I'm Allergic to Not Hving Fun

Hello hello hellooooooooo

Long time no talk huh? Haha don’t really know why I said that…oh well. How is everything going?!?! Hopefully good! We are almost to Ghana…we actually arrive tomorrow. Gahhhh it’s just one port after the next. I still haven’t caught up on sleep from South Africa. Oh well haha.

Comments – First off I just have to say that this is a place that almost every one of you would have loved (some of you not so much, but I won’t name names lol). I kept thinking how much my friends back home would love this place and I really with you guys could have been here to experience it with me. Really miss you guys and I can’t wait to get home and chill!! Kayla – well sorry I don’t watch the Beverly Hillbillies haha, I’m sure I could quote movies you don’t know too. Yeah I miss Henderson Hills more and more everyday…I can’t wait to get back to it!! Shopping = blahhhhh!!! Oh my gosh it was so amazing being in the water with the Great Whites! LOVED IT!!! Oooooo look at you being funny…missed you too dork haha.

Picture – The picture I chose for this section obviously had to be an animal picture! I got really lucky with the quality of this shot and am fortunate that it turned out the way it did! These elephants were part of a big group of around a dozen that we saw on our first trip out and the male on the far right with its ears flared definitely got annoyed with us and started charging the 4x4. Definitely scary when something that big decides it doesn’t like you and starts being a tough guy…oh well that added to the excitement. Made the whole experience feel more real when we really are out in the bush with nothing between us and the animals. (click on the pic to make it bigger)

Alright so Africa round 2, there is just so much to write about!! This post is all about a 3 day safari that I was fortunate enough to go on during my stay in South Africa. Don’t really know where to start so this might be all over the place haha. I already told you guys about days 1 and 5 in Cape Town so this will focus on the 3 days in between…here goes!

My second day in South Africa started extremely early with a 3:45 a.m. wakeup (we had to be in the Union at 4:00 for check-in with our group). Needless to say that was an experience in itself…you guys can only imagine haha. After our entire group showed up (of course there were stragglers) we loaded onto a bus and headed to the airport. The first leg of our journey was a 2 hour flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg (referred to as Jo-berg by South Africans). We arrived in Jo-berg around 8:30 I think? I don’t really remember because I slept on the plane and was still waking up lol. The next leg of our journey was a charter flight that went from Jo-berg to a place called Hoedspruit which is just an airport. Okay well our experience in the Jo-berg airport was definitely one to be remembered. There was some confusion between the charter company, the airport, and then our SAS group which resulted in a 30 minute layover turning into a 2.5 hour layover including losing boarding passes and switching gates. I personally didn’t think it was that bad (nothing like our layover experience in Atlanta on our way to Israel…remember that Dennis and Mom? Oh wait…I forgot. You guys were under the influence of sleeping pills so that probably didn’t seem like that big a deal to you all. Haha sorry couldn’t help it) but there were some pissed off people in our group. Oh well I just kinda went with the flow.

Once we actually got to our plane it was a smooth 35 minute flight to Hoedspruit which was an old military base that is now used for charter flights to drop people off for safaris in the nearby areas. It was absolutely huge but it was also kinda weird because we were the only plane in sight. Had the whole place to our self! Just a really cool experience getting off the plane and being all alone on an airport tarmac with our 4x4s waiting for us! The lodge had sent the vehicles to pick us up and transport us to the lodge for check-in. We loaded up and headed off within minutes of arrival. It was sick!! We were in the African bush…and it was AWESOME!!!!!

The safari that I was on was located on a private game reserve called the Kapama Game Reserve. It encompasses an area of more than 24,000 acres and provides a natural environment for animals to live in and remain safe from outside influence. The reserve actually has 3 separate lodges located within its boundaries and the one I was fortunate enough to stay at was the Kapama River Lodge. Okay this hotel was by far the nicest hotel/resort I have ever stayed at. Everything was open air so you felt like you were actually out in the bush but it was all super nice at the same time. Everything was wood so it had a nice rustic feel…man I was right at home! Loved every minute of it!! We had to travel about 20 minutes into the park to reach the lodge so we got a nice little intro safari on our way there. Man we were all so pumped…I’m getting excited just typing about it!!

