Safari!

Since the academic staff was unable to go on the Garden Route, I knew I needed to find my own way to see some animals.  In part, because I love animals, and in part because I knew EVERYONE would ask me about what kinds I saw while in Africa.

It was a gorgeous, but chilly chilly day!

When we arrived then had tea, coffee, and cookies.  Since we hadn't had breakfast the lady had the kitchen whip up some breakfast sandwiches for us...it was so nice of them! Our tummy's were full and happy as we headed for the truck!

 Did I mention it was chilly?! They gave us fleece ponchos.

Our tour guide was fantastic. He knew so much about the vegetation, animals, birds, and anything else we had questions about!

 Lions, tigers, and bears...or just lions (three of them), two females and one male.

 Zebras!

 Ostriches!

 And giraffes!

The tour guide let us get out of the truck when we were near the giraffes. He told us to walk in a tight line, single file. He was trying to get us as close as possible to the giraffes. Unfortunately, some people didn't follow directions and we didn't get as close as we probably could have. Nonetheless, it was amazing!

 Click the picture to see the giraffe

 Christina posing next to the tree the giraffes eat. Check out those thorns! Ouch!

They have a cheetah rehabilitation program where they train the top male & female to run and hunt. They then release the animals into the reserve.  If they do well there, they release them into the wild.

 Beautiful animals.

 

After the safari they fed us lunch with all sorts of deliciousness.

 Yumm

 What a wonderful day!

One thing I've failed to mention thus far was how we got ourselves to Inverdoorn. The reserve is located about 2.5-3 hours away from Cape Town and we had some options in getting there.  The reserve offered a transportation vehicle, however, it cost about $160 per person. We did some research and decided we could get it cheaper if we rented a car. So on Friday night, Tiffany and I headed to the airport to pick up a rental car.  

Yep, that's me, driving on the right side of the car, and the left side of the road.

The drive was relatively uneventful and it was surprisingly easier to drive on the left than I thought it would be. There was only one time I thought about taking a free right from a one way road into oncoming traffic ;)  I was surprised how quickly I adjusted.

On the way back from the reserve, we used the TomTom for directions (instead of the Inverdoorn ones).  Well, TomTom decided to take us around the mountain instead of through it.  We saw some beautiful countryside, however, the mountainous terrain was a bit nerve wracking at times.

 These one lane passing roads were also a bit unsettling.

The trip was an adventure and I was grateful that we survived (didn't get eaten by lions or fall off the side of the mountain) and grateful for the company; fun to experience it with Christina & Tiffany!