Location: St Lucia, South Africa
At first.there is nothing but darkness.and thena noise breaks through the silence:
“Ahhh savenyaaaa”
The light switch flicks on to find Keith and Thaxton waking up in a hotel room (gasp) to the sound of The Lion King’s “Circle of Life” blaring from my phone speaker as Hannah and I bob up and down dancing to the music. The time is 04:34, and the four of us have 16 minutes to make it to the lobby with all of our stuff to be on the bus at 0500 for.drumroll A SUNRISE SAFARI!!!!!!!
Public service announcement, prepare for an exclamation point and all-caps heavy blog as today was one of the COOLEST DAYS OF MY LIFE!
Don’t tell the other groups, but our safari bus won the safari. In it were me, Vera (aka safari model), Payton (aka Paytony), Fin (aka Fincent), Sam (aka Pam), and Emma (aka Emmamama). Our driver’s name was Arno, and he would end up becoming one of our most treasured finds of the whole safari day. Arno told us jokes and drove us to all the best stops, pausing for as long as we wanted and answering all of our questions (which for our group were MANY). We miss him dearly.
The preserve we drove to today was about an hour away. We were going to the Savannah, where we were hoping to see some of the big fivebuffalo, lions, cheetahs, elephants, and rhinos. We saw impalas and their babies, vultures, kudu, warthogs, and more, and that was just before breakfast. Sam asked if we were gonna see cows, to which our tour guide laughed. Only Sam would go on a safari and want to look for cowssilly Pam. We saw GIANT elephant prints on the bridge, and Arno told us a goooood joke. Can’t repeat it heregotta go on safari to hear it. Breakfast was at a BEAUTIFUL lookout over the river. Henry and Zeke had their classic coffee with a view, and Adda enjoyed the South African crunchy coffee biscuits. Vera was very happy about the fruit, and we were all happy about the yogurt. Hannah and I went on the most treacherous bathroom break of our lives, and Arno didn’t help at all, pointing out large hyena tracks coming straight from the outhouse where we were headed.
At this point, I should tell you about everyone’s safari outfit. Kyler and Emma had on their nice white linen English royal/grandma and grandpa look. Destiny was rocking the undercover celebrity look. Adda had a nice granola whimsy cute safari chic outfit. Zeke had one of the blankets around his head, reminiscent of a Romanian grandmother. Alice and Payton looked straight out of a safari catalogue with their varying shades of khaki and brown collared shirts and pants. Keith took a more mysterious approach in an all black getup. Pam, Wiley, and Jewel took some nonchalant photos. Well, Wiley and Jewel did. Most of the rest of us had a simple rain jacket situation for the nice, cool weather. Emma and I wore flip flops despite the closed-toe shoe recommendations, and Arno told us a story about his friend who ran into a hippo and its baby on the way to work, tripped on his flip flops while running away, and had his head gnawed on by the baby hippo. Just another day on the job?
Anyway, now to the good part. Our car got pretty far behind everyone, chatting and joking with Arno and looking at every little thing we saw, so we missed it when the other group saw a group of 200 elephants!! So we only HEARD about it. Hah. Kyler cried tears of joy. It was ok that we missed it, though, because we were stopped at this point watching A real-life LIFE WHITE RHINO outside our car, maybe a meter from us!!! He was so focused on the grass he was eating that he didn’t even see us there until Emma turned her disposable camera dial to take a picture. The rhino looked up at the noise, realized we were literally an arm’s length away, and ran off. Good one, Emma. Just kidding, Arno said it was good Emma scared it, cause he was out of the car right then and probably the closest of us to the rhino, so really Emma had just saved our fearless leader. Good one, Emma!
In terms of Elephants, we also got super lucky. We saw one right in front of us who stared us down and then walked off. We also got to see two big ones fightin,g which was INSANE. Apparently, they were just practicing. Practicing for what, you may ask the elephant Olympics, a martial arts showcase, a fight to the death? Who knows, but it was so cool. Fin thinks elephant ears look like tortillas. We decided that elephants are exactly as big as you think they would be, but giraffes and rhinos are maybe a little smaller. Still SO COOL. We saw A BUNCH of giraffes, and were surrounded by them at one pointeven by ones lying down, which is apparently rare. Vera got her giraffe dream. We also saw a fat little zebra, which Arno made sure we pronounced zeh-brah.
At one point, Arno lined me up for the perfect shot of some Warthogs through a clearing in the trees that I could only see. I grabbed my “point and shoot” Sony camera (you’ll see why it does not fit that description) and took what I thought was the money shot. I turned to show it to Pam, expecting some high praise; however, she proceeded to laugh at it for literally like 45 minutes, and Arno called it “The worst picture he’d ever seen,” but you know what, some people just don’t understand talented artists like me.
I don’t even know if I can adequately explain the feeling of seeing these animals in real life in the wild, because it really is like nothing else. It’s the most amazing feeling, and you’re just in awe that anything so big and beautiful can even exist. It was SUCH an incredible experience. As Arno would say, “Jeepahs, so much power.”
After a bag of weird sirloin and mushroom potato chips at the gift shop, we headed back to Vela for some passage prep, taco bowls, and to get ready to head underway to East London! Sad to leave Richard’s Bay and all the safari-ing, and the sad program is getting dangerously close to the end, but looking forward to the next few weeks!