We got up bright and early to leave the house by 6:15 am. All of us were so excited to finally go on Safari! Most of us fell asleep on the hour-long trip to Fairy Glen, but if you stayed awake you saw magnificent views of the beautiful mountain ranges and farmlands in South Africa. When we finally got to the front gate we were greeted by an enormous elephant! It started coming toward us so Sed quickly began reversing. The elephant started running (as it was being chased by vehicles from the other direction) when all of a sudden our car stalled! It was the first time in Sed’s life that he had ever stalled a car. With all of us starting to panic, the elephant took a turn and ran up the hill. Woah! Talk about a way to start a morning!
After this excitement we went inside and enjoyed a beautiful spread of breakfast foods. We ate all that we could and then officially began the safari. The first place we went was to the young lions enclosure. There were two female lions about 4 months of age and a two-year-old male lion. They were all together playing in a corner so we stood around taking pictures with lions being less than a foot away! After we all got our fill of pictures we jumped back into the military jeep and headed on our way. We circled the watering hole and the first animal we stumbled apon was a Leopard Tortoise in our path. Our tour guide, Chantelle, got down and picked up the tortoise and it “leaked” all over her! She didn’t seem to mind much though, what a pro. Then we continued on our way. We stopped for a minute to get some pictures of an elephant in the watering hole and then saw some wildebeest and a waterbuck. Chantelle told us the legend of how the Wildebeest came to be and after seeing them in person, it all makes sense. Apparently they are made up of left over pieces from other animals. They have the neck of a zebra, body of an antelope and the face of the devil. We drove slowly past and then found Lady and Higgins.
These two heroes are the rhinoceroses that were recently poached for their horns. To date, they are the only rhinos in the world who have survived such a brutal attack, living more than a month and a half while all others never make it past two days. The pair were found not far from each other with their horns viciously ripped out of their faces. Higgins was blinded from the sun burning into his eyes but Lady was lucky enough to be found while the sun was still down. The sick poachers were caught thankfully, but got out of jail by paying a measly 75,000 rand find. That is not even 10,000 US Dollars and each horn sells for about 520K! It’s disgusting how easy the poachers get off in South Africa.
To cheer us up after seeing the rhinos, we went to meet a 2 day old Zebra! We watched as he playfully walked around his mother. We got to name him and named him Gary after the bartender who lives down the road from us. He should be so honored haha! After the zebras it was off to visit the bigger lions. We actually drove into the enclosure and drove right up to three fully grown lions. There was no fence or ANY kind of protection between us and them. Talk about an adrenaline rush. Nothing really happened though, they were being lazy under a tree trying to stay cool in the 95 degree weather. After the lions we went to the springbok’s breeding grounds and then back through a mountain road. We saw the devastation caused by a fire just two days before we got there. They were lucky enough to stop it before it ruined any of the animal’s feeding grounds or habitats. The silver lining of the fire is that there is now new fertile ground for plants to regrow and flourish. We went back to the headquarters and had a filling lunch and then headed on our way home. The safari was amazing and many of us already said that it was our favorite day. Little did we know what the night would bring.
For dinner we all went to Andrew’s house. They were having a block party where kids came from all over and we just hung out with Andrew’s family and his neighbors. I’ve never had so much fun. We danced with the kids for hours and played soccer up and down the street. We all worked up quite an appetite and then the food was served. As we sat down outside again to eat, we were swarmed by the children asking for food. None of us really knew how to react. I’ve never felt so guilty and spoiled in my entire life and I know a lot of us can all agree with that. It was such a change in the environment too. One minute we’re all laughing and playing together, and then the next we feel like we’re teasing these unfortunate kids by flaunting full plates in their faces. We were ushered back inside and then after eating, Ivy let the children have the leftovers. She knew which ones were truly hungry and made sure they had first dibs. That situation shocked a lot of us into reality and I know will be with us for a long time. A lot of us now appreciate a lot more the things we have at home, and more than that we realize how much extra we have and what it truly means to “need” something. On the way home we talked about what all of those kids seemed to have and it was pure happiness. They were all so joyful and yet had substantially less than us. I think this was a huge growing point for our group.
After getting home from Andrew’s, most of us decided to go out to the bars to say one last goodbye to Obs. We played Cheers Mandela! and sang Disney songs in the kitchen. It’s amazing to know how close we all have become and how much fun we have together. Not only was our day full of adventure and laughs, we learned so much about ourselves and the world we live in. If I had to choose one day to remember South Africa by, it would be this one. Not excited for tomorrow at all.
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