South Africa

South Africa was amazing. Even though we arrived a day late, it was still so much fun. Some of the trips that were through SAS were canceled, including two safaris. I’m not sure if those people are going to get refunded either. We arrived in port at about 10:45 on Friday. Immigration had to do a face-to-face clearance of everyone before anyone could get off the ship. Luckily, my tour was able to get another flight and I didn’t have to leave the ship until 2:30 so I relaxed until then.

Cape Town airport was very much like any American airport, which surprised me. The city itself was like home. Our flight was at 5:00pm, so Brett, Jack and I decided to walk around the airport until our flight. The flight was about 2 hours to Durban. After the flight, we had a three-hour van ride to the lodge where we stayed.

The accommodations were very modern too. We had to walk down a dirt road in order get to our place. There were seven small houses, each with 2 separate areas and 2 beds. My roommate’s name was Andrew and he was a cool guy. After we dropped our stuff off, we wandered further down the dirt road to check out the bar and lounge. Everyone was there relaxing. I ended up going to sleep at around 1:30 in the morning.

The next morning came way too soon. We had to meet in the front of the lodge at 5:30 in the morning. It really wasn’t all too bad, but it was still a little rough getting up. The reserve was about twenty minutes away from where we stayed. Our guide’s name was Tom, an older man but a funny guy.

Throughout the day, we saw zebra, giraffe, water buffalo, elephants, antelope, and rhinos. We didn’t get to see any lions or leopard though, I was sad. We were fortunate enough to see about 80 elephants crossing a river, it was an incredible sight to see. We also got the experience almost being attacked by one. Right before we stopped for lunch, we came across a bull elephant in “must”, which basically means that it’s horny and can’t do anything about it. But apparently the males get very moody when they’re in this state. Of course, he was leaning against a tree about two feet off the road that we had to drive on. So we started slowly inching closer and he started making growling sounds until we got close enough to him that he actually swung his trunk at us and nearly hit the jeep. I almost shit my pants to be honest, but he didn’t follow us after that. We headed back to the lodge at about four in the afternoon. I decided to take nap until dinner at six. We had some sort of stew that was very good. I decided to go to bed early that night so I wouldn’t be tired tomorrow.

On Sunday, we had to be at breakfast at 8:30. Breakfast for me consisted of toast and croissants, which were excellent. We left the lodge at around 10 and got to the airport at 1:15. Our flight was at 2:30 so we didn’t have to wait too long at all. I decided to take the night easy after we got back to the ship, so I found a wifi spot and talked to some people from home.

On Monday, I slept in until around 11:30 because I had my animal whispers tour at 1:15. Lindsay, who also goes to QU, and I stuck together for the duration of the tour. It was about half an hour outside of the city to get to the place. Once we got there, we saw cheetahs in their enclosures. I immediately felt bad for them. After we saw a video on basic information about cheetahs, we were allowed to pet one. Once we walked outside, one was sitting on a table purring his head off. His name was Chobey and he was a 21 month old male and weighed about 60 kilos, which was slightly larger than average. He felt like pure muscle, there wasn’t a single ounce of fat that I felt on him. His spots were also a finer hair than the rest of what he had on his body, which gave them a three dimensional texture.

After the cheetah encounter, we were shown some other smaller cats like servals and black backed jackals, but we didn’t get to pet them. Then, we went to the birds of prey part of the center. We were all given gloves to hold the birds. The first bird brought out was a kite, which looked very similar to an eagle, but was smaller. The next two birds brought out were owls; one was a barn owl and the other was a spotted horned owl. The barn owl had piercing yellow eyes. The third bird brought out was an eagle named Sky. We didn’t get to hold him because he was too big of a bird. Apparently, he was an ambitious hunter as well. The trainer said that Sky, weighing only 1-kilo, was going after 25-kilo antelope.

The next birds brought out were vultures, and they were huge. Their wingspan was 2.3 meters. They were so big, they needed a running start in order fly. After the bird encounters, we walked about five minutes away to a winery to taste some wine. We all got to try 2 red wines and a white wine. All of them were good.

A little later, Ashley, Katie, Taylor, Lindsay, Caitlyn, and I all decided to go out to this place called Quay Four to get something to eat. They offered the same stuff an Applebee’s has. After we all ate, we went this club called Mercury, where we saw a lot of SAS students. After we spent about an hour and a half there, we went back to the ship. Right as we got to the ship gate, Ashley realized that she lost her wallet, which had her credit card, debit card, license, and ship ID. She had paid the cab driver from her wallet so we knew it was in a taxi. So the two of us ended up spending 2 hours looking from taxi to taxi trying to find it. Luckily, someone from SAS picked it up and brought it back to the ship. It was about 4:15 when we finally got back to the harbor for the night.

The next morning was quite difficult to handle. I got up at 8:15 in order to go to Table Mountain with Katie and Taylor. When we got up to the cable car place, we found out that they were closed because the wind was too strong. So after waiting about 15 minutes to see if they would open, we decided to just go back to the harbor and shop around a little. We ate a place called Mitchell’s, which had one of the best chicken fajitas I’ve ever had. Because I was so tired from last night, I decided to head back to the ship at around 2:30 and I took a nap until 5:00. We were lucky enough to leave port when the sun was setting. I think I took around 150 pictures within a 30 minutes time span. The sunset was a beautiful backdrop for the harbor as we left.