Safari Adventures: Khama Rhino Sanctuary And Elephant Sands

I had hoped to be able to update my blog regularly during my safari but unfortunately I was just too busy having fun so I will try my best to fill you in on what happened during the amazing eleven days I spent on tour based on the quick notes I jotted down in my tent at the end of each night.

During my last night in Johannesburg I was sharing a room with a guy who had just finished the first 7 days of the tour I would be starting the following morning and he told me he was very disappointed in the tour which left me a little apprehensive but he must have had ridiculous expectations because it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had!

Day one was fairly uneventful. I woke up at ridiculous o’clock and was picked up at my hostel at 5am. I was driven to another hostel and transferred into another van. The tour the previous week only had for people on it so I was pretty disappointed to learn that there would be 13 people on this week’s tour and the van would be completely packed. It took a while for the van to fill up but by 6am there were 13 girls and our lovely driver Jo-Jo packed into the van and ready to go.

We spent most of the day driving so it wasn’t an overly exciting day but I guess it was a good chance to start chatting with the other people on tour although none of us were overly chatty since we were all functioning on very little sleep.  I finally got to eat at Wimpy’s during our lunch stop and I was super excited about that since I had been craving it the entire time I was on the BazBus but never got a break long enough to order it. I was incredibly disappointed though. I waited almost half an hour for a BLT, never got the side of mayo that I asked for and had to wait close to 15 minutes to pay my bill.

We arrived at Khama Rhino Sanctuary shortly before dusk to setup camp. The only other solo traveller on the trip was an Australian girl named Gayle who I had met a few days previous and while we didn’t sit together we decided at our first rest stop that we should be tent buddies. This was only night (aside from our time at Kruger) that Gayle and I didn’t have to set up our own tent but we helped a few other girls with theirs. Once we had set up camp Jo-Jo set to work cooking dinner. He had very limited equipment and still managed to make the best meal I had had in weeks! It was a fairly simple meal, pasta in a cream sauce with some vegetables but it was amazing! I went back for seconds and felt much better about my chances of surviving the length of the tour even though I'm such a picky eater. After dinner we all headed to bed, well actually most of us got lost trying to find the bathroom and then we went to bed preparing for an early wakeup call.

The next morning we got up just before the sun to head out on our first game-drive. I tried to find the bathroom before we headed out but got lost and ended up walking around in circles for a while before giving up and deciding to hold it as I saw the driver on his way to our campsite to pick us up. The drive started out pretty spectacularly as we spotted a pair of hyenas who had just finished dragging their latest kill (a wildebeest) in to the middle of a watering hole to keep it away from other scavengers so they could go to bed and feast on it later. We also got to watch the dominant male from a pack of wildebeest take on a couple of intruders, which was fairly entertaining. We also saw several impalas, some zebras, springbok, warthogs, and numerous birds (that Emma our crazy bird lady pointed out at every opportunity) but we weren’t finding any rhinos. Our drive ended up being extended as it took so long to find them but eventually we stumbled upon a mother white rhino and he calf, and later a lone male rhino. Our group had been split into two for the drive and the group in the other vehicle saw 8 rhinos but we probably had better banter so that totally makes up for it.

 When we returned to camp Jo-Jo had a nice hot breakfast waiting for us which I quickly scarfed down then headed out in search of a bathroom since it had been over three hours since I gave up on looking before the drive.  I walked in circles for a bit and then went back to camp and asked for help, one of the girls was confident she knew where she was going so we set off together and got lost yet again, we met up with some other girls and in the end it took 6 of us to finally find the bathroom and I did a little happy dance. Back at camp we packed up and loaded back into the van for another full day of driving.

We ended our day at Elephant Sands, the itinerary said this was a good place for animal viewing but I never dreamed we would be so close to the wildlife. While setting up our tents we noticed a great deal of elephant poop around and the campsite and realized that being trampled was a very real possibility. Melting to death was also a possibility so once we set up our tents we made our way to the pool and that’s when the magic started to happen. While we were all cooling off in the pool someone noticed an elephant in the distance, and then a second one and we all started to freak out! Jo-Jo and some of the staff where we were staying told us to calm down because we hadn’t seen anything yet but I was blown away by the way the even unfolded. We all continued to hang out around the pool and bar overlooking the watering hole and by the time I went to bed I had seen at least 40 elephants.  They came in small groups to drink and splash in the water. Sometimes different groups would come at the same time and there would be small disputes although despite my rooting for it things never really kicked off in a big way. I did however learn that trumpeting is not the only noise that elephants can make; they also make a scary growling noise.