We arrived at the lunch around noon I think. We were given a brief intro about the layout of the lodge and safety measures. You see there are fences but wild animals can still get inside the perimeter of the lodge and they are free to roam around. For instance, on the path from the main lodge to where our rooms were located, there were constantly kudu (a type of African deer that are bigger than what we have in the states) and one kid even saw some little monkeys. Crazy huh?!?! So we checked in and dropped our backpacks in our rooms before hitting up lunch. Our schedule for the next 48 hours that we were there consisted of the following:

5 a.m. wakeup
5:30 coffee, tea, and pastries
6:00 game drive
9:00 full breakfast
1:00 lunch
4:00 afternoon tea and dessert
4:30 game drive
8:30 dinner with our guides

This schedule was absolutely amazing! The highlights were clearly the game drives but the huge chunk during the day was so nice to relax and just chill in the open area lodge. We really bonded with each other and spent a lot of time playing cards and other random games. Oh and how about getting tea twice a day?!? And it was good tea…not the crappy cheap stuff, actually good quality tea…yeah I was in heaven!! And it wasn’t just tea…it was like a full buffet of sandwiches, snacks, and desserts as well. So in a way I was eating 5 meals a day and loving it!! Oh and on our game drives we stopped for snacks in the middle so that was like 2 more small meals on top of the other 5! Gahhhhh life was so good!! Who cares about the 5 a.m. wakeups?!? We all woke up quick when we remembered that we were in Africa living it up!!

Alright so clearly you all want to hear about the game drives because I mean that is the reason we were all there. I don’t know where to start but here goes. I am just going to outline for you all some of the basics and list everything I saw and then tell some of the more unique stories. Then I will save the other stories for you guys when I get home and can tell you in more detail. Deal?

So for each game drive we were with the same driver and tracker so that we didn’t focus on the same animals over and over and we made sure to see as much as we could. Our driver’s name was Frikkie (yeah coolest name ever right?!?! I was definitely jealous) and our tracker’s name was Enock. Two very cool people and if you ask me we had a great pair to work with. The group in our car consisted of Dr. Robbins (our trip leader), Melinda, Melissa, Brittany, Kathleen, Caroline, Rebecca, Kevin, and me. Our group was stinking awesome and we had a great time horsing around and seeing so much cool stuff. The 4x4s were totally open air and we basically just drove off on random trails and searched for game. All of the drivers used radios so that if they saw something cool then they would radio other people so that they could come and see the same thing. You know like the rarer stuff. It was actually a very successful system and there were some other restrictions and stuff but that can wait till later.

Funny story about the title of my blog - on our first drive our guide asked us if any of us had any allergies because we would be exposed to alot of bugs, plants, and trees. No one said anything so I just shouted "I'm allergic to NOT having fun!" Everyone laughed (which was the point...duh!) so for the rest of the trip everytime we saw someone Frikkie would turn around and ask me "So Tyler you having an allergic reaction or are we good?" Haha it was a little joke in our 4x4! Just thought you guys would like to know!!

The Kapama Reserve is set up in the way that nature is allowed to run its course without human interference. With the exception of the cheetah program (a species rapidly becoming extinct) the animals are left alone and the only human intervention is keeping poachers out to protect the animals. The animals aren’t fed, they feed themselves. Our guide, Frikkie, described it like this, “You know all that stuff you see on the Discovery channel? Yeah you can find it here. This is the circle of life. Animals eat other animals and the herbivores eat the grass.” Crazy huh?!? We were even told that the night before we arrived one of the cars had witnessed 4 lionesses take down a water buffalo and then eat it. I mean we literally had the potential to see any and everything and we couldn’t wait to get started!

