I am NEVER going to a zoo again! Safari Saturday!

Once again an amazing week and weekend thanks to the Freewalkers!!  This week I finalized my schedule! I am working under 7 different teachers; six different science teachers and one Life Orientation teacher. I have a total of 13 different classes of students; some classes are grade 8’s, some grade 9’s, and some grade 10’s. My schedule is INSANE! I see each class a total of three times a week. Their schedule consists of six classes a day split by two twenty minute tea breaks and their weeks run in 10 day cycles. I’ve taught a couple classes already and taught a lesson in one of the grade 8 science classes about the scientific process and the kids got to write and do their own experiments! We finished Friday and now I have my first round of papers to mark (grade). The students here are so amazing and respectful. When I teach a lesson I have to remind them that they need to wait till the end of my lesson to ask me questions about America! They’re so interested and curious about everything in America its sweet, just cannot interrupt class. J Friday we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant on the pier then headed upstairs to Barneys to listen to the live band!

Saturday Jordy from the Freewalkers picked us up at 5:50 am, we picked up the Brit girls down the road, and headed to Addo National Park. Addo National Park is about 20,000 acres and since it is a National Park only local animals can be on it; lions, elephants, zebra, warthogs, ostrich, buffalo, kudu, honey badgers, leopards, etc.

 Jordy was the best tour guide we could have ever had through Addo because when she came here to complete her masters she lived on Addo for three years studying elephant behavior and breeding. There are over 500 elephants on the park and she had to be able to identify each and every one by their names. She followed certain families of elephants and collected urine and stool samples to analyze their hormone levels.

  Jordy's list of elephant names and how she identifies them!

 

One of the bulls just walking along the road

An elephant letting the zebras get some water but not for long

She knew the park like the back of her hand and took us straight to one of the watering holes where there was about 50 elephants playing, drinking, and covering themselves with mud. One of the elephants there was the “bull” which means he was the biggest and baddest elephant in the park. He definitely was the BIGGEST standing tall above all the other fully grown elephants with the largest and longest tusks I have ever seen in my life!














Jordy educated us on all kinds of elephant behaviors and how they were communicating and even recognized the elephant family. She was amazing to have with us because she knew each elephant’s story and commentated all the elephant’s behaviors. As you can see we took lots of pictures and got extremely close to the elephants, I took a video of them surrounding our vehicle which is uploading and I will post when it is done! Keep in mind that we were NOT at a zoo and these were wild elephants in their natural habitat.

This is a video of all of us being surrounded by wild elephants in Addo. Please excuse Shannon zooming in while the elephants was going to the bathroom.

All our elephants lining up to greet us at Kwantu

 After Addo we headed to Kwantu private game reserve and rode elephants for a little bit. I couldn’t imagine riding an elephant for longer than a half hour because your legs are so spread apart and it’s not the most comfortable thing. Also after learning SO much about elephants from Jordy I gained even more respect for these majestic animals that riding them wasn’t the coolest thing anymore. After we rode the elephants we got to feed and take pictures with them! They were so playful, taking treats straight out of our hands. We got to feed the elephants by putting a handful of treats into their trunks or straight into their mouths!

feeding the ellie I rode straight into her mouth!

Kissing the elephant I rode

Emily, Liz, an I on the safari jeep

After Kwantu we went to Schotia (pronounced Sko-sha). Murray (founder of Freewalkers) grew up with the owner of Schotia’s son so when Jordy dropped us off we were welcomed and grabbed coffee and snacks before our safari started. It was 230pm at this time and our day was only half way over! Jordy left and it felt so weird to not have her or Murray their guiding us but we met our Safari guide Scott and hopped into his jeep to begin our Safari! The jeep was wide open, no windows, and some seats didn’t even have side doors or anything holding them in and let me tell you this was a VERY bumpy ride! The first part of the tour we saw an elephant, and lots of ostrich, impala, kudu, waterbuck, wildebeest, springbuck, eland, and red hartebeest. We each got to take turns riding in the trekker seat while Scott drove. The trekker seat was a seat with handles on the very front of the car where you held on for dear life and hoped we didn’t get too close to the big five animals.

Way too close for comfort to the rhinos!

Scott spotted a giraffe and let us get out of the jeep and walk over towards it where we were literally on the other side of a tree from a wild giraffe! We felt fine and safe until we looked down the hill and realized the only two rhino in the park were right behind us. We slowly (cannot make sudden movements near wild animals) walked back onto the jeep and drove up to the rhino. Rhinos are nearly going extinct because the Japanese want for the rhino horns. They believe they’re medicinal but really a rhino horn contains the same things as fingernails and hair, but since it’s seen as medicinal thousands of these animals are being killed for their horns and rhinos cannot reproduce fast enough to save their species. We got a little too close for comfort to these rhinos in the park! Rhinos are herbivores so they only eat grass but if they feel threatened they will charge. We were within an arms length of these rhinos and don’t let our smiley faces fool you, we were scared for our lives! I was holding onto Emily at one point because they were SO close!

Riding on the trekker seat on the front of the jeep

Don't let our smiles fool you we were scared out of our minds!!

After our rhino encounter we stopped at the old farmhouse on the reserve and had a tea and toilet break. We got back into the jeep and headed back out looking for lions since it was sunset and the lions were waking up and coming out. There were about 6 jeeps total on the safari and between the six jeeps covering over 40,000 acres none of us found the lions, just more giraffe and lots of “deer”. On our way to the “restaurant” on the reserve we stopped at a waterhole to see the hippos and alligators.

Once again these creatures are so amazing and breath-taking to see in their natural habitat. The place we ate was a huge circular hut that is surrounded by a fence to keep us safe which we needed because during dinner we heard the female lion roar and looked out the window with a spotlight and there was an entire family of lions sitting under a tree right outside the place we were eating! I wasn’t feeling too great at dinner and I think I had motion sickness from being in super bumpy cars all day. I tried to get down some mashed potatoes and couldn’t. I ended up getting sick and took an Imodium and felt a lot better just in time for our night ride! It was pitch-black out because there were obviously no streets, roads, or lights other than what was coming from our spot lights on our jeep.


 
We were able to find the lions right away this time thanks to the female roar and them being right outside where we were eating. Lions eye structure is different from other mammals including humans so they are able to see better at night and the spot lights do not bother them. When our jeep was next to the lions we had to be completely still and silent. At one point the lion pack crossed our jeeps path and the lions were surrounding our jeep and within two feet of my door. I was honestly too scared to even take a picture with flashes so it was hard getting good pictures when the spot lights hit them. We were out following the lions for a good 45 minutes and it was finally time to head back to the main gate and head home. Jordy had set up for our safari driver Scott to drive us all home since he lives in port Elizabeth too. The drive home was 45minutes long and all of us girls talked and played name games the whole way home. We were home by 1130pm and were in bed by midnight.

 We were so happy to be able to sleep in today (Sunday) for the first time since we have been here! We slept in till 930am and it was a cloudy rainy day so we watched some movies on our movie channel and sat around planning lessons, marking papers, eating fizzers (candy), and relaxing for the first time since we have been here. Tomorrow is another athletic day for Pearson. It is held at Nelson Mandela University again and we were recruited to work the events so hopefully I get to become a track judge with Shannon again and sit under a tent all day and avoid the sun!