I would have loved to stay up all night watching the elephants coming and going but we had to be up by 4am the following morning to cross the border into Zimbabwe before there was a massive line at immigration. We all managed to make it through the night without being stepped on by an elephant but I will leave the rest of my stories for another time.

A Day In Johannesburg

I arrived in Johannesburg around dinner time yesterday and I am leaving for my safari at 5am tomorrow so it was important that I make the most out of today and I think my lovely friends Monique and Mark did a wonderful job of making that happen. I met Monique in Paris a little over four years ago and was very excited to meet up with her today and have her show me around her city. She invited her partner Mark to join us which was fantastic because I was now getting to see things that two different people love about their city and I also made a new friend.

We started off the day by heading to an amusement park but not for the reasons a person would typically go to an amusement park. We went to explore an old mine site that was within the park. Johannesburg is the largest city in the world without a natural body of water and it was founded simply because of the gold in the area. The mine we visited had 47 levels and reached a depth of 3293 metres but we only visited the second level at 75 metres below ground, as the lower levels had been flooded. We had a brief tour and learned a little about how the mine operated when it was still in use. It was a pretty unique and enjoyable experience.

From there we drove through CBD and ventured through some of the rougher areas so I could see the contrast between different areas in the city, then made our way to the hipster neighbourhood. At first I was skeptical about this being a hipster area as it looked more like a ghetto but then a guy wearing skinny jeans, thick rimmed glasses and sporting an ironic moustache walked out of a coffee shop and I was sure I hadn’t been mislead. We visited a market with a small art gallery and several food stalls. Monique and Mark insisted I try a milk tart, a Johannesburg favourite, (I ended up forgetting about it and didn’t eat it until I got home. I enjoyed the taste of it but the texture was a bit strange for my liking.). We also wandered around the area for a while taking in all of the amazing graffiti and took a few minutes to read a large chalkboard where people had written down things from their bucket-lists, some were funny, some sweet, and others a little disturbing.

Our next stop was probably my favourite part of the day; we went to Lion Park to hang out with lion cubs. In my head I had imagines having a Lion King moment with one of the cubs and lifting it over my head presenting it to the rest of animal kingdom. This idea was silly for a few reasons. First I’m scared of normal cats so the thought of me picking up a lion is absurd, and secondly the lion would probably try to either bite or scratch me if I attempted to pull off such a stupid stunt. So while I didn’t get my Lion King moment I did get to pet three different lion cubs and I didn’t even scream. I was pretty proud of myself. I also saw meerkats, cheetahs, hyenas, and I even fed a baby giraffe!

After interacting with the animals we were able to drive through a larger section of the park where the older lions has room to roam around freely. This was pretty cool because while the animals were still technically being held in captivity it’s not like they were locked in a small cage and didn’t seem depressed like animals in a zoo. They were walking around and even play fighting with each other.  I have driven through African Lion Safari in Ontario when I was a kid but I don’t remember actually seeing lions while we were there, (I do however remember seeing a monkey masturbating on the roof of the car next to us even though I had no idea what it was actually doing at the time.) so this experience was epic. I hope to get as close to animals on my safari as we did today but even if we don’t I will still be happy because today’s experience was absolutely fantastic.

Our next stop was at a cableway station where we were able to take in some stunning views of a dam and the surrounding areas. On a clear day we would have been able to see a good chunk of Johannesburg, and could have even seen all the way to Botswana on the other side of the mountain but unfortunately the weather was not on our side. The views were still incredibly picturesque despite the clouds but I was happy to get out of the wind when we made our way back to the base of the mountain.

From here we slowly started to make our way home but made a few stops along the way. We stopped at a market full of handmade crafts and jewelry. I found a lovely soapstone jewelry box shaped like Africa with a beautiful picture painted on it but I thought it would break in my bag before I managed to get it home plus I don’t actually have any jewelry so I decided to give it a miss. We also stopped at a grocery store so I don’t run the risk of starving on my Safari is we don’t take enough rest stops or I don’t like the meal options I’m presented with, and then grabbed a bite to eat before finally heading back to the hostel.

It was an action packed day and I loved every minute of it. I am very thankful that Monique and Mark took time out of their busy schedules to spend a day showing me around. I’m also happy that I had an experience that is completely different from any of the packaged tours available in the city and I didn’t just get the same cookie cutter experience that every other tourist in Johannesburg does because they don’t feel safe exploring alone. All of the excitement from today’s activities has left me exhausted though and I have to up at ridiculous o’clock tomorrow so I should get to bed. I will be sure to update as often as possible during my safari although I’m not sure how often I will have internet access so it might be a while before my next post.

