My Safari (Sunday, June 8)

Sunday morning, Jaco, who I had been working with to organize this trip, and his family came to pick me up at my hotel in Johannesburg. His mother, wife, 6 year old daughter and 3 year old son all came along for the ride.

We drove to a small game reserve, about 40 minutes from the hotel. It was a nice drive and mostly it was nice to have people to talk to again. They speak Afrikaans here, so the children couldn't really converse with me, though the daughter is starting to learn English, mostly through nursery rhymes. She sang "Humpty Dumpty," "Jack & Jill," and "This Little Piggy..." for me. Adorable!

I had known ahead of time that I would be going to a "Small Game Reserve" and for whatever reason, I had it in my head that it meant "Small Game" rather than a "Game Reserve" that was small. Driving in they informed me that we'd most likely see all of "The Big 5" aside from the elephants. I was so glad that I had been mistaken. We saw all kinds of animals, included giraffes, zebras, tons of birds, monkeys, and most impressively, lions.




We were fortunate to be there on "feeding day" as the lions can be somewhat hard to fnd at other times. It is amazing that you can just drive your car around and all of a sudden come across a pack oflions munching on a cow. Local farmers will give the reserve their dead cattle, so long as the cow died of natural resources. This means the lions have lost their desire to hunt, but on the bright side, they are always guranteed a good meal. Had I been able to open my window and had arms just twice my length, I could have pet the male lion (note that even had I been allowed to open my window, I would not have, just making a point!). Sadly, my pictures didn't come out to great as I was snapping them from inside the car, but I did my best. It was definitely amazing to see these animals so close, and without a cage in the way. (Note, the picture with the fence is an area where the put a few lions so that guests are guranteed to see at least a few lions on their tour, the other ones were "cage free.")

They had one area of the reserve where you could get out of your car and walk through a tent like area where they have all these amazing birds. They definitely have some interesting looking birds in South Africa, and it was great to be able to get up close to them. Also, in the parking lot, there were monkeys running all over the place. I stood about 10 feet from one, which was very exciting. Sadly they do not have any chimps there, but these sufficed.

After we got back in the car from seeing the birds we drove around for an hour or so. In most parts you could drive with the windows down. In fact, the kids had a blast being able to stand up with their heads out the sun roof. I did close my window briefly when we came across some ostrich. They are huge and literally look like gigantic feather dusters! One of them was literally right next to my window.

It was a great day, and while we didn't see all of the "The Big 5" I was just thrilled to have seen the Giraffes, Zebras, and Lions (oh my?!) :)