May 28, 2009...Game Run 2

The second day of our trip in South Africa began rather early. We were all awake and ready to go on our second game run at 5:30 am. The sun had not even risen, and it was still rather chilly outside. We bundled up with some blankets in our safari jeep, driven by tour guide Thomas, and set off into Pilanesberg Game Park. At the beginning of the game run, it was still dark out so we had to search for the animals with spotlights attached to the jeep. The sun rose quickly and there were quite a few animals out and about. We saw plenty of wildebeest and impala (they are highly overpopulated) but we were also lucky to see quite a few zebras, giraffes, a few rhinoceros, a lion, black backed jackals, water bucks, a kudu (?), a lot of birds, and some animals sitting on a rock that Jackie thought were leopards (they weren’t). Probably the most exciting part of the game run was our encounter with an elephant. We found him standing in the middle of the road. At the beginning of the day our tour guide warned us that elephants are known to charge the jeeps, therefore you were supposed to stay 40 yards away. However, we are pretty sure we were much closer than 40 yards by the time Thomas stopped the jeep. The elephant was eating a tree and proceeded to rip the entire tree out of the ground to show off his strength and intimidate us. It worked, but apparently Thomas wasn’t too nervous, so we stuck around, waiting to be trampled by the elephant.

After the game drive, we checked out of our chalets and said good bye to Adam and AB. When we were about to load the bus, we realized it was already occupied by BBB’s (blue-butted baboons). We had accidently left the windows open with fresh oranges inside. The BBB’s stole oranges and threw them at the girls waiting to load the bus. AB freaked out and shooed them off the bus. Guess we should have read the hotels warnings more clearly. Once we cleared the bus of the BBB’s, we headed back to Johannesburg and checked into our new hotel. After relaxing a little, we walked to a nearby mall/market where we tested out our bartering skills some more. Lots of girls bought jewelry, paintings, bowls and one even bought a chessboard…. Next, we took the bus to downtown Jo’burg to Mandela Square. We ate at Ghiradhelli’s Italian Restaurant and window shopped before heading back to the hotel for the night.

It was nice having a relaxing day and evening since we are all still a little worn out from the plane rides. Looking forward to tomorrow when we visit the Apartheid Museum, barter some more at nearby markets, and head out for a night on the town!

Gina and Camille