Port Elizabeth To Northern Drakensberg

I’ve been to three or four different cities/towns since my last post so I guess I should probably take the time to update you all on what has been going on in my life. My first stop after Oudtshoorn was in Port Elizabeth. The friends I made in Oudtshoorn had already been there and advised me that I had booked at the wrong hostel, I tried to change to the one that they recommended but unfortunately they were fully booked. I wasn’t overly excited about my time in Port Elizabeth to begin with so learning that I would be staying in a crappy hostel didn’t really help matters.

The bus arrived in Port Elizabeth quite late at night so I went to bed immediately after checking in. I woke up early the next morning in order to book a township tour.  I had looked at a few different options online while waiting for my shuttle in Oudtshoorn and was about to book a tour that visited a school and a market when the Internet cut out and I was forced to wait until arriving in Port Elizabeth to book anything. Since I wanted to go on a tour that departed that day I figured booking online probably wasn’t an option anymore and asked the hostel receptionist to help me. He ended up booking me a half-day tour departing at noon.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to catch up on sleep and exploring the area. Well actually I was just trying to find the grocery store and ended up getting lost. The area my hostel was in was not very developed and options for food were very limited but I didn’t feel safe venturing further than a few blocks from the hostel.

When noon finally rolled around my tour guide showed up and informed that I would be getting a private tour. This was not at all what I wanted. I wanted to be with a group of people. The guide lead me to his car then made a joke about marrying me off to his brother or murdering me instead of taking me on the tour. I did not think this joke was funny and spent the next 2.5 hours incredibly stressed out and fearing for my life. He kept pulling over in random fields to talk about apartheid but every time he stopped I was expecting something horrible to happen. This was not at all the tour I wanted to be on; in fact I wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

Eventually he stopped pulling over into random fields and pulled over in front of a row of houses instead. He tried to teach me some words in one of the eleven official languages of South Africa (I really can’t remember which language, it was the least of my worries at the time). He then told me to get out of the car and I was sure I was going to die. Thankfully I was wrong. I was just meeting a lady who lived in the township and getting a tour of her home.

For those of you that don’t know a township is an area where people of colour set up shop after they were forced out of their homes during apartheid which started in the 1940s. Apparently in Port Elizabeth the segregation actually started many years earlier, in 1901 the city was devastated by the bubonic plague and the rich people in town decided to blame it on the hygiene of farmers who lived in mud huts and kept animals in the heart of the city a shipped them away and developed the township that I visited. Once upon a time all of the homes in the township would have been one room shacks made of corrugated metal, but the area we had visited had been developed and was a little nicer. However if you were to drive past an average township in South Africa you would probably refer to it as a shantytown.

The house that I got to visit was roughly the same size as my cabin in Queenstown and for the most part it was a nicer house. And I’m fairly confident the woman living in it doesn’t pay rent (I could be wrong about this and if I am I’m sorry). It was depressing to know that people living in poverty have nicer houses than me; it was even more depressing to know the size of the family living in the small space. The cabin was tight quarters for Jesse and I but my host lived with her husband and two grown children in that tiny place. She also didn’t have a shower or a tub. This was probably the only thing about my cabin that was better than her house. My hot water heater only held about 7 minutes worth of hot water but at least I had a shower. This family had to use buckets to bathe themselves. They did however have a washing machine and a reasonably sized TV so I'm not too sure what their priorities in life were. The family had moved into the house a few years ago (I have a feeling it was part of the “updating” done for the world cup) and told me they were so happy to be there because they now had electricity and the house doesn’t leak when it rains like the old one did.

After leaving the house we got back into the car and I was feeling less worried about my safety until we pulled up to a gated courtyard and I was once again told to get out of the car. Inside the gated area was a group of young adults wearing orange jumpsuits that I could only assume were prison uniforms and on the outside of the gate were several bulls wandering through large trash heaps. I did not want to be on either side of the gate, I just wanted to go home. We ended up visiting the courtyard, which was actually a graveyard for some political heroes. While the monuments to these people were nice mountains of garbage surrounded them, it didn’t feel like a fitting tribute for people who had fought for the rights of the people living within the community. We talked about the people buried there for a few minutes before heading back to the car. I was happy I had not been mugged or trampled by a bull.

We visited another graveyard and a small market. The market seemed to sell two things, maize, and sheep’s head. I was able to see the sheep’s head in various stages of preparation and it did not look enjoyable or even edible at any point. I did however try the maize, which is a lot like corn on the cob but the kernels are larger and not as tender or sweet.

After 2.5 hours of constantly worrying something terrible was going to happen to me the tour finally ended. My guide actually ended up being a really nice guy but he started off on the wrong foot in a situation when I was already on edge. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures from my township tour, it felt wrong to take pictures of other peoples misfortunes. There were thousands of people living in such a small area and it was clear they all had very little, it seemed wrong to try and capture that so I could show my friends and family at home just how good they really have it.

