Safari Adventures

February 26, 2012

There's a fine line between wanting to record my encounters and wanting to experience them.  It's hard to sit there and think, "I really need to remember this", while at the same time experience everything around me. We arrived to Johannesburg today on a flight that left very early from Cape Town. The drive to the safari was about 6 hours long, with stops at a restaurant and bathroom breaks.  When we finally got to Tremesana Lodge in a game reserve, we were exhausted.  They fed us impala, maize, split pea soup, and other typical game reserve cuisine.  After our dinner and wine, we went on a night drive where we saw our first wild animals.  There was a large herd of wildebeest (gnu) and impala.  The sight was awe-inspiring because I have never really seen any mammals in their natural habitat. It's hard to think of these animals as wild because there is a gate around the reserve that not only keeps the poachers out, but the animals in.  The gate deters some poachers, but not every one and there are still killings in every reserve in South Africa.  The most obvious prey is the rhino, because their horns are worth millions of dollars.  There is a huge group of people trying to stop this horrible act since the rhinos are very endangered.  In fact, I watched a documentary before I got off the ship that said the white rhino was not spotted for a couple of months and they thought the species was extinct.  When we got back to the lodge, I abruptly stopped at the sight of the stars.  There were more than I have ever seen.  It was actually hard to find the constellation I have seen everywhere I travel, Orion's Belt, because of the immense amount of stars visible.