Kruger Part 2

The safari started the next morning when we woke up at 5 am. The night was rough because we discovered scorpions in our shower and large burrowing spiders in the sand around our tents. The bartender talked to us about how many black mambas he'd seen in the past few years, and by the time I crawled into my tent, I was inspecting it for all of these undesirable animals. We also saw a large rhino beetle that was flying visciously, and was huge.

The safari itself was amazing. We saw four of the big five on the first day- elephants, rhinos, lions and buffalo, but we did not get to see a leapord. The big five are named as such because they are the five most dangerous animals in Africa. We also saw hippos, tons of zebra, impalas and giraffes. The lions we saw were sitting under a tree with their kill from the night before's hooves sticking up in the air. Which is really something you could only see in the wild, unlike the other safari that people went on where the lions were fed chicken daily in a certain place so they could be spotted easily. We drove around in greater than 100 degree F heat, and cooked our own meals and the African plains were as beautiful as I'd imagined. We cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast, and sandwiches for lunch, dinner varied each night but was usually pretty good. We took a night drive the first night of the safari, in a much larger tank like truck, as opposed to the pick up trucks with stadium seating we drove in during the day. Our guide was a middle aged Scottish man who was fun and knew a lot about the animals and the park, as he'd been a guide for 12 years. We didn't see any large cats on our night drive, which was slightly disappointing, but we did see lots of impala and other antelope hiding in the bushes.

At night we slept in Kruger park, and could hear hyenas rustling outside the fence around our tents. We had a large campfire both nights, and running water from a water tower near by that we climbed to watch the sun set. Hyenas are not tiny or cute. The first one I saw had a large amount of flesh torn from its shoulder and was much larger than a dog with broader shoulders. Supposedly they have one of the strongest jaws. The second day was similar, lots of driving, lots of animals, lots of pictures. The last day, we drove home- well back to Johannesburg where we flew home to St Johns.

On Sunday, we cooked a large Thanksgiving dinner for all the WPI students, as well as some of the St. John's staff. It was delicious, and made me more homesick than anything I'd done so far. Being away for Thanksgiving was easier when I pretended it wasn't happening, but when we ate it by ourselves in the lodge, it was fun but different and didn't feel like thanksgiving at all.

We recieved devastating news this week that our project centre, the Indlovu Project has burned to the ground. More details to follow on that.

Kruger Part 1

So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but there hasn't been much to write about, then this weekend was crazy. So, last week was a lot of work, and the weekend was a wash due to bad weather and a broken boat. I shopped and bought a lot of presents (for other people and for myself... :) ) So that was fun, and useful. We went to see the new James Bond movie, and its nice because a movie plus a medium popcorn and soda is R50. Sweet deal. Thats cheaper than JUST a movie in the states, and the theatres are pretty nice.

This week we finished up our first draft of the Atlas, and just received comments from our advisors today. That will be interesting. We also worked on Endlovini TV (Endlovini meaning strength in Xhosa) which was basically Oprah in Monwabisi but it was popular with residents, mostly, I suspect, because people like seeing themselves on TV. But they talked about important issues on it, such as safety in the community, why they moved there and teenage pregnancy and its problems. So, thats interesting. Its a lot of work though, but its filmed and written entirely by community members, so there is definitely a knowledge exchange, they are learning about the video equipment and techniques, and we're learning a lot about their culture.

On Tuesday, we left for Kreuger national park, and our safari. Ten of us went on the trip, and we flew to Jo'Burg on Tuesday night and stayed in an airport lodge. We got upgraded from Kulula to British Airways, which was much nicer and included dinner. I was surprised at the lack of security and precautions taken on the flight. We were allowed to bring basically anything in our carry ons, and they only checked our passports once when we bought our tickets, not at security. The airport lodge was decent, nicer than St. Johns, and in the suburbs of Johannesburg near the airport.

Our safari bus picked us up at the lodge at 6 am and we drove the 6 hours to Kruger. We stopped at several attractions and for food on the way. First was God's Window, but it was really foggy there. Its a rainforest area, so it generally is, but its in the mountains, and when clear offers great views of the valleys below. There were lots of interesting plants and loud insects there. After God's Window, we visited the three Rondevals which are round pieces of land sticking out of a the third largest (and worlds greenest) canyon, and the pot holes which are wierd sinkholes in the ground that are huge. It was all very beautiful, and I've never seen anything quite like these places. Rondevals are the traditional houses made with thatched roofs, and you can see in the picture that the land looks somewhat like them.

We spent our second night in the lodge outside Kruger, and spent time in the pool there, and ate a delicious dinner. There was a crazy bar tender who told the most ridiculous dirty jokes, which was entertaining, and there were children who came in and did tribal dances and encouraged all the guys to dance as well, luckily for me it was only guys who were encouraged to dance and I didn't have to.

And the internet is not letting me upload more pictures, so the safari itself will come tomorrow.

Pictures from top to bottom: Three Rondevals, Potholes, God's Window, Sunset from the jeep

Johannesburg

We flew out of JFK airport on Monday, I got there a lot earlier than necessary, so early that I had to wait a few hours to check in, but it ended up being fine. My excessive luggage all checked, and I met up with Laura and Debra, and we flew out at 5ish. Unfortunately the plane tv's didn't work on the first half of the flight (before Dakar) but the dinner was good, and they served us wine and we got real silverware, as opposed to plasticware. I couldn't sleep much on the flight, but luckily after our stopover where they disinfect the plane and fix things, they repaired the tv's and we could watch movies for the remaining 8 hours of flight. When we landed in Johannesburg, it was about 5 the next day, and Debra's aunt picked us up and took us back to their house for a barbecue.

The neighhborhoods in Joburg are a lot different from the ones at home. To get to their house, you have to drive through two security gates, and all the houses are walled in and have electric fences and 8 foot walls around their yards because the crime is so great. Which is kind of scary. Theres also a lot of poverty which is apparant from the shacks on the sides of the roads and people wandering down the side of the highway. And of course, the signs are all in km and other metric forms of measurement.

The first night there, we met lots of Debra's family, who were all nice, and that was fun. We went shopping at a mall the next day, and a flea market, and I got lots of souveniers, stuff for the roommates and the family mostly so far. And I bought my dress for formal at a designer store at the mall for young South African clothing designer labels, for 380 rand (about 38 dollars) and its gorgeous, which is exciting. So thats pretty sweet. The next night we went out to dinner with her aunt and uncle and cousin and ate some delicious food.

We went out after to a bar called the Keg with Debra's cousin Douglas, and made lots of friends, and had our first South African adventures. The next day we woke up late, and went to the Lion and Rhino park, which was exciting. We got to pet a cheetah, and see rhino's and lots of zebras and ostriches. Afterward we went to her grandparents house for dinner and ate lamb and other foods I hadn't really tried before. The food is kind of getting to me, but we flew to Cape Town this afternoon, after a slight flight delay, and everyone else on IQP just arrived. Pictures to come when I download them onto my computer.