The following day I travelled by bus from Port Elizabeth to Durban. This was the longest day ever. I was on the bus for roughly 15 hours and we got less than an hour of break time all day. We switched drivers part way through but even with that taken into consideration if the laws here were the same as in Canada we would have taken way more breaks. I’m sorry but 15 minutes to go to the bathroom, order food, and eat it after 6 hours on the bus is not enough time. I was not a happy camper by the time the bus pulled into Durban. I was starving but I was too tired to do anything about it so I just went to bed.

I woke up the next morning just to hop right back on that stupid bus. I had originally booked to stay in Durban for three nights but I heard from several people that it is a really dangerous city so I changed my plans and headed to Northern Drakensberg after one night. I was pretty excited about this as it meant I would have a chance to visit Lesotho, and landlocked country high in the mountains.

Shortly after arriving in Northern Drakensberg I learned I would not be able to fulfill my dream of meeting a medicine man and hanging out with a Zulu tribe as the tour would not be running on Friday and I was scheduled to leave on Saturday so I wouldn’t have the opportunity to go. I also learned that the menu posted on the hostel website was not accurate. Several items had been removed but my biggest grievance was that the full menu was not available for dinner, instead a three-course meal was available and your only choice was whether you wanted the option with meat or the vegetarian option. On my first night the options were chicken curry or vegetable curry. I hate curry. I don’t like sauce or spice so curry is pretty much my worst nightmare. I asked the receptionist if I had any other meal options and he told me I could prepare my own meal in the self-catering kitchen and that the closest store was 20km away. I was pretty fucking pissed at this point, not only could I not go on the tour that made me stop at this stupid hostel in the first place but now I was going to go hungry.

Luckily I had bought a fair deal of snacks during one of our rest stops so I didn’t starve but I was in a foul mood for the rest of the day so I locked myself away in my room and avoided human contact. I did order lunch before going into hibernation since I actually had options during lunch. I ordered pasta in a cream sauce and was once again disappointed. The pasta was somehow overcooked and cold at the same time, and the cream sauce had been so watered down it didn’t even stick to the pasta, it was like a broth at the bottom of the bowl.

I spent my last day in Northern Drakensberg lazing around the hostel. I could have paid $75 to go on a 14km hike at some crazy altitude in the sweltering heat but I decided to work on my tan by the pool instead. I probably missed out on some spectacular views but I think I made the right choice. Today I travelled from Northern Drakensberg to Johannesburg and the day after tomorrow I leave for my 11-day safari, which is going to be pretty full on, so I needed a day to relax. Tomorrow I am catching up with a friend I met in Paris a little over four years ago so I am confident the next 12 days will be amazing so stay tuned because I’m sure I will have plenty of awesome stories to tell.

Ostriches in Oudtshoorn

My last night in Cape Town was not nearly as restful as I had hoped it would be. Around 1am there was a bit of a commotion outside of the hostel and someone accused someone else of robbing and assaulting them. Things escalated really quickly and soon people were threatening to cut each other’s faces off! This was all happening right outside my window and while it was pretty clear that only one guy was actually crazy and the other had just gotten sick of trying to reason with him, I was not feeling overly safe at the moment. A group of people repetitively tried to reassure the crazy guy that his wallet had not been stolen but he had left it on the floor so someone put it in his wallet for him but he just wasn’t having it. This probably went on for at least half an hour. The crazy guy wanted to go look for his missing property (even though it was in his wallet) but everyone insisted he stay at the hostel. This was when things really started to go down hill.

I was lucky enough to share a room with crazy pants. He came in to the room and was still shouting nonsense. The hostel security staff forced him into a bed and he quickly passed out. I hoped this was the end of the madness but he woke up again about 15 minutes later and started shouting about the stock market and how much money he had in his bank account. Another man in the room yelled at him to shut up which soon turned into the two of them threatening each other. The sane man went and asked security to get rid of crazy pants but they just came in the room and told him to shut up. He did. I actually managed to doze off for a minute before I woke up to crazy pants shouting for help. He needed to pee and couldn’t get down from the top bunk and was blaming it on a broken rib. The same man who told him to shut up earlier told him that there was a ladder on the bed, crazy pants responded with “I know there’s a ladder but I’m not a pussy”.  So instead of taking the “pussy” way down he shouted for help for several more minutes, and even threatened to piss of the bed. When no one came to his rescue he eventually jumped and landed with a loud thud. The other man again tried to get crazy pants thrown out of the hostel but no luck. This craziness went on all night. I think I got about 5 minutes of sleep all night long.

