was a pretty crazy thing to watch and Karina and I ended up screaming our heads off when Nate jumped, don’t ask me why. After that we went into the Tsitsikamma National Park and hiked the Otter Trail, which is this phenomenal hike along the coast with crazy surf and boulders on one side and steep forest mountainside on the other. The trail ends at a waterfall that collects in a freezing cold pool. This was by far the highlight of the trip. Unfortunately, though, that afternoon we had to leave Storm’s River to go to Port Elizabeth for a daylong safari/game drive thing.

Our safari started at 10:00 Tuesday morning when we were picked up from our hostel. The tour started in Addo Elephant Park where were drove around and saw a bunch of elephants basically. It was incredible. Then we went to a private game reserve and saw a ton of different wildlife. To touch on a few, we saw impalas, wart hogs, lions, giraffes, rhinos, wildebeests, springbok (SA’s rugby team is named after this antelope), and hippos. Scout’s detailed field notes will be in the next post. Our guide, Barbara was so incredibly knowledgeable, you could ask her about anything and she knew the animals’ behavior to great precision. We were feed twice and we did a night game drive where we saw a porcupine. It was a really great experience and I was a little skeptical of this whole safari thing going in.

On Wednesday, we headed back west to a touristy town off a chain of lagoons, Knysna. We were there two nights and spent most of our time eating and going out to eat since there were both delicious and easily accessible restaurants. On Thursday, we did a little canoe trip down the Goukamma River along farmlands and hills. The weather was overcast and a little drizzly but still quite enjoyable. We did go out to a local bar in Knysna but it was just tragic, more tragic than even the township pub so Im not going to go into much detail on that.

Finally, come Friday we headed to George. We stayed at a cute little hostel there and the next day went inland about an hour to Outdshoorn to go to the Cango Wildlife Ranch. The drive to Outdshoorn actually really reminded me of New Mexico in some parts with vistas and red clay so that was pretty fun for me. Really the only reason we went to the Cango Wildlife Ranch was because we knew we could pet baby cheetahs and tigers there and besides that one attraction it was very underwhelming, especially after doing a safari in PE. And although I was reluctant to give that lame institution anymore of my money, I had to pet some cheetahs. The ones we petted were actually more like teenagers but still so amazing to be around. Plus cheetahs actually pur, like freaking house cats! So flipping cool. 

The whole George/Outdshoorn experience was interesting though because it was the most white Afrikaaner place I have been to of yet. Everyone around you speaks in Afrikaans. This was awkward because I am currently negotiating this problematic inclination I have of thinking every white Afrikaaner is racist. And the truth is many white Afrikaaners are racist. Finally, that afternoon we left for Cape Town and by the grace of God got into CT at a reasonable time that evening. And alas, the trip was over. 

I would love to attach pictures but there are just too many. If you want to see them, check out my facebook.

My lively and Eventful Three-Day Weekend

I’m writing a few weeks after the matter but I wanted to record the awesomeness that transpired in this period. The story begins the week of March 14^th. This was by all means an unenjoyable time where everyone in the house spent the entire week pouring over their laptops and staying up much later than usual writing a 20 page paper for our Poverty and Development class, which was due that Friday. Although I did have a leg up in the process because the subject of the paper is pretty much everything I have been engaging with these past three years at school, I did, nonetheless, devote a lot of time to this paper. But my hard work paid off and I managed to finish relatively early Thursday evening, which enabled me to partake in the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Mainly, I went with a few of my friends to Dubliner, an Irish bar on Long Street (Cape Town’s less sleazy Bourbon St.) downtown to have a beer and bounce. Honestly, I would have stayed longer but my comrades were naughty and hadn’t quite finished their papers yet. Going out, even for a bit, may have been a poor choice though because I had a 8am class the next day and thus spent the rest of my weekend in sleep deprivation but hell, Im still young!

Friday night I went to see this awesome, high-energy band, Goldfish, play at this trendy club called Trinity. Trinity has four floors and was packed with young and hip cats (especially young beautiful South Africa boys), which was actually surprising. Some clubs are definitely cool but sometimes you go to them and the crowd is rather geriatric. There was also a large group of Americans which was odd, most of them were from CIEE Arts and Science. Im pretty sure the Americans were the most shameless groupies as well. They all fought to the front, kicking and screaming, failing to maintain the cool composure characteristic of South Africans. Again we went home a little earlier than I would have liked but we had a wine tasting at 9 in the morning (WTF!! Who in the world schedules a wine tasting as 9 in the morning, SAs are total alcoholics!) so it was all for the better.

Our wine tasting was in Stellenbosch, the wine region to the North of CT. We rolled up to the swanky Neethlingshof estate, had a rather short cellar tour, I finally learned what tannins are (sort of), and tasted 3 white wines and 2 reds. One of the white wines tasted like litchi fruit and I actually really liked it and the winery’s signature red wine was fabulous. The best part was visiting the vineyard’s wine shop and realizing these wines were actually dirt-cheap. I picked up two whites for 40 Rand a pop, which is about 6 US dollars. I would have gotten that really good red which was R100 but I just didn’t have enough cash on me, that’s only 14 dollars! After that we went to the Stellenbosch market and had a picnic. Saturday was actually incredibly hot, about 90 degrees, so once we got back from Stellenbosch a few of us went to Clifton Beach to cool off in the cold Pacific waters. Then, that evening Cape Town was putting on a sort of Carnival parade celebration thing along Long Street so I also went to that. The parade was pretty entertaining (I believe the tequila shots I had taken and this really silly bar on Long St. called “Bobs” helped as well) and then when it was over there was a DJ club party thing on the street and vendors selling beer everywhere. 

So Im sorry to say this but the story keeps going. The following day, Sunday, we then went to Robben Island. As you could guess it was both fascinating and sobering. All the tour guides were actually former prisoner and we got to see Nelson Mandela’s cell, a beached whale (not part of the standard tour but definitely sad), and the limestone quarry where countless prisoners, including Mandela, slaved away in grueling physical labor while also engaging in the discourse that continued their struggle against apartheid. On a lighter note, Robben Island has the third largest population of Africa penguins and were often seen about the island huddling under bushes, waddling about, and doing other painfully adorable things. After Robben Island I took a much-needed break, which was lovely. But don’t worry my weekend was not about to come to an end, the next day was International Human Rights Day and a public holiday in SA!

So Monday I escaped Cape Town and went on a hike. I went with a South African friend so it was also a nice break from the Americans I am surrounded by day-in and day-out. The area is called Silvermine, and had a perfect mix of water (my fav) and sweeping views of Western Cape Town. We hiked to this cave called the elephants eye and chilled out looking at the incredible sight. After our hike we went to this Thai place and I got the first green curry that has ever lived up to Mudu Noodles in Santa Fe. I will definitely be going back to that place. 

Well the weekend had finally come to an end and I spent the remainder of my week in front of a computer making an Internet user manual for Yabonga. The next week was spring/fall break and Ill be blogging about that next. To bring it full circle though, when I got back from break Yabonga had printed off my manuals, so I am now a published author (not) and I got an A+ on my Poverty and Development paper. Pretty cool!

Hugging a cask that isnt even used for wine production

wine land

view from Elephant's Eye

Carnival

Me with some friends at the Goldfish concert