Safari is probably one of my top 10 favorite things. You ride around with the wind blowing in your hair, looking at the most beautiful scenery, and oh yeah, you are in South Africa. You doze off every one and awhile, but no worries, so does everyone else.  When an animal is spotted, everyone in the safari vehicle wakes up to take pictures. Its pretty exciting when a giraffe, wildebeest, or zebra are right outside!

This Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday I had the opportunity to go on SAFARI! Our group of 52 was split in two, so my group went to the safari first, and then we went to the Zulu village for the rest of the week. I really enjoyed being with a smaller group and this whole week was a lot of fun. 

During the two and a half days of Safari, we would wake up at 4:30 or 5am to go on early morning drives and then basically for the rest of the day we would eat, go out looking for game, eat, go out again and then eat, go out once more and rest, have dinner and go to bed very early. One funny thing about the chalets where we stayed during the time at the safari was that the walls were not solid so we could hear everything everyone was saying before bed!

The safari guide and driver of my group was named Israel. Israel was very good at spotting not only the obvious animals but also turtles, and lizards and identifying animal tracks and animal dung. On the first 6am drive of the day, Israel told us that he didn’t know the roads of the game reserve very well. I laughed

 because I assumed he was joking like when you go out to eat at teppanyaki and the chefs tell you its there first day, but you know its really not. Well, we later found out that Israel was not joking and we got lost for about an hour. The second time we went out with Israel the other group stole our safari vehicle when we were looking for hippos because our vehicle was better than there’s. We did not think this was very funny and luckily, the third time we went out that day we spotted hippos!!! Not only were about 4 hippos in the water, but then all of a sudden one got completely out of the water and it looked like he was going to fight another hippo. Israel said this was the best hippo experience he has ever had!  Israel was also very good at making all the animal noises and every time we went passed elephant dung, which happened quite often when when we got lost, he would say, “elephant dung” in his accent and it was so funny. 

On day we got to drive to another reserve to see some lions. This time the safari vehicle was exactly like the ones in the Indiana Jones ride. Sexy Steve was our guide/ driver and unfortunately we didn’t see any lions. However, we did see three cheetahs and we got really close to them! To sum everything up, the safari was amazing and even the food we ate in the middle of nowhere was wonderful!

We went to the Zulu village Wednesday evening through Friday. It was in the hills in the middle of no where. We stayed in huts and in the morning the view from our door was beautiful! During the Zulu experience we went on a hike over the hills and through the forest, where the medicine man showed us some plants. Later in the day, we threw “spears” (which the boys in our group had made out of sticks) and shot rocks with sling shots. We also did some Zulu dancing and just hung out together by the camp fire. Our days at the Zulu village were pretty relaxing too, although it got incredibly hot and I was more than ready to come home to AE. 

What lies ahead...

This next week we will be leaving African Enterprise where we have been staying for the past couple of months. We are taking a week to drive to Cape Town and along the way we will bungee jump and shark cage dive and do all sorts of fun things. Once we arrive in Cape Town my roommate Bianca and I will live with a family for a week and live at a Bible college for the other week. I am excited for the next few weeks ahead, but its really hard to leave AE. 

Please be praying for my group, our travel to Cape Town, and especially our health right now!