When I checked out in the morning the staff asked me if I enjoyed my stay so obviously I complained about the night before. They agreed that the way the whole thing was handled was completely unacceptable and apologized. One of the staff told me later on that they had the manger on standby and as soon as crazy pants woke up he would be dealt with. This made me even angrier. Why did he get to have a nice sleep after he kept a whole room of people up all night long? Wake him up and kick his ass out now!

I was angry at how the situation was handled but I was oh so excited to be leaving the craziness behind me as I boarded the bus on the way to Oudtshoorn. It was the first leg of my hop-on-hop-off tour and it went fairly smoothly. The bus was completely full for about two hours but then people started getting off and people had room to spread out and I was able to catch up on some of the sleep I had missed out on the night before.

We arrived in George in the early afternoon where I transferred into a shuttle vehicle to get to Oudtshoorn. I managed to befriend three people from Ireland during this trip by making a human centipede joke after one of them made a comment about the driver being a bit dodgy. I spent most of the evening chatting with them and an English girl in the lounge at the hostel but called it an early night, as I was still exhausted from the night before.

The next day we all hopped back in the shuttle with our not so dodgy driver and made our way to the Cango Caves. We decided to take the adventure tour, which involved a fair amount of climbing and crawling. The five of us decided to play a game where we bet on who would cry or freak out during the tour. There were a lot of good candidates including several girls who were dressed inappropriately for the activity and had clearly spent a significant amount of time on their makeup but I decided to bet on a couple who I referred to as “team athletic”. Team athletic was dressed from head to toe in Under Armour and had fanny packs (bum bags for those of you who aren’t from North America). They just looked a little too put together and I was wondering if maybe they were over compensating for something. I bet on the right horse because right as things started to get intense the girl from team athletic backed out. I just wish we had bet money on this game!

The rest of the tour was fairly intense and involved squeezing through some pretty small spaces. The hardest part was climbing up the devils chimney. You had to put your hands above your head, stick them into a small opening and then turn, you then had to push off with one of your legs, turn back onto your stomach, and wiggle your way up like a worm. The guide made it sound like this area was pitch black so I was pretty nervous about it but once I stuck my head in I was fine.

After finishing the tour of the caves we made our way to Cango Ostrich Farms for another tour. We learned that ostriches in the wild typically lay no more than 15 eggs a year but at the farm they steal the eggs from the birds and because they are “dumb animals” (this is what our tour guide said) they just keep laying and sometimes lay up to 80 eggs in a mating season. I didn’t feel great about this but I was about to participate in something much crueler so I couldn’t really hold a grudge. We also learned that ostriches mate for 10 days! Can you imagine?!

After learning about the eggs we went to meet some ostriches. One of the first birds we met was a dwarf and even though it was 6 years old it was smaller than a one-year-old ostrich. The guide told us about the amazing eyesight of ostriches and demonstrated how they are able to turn their necks in crazy ways since they have 17 vertebrae in their necks compared to our 7. We also got to see some cute little baby ostriches that were between one and three weeks old. We also got to pet one of the babies and their feathers were a little prickly and not soft like had expected.

The next part of the tour was the part that I had been looking forward to but also apprehensive about for months, ostrich riding. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to go through with this but at the very least I was going to keep an open mind about it. After watching a few of the guys take their rides I was still apprehensive but I soon learned that the jockeys stay with the bird for female riders and actually pull them of the bird when the time comes and made my decision to go for it. You wrap your legs around the front of the bird then wrap the wings of the bird around yourself and hold on tight. I felt bad about this because you had to hold on tight and I could only imagine it felt about as good for the bird as having your hair pulled. I yelped as the bird started to move and then let out a girly scream as it picked up speed. It was scary but not for the reasons I thought. I was originally worried about riding the bird because they can kill you with a single kick but I actually felt relatively safe during the experience I was just worried about falling off of it.

Our ostrich tour ended after we took turns standing on ostrich eggs, and we loaded back in to the shuttle. My new friends had to make their way back to George to catch their bus to Cape Town and I was staying for another night because the bus I needed to catch doesn’t operate on Sunday’s. I spent the rest of the day relaxing. I lounged by the pool for a while and went for a wander into town but kept things pretty low-key.

Today I had hoped to go hang out with some Meerkats even though it would have meant waking up at 5am but unfortunately the tour was fully booked. The upside to this was that I was able to sleep in. I have spent the morning relaxing and will soon be catching the shuttle to George, followed by the bus to Port Elizabeth. I’m not too sure how I will spend my time there but I am looking forward to more adventures.