South Africa -- Day 11

This morning, my brother had to get up and head into work. Jess and I got up and dressed and headed over to the mall to the Mugg and Bean for a cup of coffee. We were supposed to be meeting up with my brother later to go into his job and meet some of his employees and coworkers. We walked around the mall a little bit and window shopped. We finally headed back over to the condo and waited for him to call. He finally called to say that he was having a crazy day at work and we wouldn’t be able to get into the office today, but that our afternoon plans were still on – Lion Park!

We drove out to the park and got there just in time for the final drive of the day at 2:30. We bought our tickets and hopped on the safari truck. We drove through the park and saw zebras and springbok and giraffe. We found out some interesting facts about zebras. Their stripes are like their fingerprints, no two are alike. And you will never see a skinny zebra. This is because their stomachs are actually filled with gas and when they get frightened by a predator, they run away, leaving gas behind them. The smell is so bad, it deters some of the predators from following them in chase. We saw ostrich, who we found out their eyes are bigger than their brains – their brains are only the size of a teaspoon. We went into the Lion Camps and the lions are so used to the trucks, one of them walked right up to the truck to greet the driver! I got some amazing pictures of them, up close and personal. Here, we learned that the more black in their manes, the more aggressive they are and the more appealing to the females. This explains why Mufasa’s mane was black in The Lion King! OK, they didn’t tell us that last fact, but I deduced it based on what we’d learned. We learned that lions like to sleep 18-20 hours a day, which also explained a lot about me, based on my zodiac sign of Leo! On the lions, their whiskers are their fingerprints. The average life expectancy of the lion is 10-12 years in the wild, but jumps to 15-25 years in captivity. We then moved on to see the wild dogs. These guys are not strong enough to take down their prey, so they stalk their prey by running them down, diving and taking a big chunk of flesh out and then waiting for them to die of blood loss and/or shock. Gross, huh? Whereas you can domesticate the lions and other animals, you cannot domesticate these guys, even if born and raised in captivity. They will turn wild at about 4 months. Some people confuse wild dogs with hyenas, but these are dogs, and hyenas are actually cats.

Next, we saw cheetahs, which we found out are solitary animals, they do not roam in packs or prides. They hunt in the heat of the day and are the fastest animals in the world, but only for short bursts. They can get up to 60 miles/hour for about 400 meters. Next, we saw a very tame giraffe that came up to the truck to greet us and almost licked me! Her head was huge! Her name was Purdy and she was very friendly. After this, we headed back to the main lodge. Our next stop was the baby lion cub area. We headed in here, where we got to pet and take pictures with baby lions. They were so adorably cute, but boy did they have big paws and sharp teeth! We took a few pictures of us with the lion cubs and then hit the gift shop (of course). We found some cute things, grabbed some Coke Lights and sat down to wait for Mart, our ride. He finally got out of his meeting and came to pick us up.

We went to an Italian place in the Eastgate Mall for dinner called Piatta’s. We were all so hungry that our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. We started with a garlic and basil flatbread brushed with butter. We then each ordered an appetizer – Mart had wings, I had halloumi cheese and Jess had a mushroom stuffed with spinach and cheese. At this point, Jess and I were done and we hadn’t even gotten our dinners yet! Mart managed to finish his pasta, I got through a bit of my ribs and rump and Jess had her fillet and pasta wrapped up without even seeing it. We, however, knew we were leaving for safari the next day, so we had to find someone to give it to. Now any other night, we would see a bunch of people we could give it to, but we were so close to home. What’s different about this country and our own is that when you see the people on the streets, they are very grateful to get just food. It is tough to see how hungry some of the people are. Thank goodness we did find someone to give the stuff to, because that would have been truly wasteful.  

We hit Woolworth’s for some groceries to pack for lunches on the road tomorrow. We came home and made lunches, packed clothes and got ready for bed (after a Skype home). We had an early morning the next day to run a few errands then head to Bongani and Kruger National Park for safari!