Throughout our various drives we saw so much stuff. We saw Kudu, called the black ghosts of the bush….basically just really big deer with horns. Giraffes…lots of both males and females. Warthogs…every time we saw one Caroline yelled “Pumba” (well not yelled because then we would scare them away but loud enough so everyone in the car could hear it). A pair of Terpins in one of the watering holes. A mongoose on top of a termite mound snagging some dinner. A couple random wildebeest. Several termite mounds that were centuries old…one was even bigger than an SUV…definitely bigger than our 4x4. Cape Buffalo…several dozen…known as the most temperamental of the animals in the bush and considered the most dangerous of the Big 5. A chameleon climbing on a tree. Over a dozen African elephants including an albino baby (creepy looking) and an enormous male who did not like us and was extremely aggressive. Never charged but Enock and Frikkie were clearly uncomfortable. A cheetah in the wild…our guide said this was the rarest thing we could see and we got to see it on the first night…didn’t get to see it run but it was still super cool!! Hundreds of Impala that were everywhere!! Definitely the most common animal we saw. We saw the “Zazu birds” as our guide referred to them as…you know the blue bird from the Lion King…so that was cool! Plenty of zebra…they were everywhere…and they interact well with other animals so on multiple times we saw warthogs, giraffes, and zebra all together with each other. A couple random jackals…they don’t really like attention. A really big porcupine…like freaking huge!! So yeah we saw so much stuff!! Now I will tell you about some of the really special highlights of the trip.

On our first morning game drive (so really the second day we were there), the weather was off and on rainy…nothing like a down poor, more what you would call the occasional spit. Some people were complaining but Kevin and I were like “Yeah buddy!! Bring it on!!” The rain wasn’t anything significant enough to give us trouble and it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because of the clouds and that feeling of rain in the air, a lot of the animals were more active and in more “playful” moods as Frikkie put it. So we are driving along and we round this bend and there are three lions staring at us about 25 yards from the 4x4. It was a female lion that Frikkie estimated being about 6 years old, and then her two 9-month old cubs! That’s right, I got to see two little lion cubs playing in the wild! And when I say playing I mean playing. One of the cubs was female and one was male so it was a little brother/sister combo just tagging along with their mom. Like I said, the weather was causing them to be more active so we got to see the little cubs jump on each other and wrestle around, then they would both try to jump on mom and she would just hit them off and keep walking. Haha it was so sweet seeing this little family group, and the coolest part was that it was so random! No one had seen them before us and we literally just rounded a corner and caught them playing. The female lion cub was definitely the coolest to watch because while the male was messing with the car (he had serious little lion syndrome), she would hide in the bushes and then jump him from the side when he wasn’t looking. It was so funny!! Definitely one of the cooler things we saw.

Okay then we got to see Hippos having sex!!….that was definitely an interesting experience cause the male is pretty much drowning the female lol. This was definitely a really cool site because in 10 years Frikkie had only seen this once before and Enock had never seen it. They were just excited as we were so that is how we knew that we had really stumbled onto a treat. Something that very few people get to see in the wild.

