week 4- Edeni (animals!)

So right now i'm in a hostel in johannesburg (joburg) that's SUPER close to the airport but not much else. Its not the nicest place but its very safe and the owner very nice and there's FREE internet so here goes!
So our group left Cape Town and went to Edeni, a private game reserve east of joburg, almost to Kruger National Park- VERY nice accomodations! the "tents" had running water haha and if you sat on your porch for a while you'd see (or at least hear- sometimes even more fun!) a decent amount of wildlife!
i could go through every detail of each day cus every day/drive was AWESOME but here's the cliff notes version- animals: we saw lions, giraffes, zebras, wart hogs, dassies, at least 5 different species of deer-like animals ending in -bok, a couple cheetahs, hippos, nile crockidiles, cape buffalo, elephants, termites and their mounds, heyenas, stripped mice, rhinos, wild dogs, baboons and another monkey-like species, and apparently over 90 species of birds, only about 1/3 of which i documented haha...... anyway so my favorite was probably a cheetah that we saw just chillin next to the road- actually, the driver and the tracker both missed it and I, yes, I spotted it and started saying "CHEETAH!!!" a million times but i was in the back row so it took us a while to stop and start rolling backwards again (SCARY!) but the cheetah didnt mind and was just chillin about 10 meters away! i was SO stoked!
other animal highlights- at Kruger, we came upon our first lion at the time- a lioness hunting! although the impala came REALLY close to here, we spent an entire hour listening to our guide, Andrew, get SUPER excited and curse about the South Africans who screwed everything up-i'd quote him, but we'll keep this at least PG-13....but the lioness never pounced! aaaaaack! o well, it was SUPER fun anyway! another favorite was our last night drive, when we came accross most of the park's pack of elephants. we had known since the first drive how destructive they are, and how overpopulated Kruger is and how much of a problem their tree-falling tendencies are...but we got to watch them very close to us for a while and even watched one fall a small tree- and i got a video of it! woot!!!! we also got to have sundowners (we had tea/coffee breaks on our morning drives and other-drink breaks at sundown on our evening drives) next to a huge pool with about 25 hippos in it! this was after we all got WAY too close to a croc and our guides took turns seeing how close to it they would get! yikes!!! but the hippos were SUPER fun! anyway, i had a GREAT time there, and can totally ramble for hours about each of the animals i saw but oh well....it was SUPER cold there at night but SUPER warm during the day-6am wakeup calls were not conducive to me being friendly, esp when i was still cold wearing 2 layers of pants and 4 long sleve layers on top! booooo! but it was TOTALLY worth it!
We also spent a day at maholoholo rehabilitation center- i thought the tour was really good, but unfortunately, most of the animals, esp the birds, weren't being rehabilitated :( but they did let us PET A CHEETAH and have some of the vultures fly to our gloves! very very cool! our friend thomas also got to feed a huge leg of something to wild dogs and watch them tear it to pieces in a few minutes- while the owner of the center held a large bat in case they came after himself or thomas!!! yikes!!!!
we were pretty sad to leave- our drivers were SUPER cool, but we also knew that it was almost time to leave and most of the group to go back to the US :( but our last night included a dance performance from our drivers' village, and a lot of our own dancing as well heh.....
i'm going to try to post pictures soon, i promise, but this computer doesnt have a USB connection, so i have no way of getting them on- these are imported facebook, so the quality might not be very good :( BUT if you want to see more (and ones of me) just check out my facebook- there's TONS on there now, and if you dont have facebook, they're coming, i promise!

The cars we traveled in! thomas is sitting where the normally very qualified tracker does - he's just trying to be cool ;)










We got close- i think this is Mr. M, a guy who was outcasted bc he smells bad- no joke!












we got VERY close.....