Perhaps the biggest treat that we got to experience on a 4x4 game drive was the second night we were at Kapama, or the last evening game drive that we took. We had already seen a lot of stuff but we had no clue what we were about to see. We were driving along when all of the sudden Frikkie heard something over the radio and floors it. Like instant acceleration and we were like “Oh this has to be something really good cause he is hauling!” We are buzzing through the park when we get to a spot where another jeep has his spotlight on something. We pull up next to it and realize that they had found the big male lion that lives in Kapama!! This might not seem like a huge deal to you guys but here is the back ground story. We had been told upon arrival that we weren’t going to be able to see the big male lion because he was on his “honeymoon” and they hadn’t had a visual on him for the past 5 days. They knew that he was somewhere in the river area because that is where he goes on his honeymoons but there was no way they could get the 4x4s back there and they didn’t want to disturb the “honeymoon” because that is considered human intervention. So from the beginning we had been sure that we weren’t going to see the big male and we had been okay with it. So just imagine how happy we were when we come over this hill and see this giant lion laying on the ground! Oh my gosh he was HUGE!! I mean you see pictures but getting to see one of these giant males in real life was absolutely amazing! He was gorgeous. His mane was so cool and his paws…let me just tell you…there were stinking massive! I have no doubt that he could easily rip my face off with one swipe of that huge claw! Pretty cool man, pretty cool! So then the 4x4 who round him left and another one showed up but we were in charge of maintaining the visual so we got to stay and watch him. Okay then something even sweeter happened. Mufassa (that is what we were referring to the giant male as because nothing else seemed appropriate) heard something in the bushes and jerked his head up. He looks toward whatever he heard and started to roar. I mean like legit roar. Gah it was SICK!! I got to hear a big daddy male lion roar in the wild!! Yeah it was indescribable. The lion was basically like “Yeah I own this area…back off!” How awesome is that?!?! We watched this guy for like an hour and never once did we get bored…just something that we tried to take in as much as we could before it was over.

That was obviously a vague list and then some random stories but don’t worry there are plenty more. Including our wild attempt at trying to find a leopard, elephants charging the car, water buffalo challenging us, flat tires in the middle of nowhere, getting stuck in the mud, and so much more. Don’t worry I will just save those stories for this summer cause it would take too long to tell them all now! And I will retell the above stories in greater detail with pictures and videos!

Now everything I just told you guys refers to the first three game drives I went on (first day night, second day morning, and second day night). Now I will tell you about the third day morning game drive because that was a totally different experience and a once in a lifetime opportunity! We were given the option of taking an Elephant-baked safari the last morning (if we paid more money for it of course…nothing is ever free anymore lol)! Well I mean how many times will I get the chance to be in the middle of the African Bush and ride around on the back of an African Elephant for 2 hours…the answer…not many! So of course I did it! Couldn’t pass it up man…it is super rare to get to ride African Elephants because they are more temperamental. If you see pictures of people on elephants it is usually an Asian Elephant (which I neglected to do in India because I was holding out for Africa!) because they are more common. We were also told that there are very few places in the world that offer the chance to ride these giant African elephants and this was one of the them. We were assigned two people to an elephant plus a trainer. So really all we had to do was enjoy the ride and take pictures! My elephant’s name was Somapani and his trainer’s name was Isaac. Somapani was one of the bigger males of the group and it was sweet to get to ride an animal that is so massive. We rode around for like 2 hours and got to see the elephants do tricks before and after. I will tell you guys about that later though. Getting the opportunity to see these massive animals was absolutely incredible and then being fortunate enough to ride them was even better!

Here is the deal…we saw so much cool stuff and I have so many stories that I really can’t even begin to describe it…I did my best but this is something I really don’t know how to describe in just this blog. I know I have said this before but this was by far my favorite experience so far on Semester at Sea and I will tell you a much better version of this when I get home in May. What I just blogged about was like 1/10 of what we saw so just wait and I will tell you so much more in person! So whatever questions you have just save them until then!!!

The scenery we got to experience was absolutely amazing. With the exception of the lodge we were literally in the middle of nowhere and I was right at home! There were no city lights, no car noises, just us and the bush! Gahhhhh it was awesome!! Loved being out in the country again and just getting to experience nature. Driving around and seeing everything that we did, I really saw nature praising God. I know that sounds weird but everywhere I looked; I consistently saw the evidence left by God’s hands. How great is our God?!? Look around! Even at home in the states look around. The trees, grass, flowers, animals, smells, sounds, everything! What a gift from God. Seeing nature undisturbed by human influence and the way God intended it was breathtaking. Seeing the circle of life and how God literally thought of every individual detail during the steps of creation…I mean how sick is that?!?! Something that is so simple that we take for granted every day. Nature!! Walk outside…look around…and just take it in. Remember who created the earth around you, the same Creator who made you and me individually.

Love you guys so much and I hope everything is going awesome!

T