HIPPOOOOOOOS!!!! there were a lot more but i like this pic...we didnt get very many of them w/ their mouths open haha

Week 3- the end of Cape Town

hey
so our time here in Cape Town has come to an end - tomorrow we leave to go to Edeni, a private game reserve, along with a day in Kruger National park- South Africa's largest! SUPER excited for that, but it will def be sad to leave cape town. we've gotten to do all the major things on my list, but as always, more time would have been better!
i guess i left you in some suspense about the shark diving, but it was AWESOME! after bringing new meaning to the phrases "butt crack of dawn" and "if the trip getting there didnt kill you then nothing will" we got into the lodge for some breakfast and briefing on the boat/cages/sharks/etc. i wasnt really scared at that point (a bit too groggy) but i didnt actually freak out at all- the boat ride out to "shark alley" was beautiful! it was super overcast and the water SUPER rocky (we had to change our schedule for the weather - it was rainy/stormy from about thurs-wed! ewww!)but as soon as we saw the first shark i couldnt wait to get in! i had some trouble getting my bearings in the cage, but the sharks came around several times, VERY close to us so everything worked out! no, i didnt get sick- was feeling really gross when i first got out of the cage, but it all worked out! incredible day!
we had to change up our plans for the weekend because of all the rain, but we got to check out cape town's museums downtown anyway! (and of course restaurants- had some AMAZING indian food; o club mcat memories! <3)
a miscommunication kept our trip to the District Six Museum a bit too short, but it was one of the more passionate ones i've ever seen. People living in District Six, a thriving multicultural community, were forced to move to the racially separate Cape Flats and watch their houses be bulldozed in the 1960s. On the floor was a map of the district, and people (including our driver for these weeks, al)had come and written their name where they lived. Incredible. For dinner that night we went out to Africa Cafe where each course (10+ or so) came from a different part of Africa- very cool, although the Ghanaian dish was NOT my favorite....oops?
The trip to Robben Island also got postponed because of weather, but we decided to go to the CT aquarium instead! Robben Island has some work to do- the tour itself was interesting and very good, but it wasnt a museum like it said; i guess things are still coming together! seeing nelson mandela's cell (during his 18 yrs on the island) was cool but reminded me why i dont really care about visiting famous sites- it looked exactly like the others, except it still had original furniture in it!
Since the weather cleared up today, we were able to do some more hiking- this time up to lion's head, visible between table mountain and the ocean. we didnt make it all the way to the top bc the sun was setting (we were told to go to watch the sun set, but also to be back before it got dark!) but it was an amazing hike/rock climb to the top! i'll try to post some pictures of it, but the last couple hundred feet are just almost vertical rock- VERY cool, but not conducive to hurrying up OR down! BEAUTIFUL!
So its time to say goodbye to cape town :( but its been SO awesome! sorry for the ramblings, im not proofreading heh-
i wont have any contact with the outside world for the next week but i <3 u all!!!! <3

Week 2 - adventures!

hellooooo!
Essay # 2 was due today, so i have a bit of time to catch up on all thats up, way down here! We've all been pretty busy- i think yesterday was the first day of the whole trip that we didnt go out and do something!

So a bit of orientation- UCT is actually in Rondebosch, to the east of Cape Town. There are mountains and Water everywhere from Cape Town (its actually in a little bowl haha) down to cape point- aka cape of good hope (btw, its NOT Where the atlantic and indian oceans meet, so i probably wont get to see the indian ocean:(- its pretty far away!). its been great for people like me who love climbing mountains and also the ocean (o and it says hi, btw ;))

class hasnt been too amazing, but we're done by noon every day so its nice to be done and have the rest of the day to ourselves- o wait, jk, bc there's usually something planned already!!! haha

last thursday a couple of us decided to go on a hike up. literally, just climb as much as we could from our dorm on campus - we ran into the rhodes memorial (who knew that the former country Rhodesia was named after a white guy who has several memorials around here?) and then found actual trails! although table mountain via cable car a few days later gave a much larger view, we got up high enough on our own power to for some incredible views!- i went kinda picture-happy but it was SUPER fun just to be quirky w/ the new friends.....!

cape point was probably my favorite day so far- its obviously winter here and the weather is pretty unpredictable :(. when we started driving it was raining and really gross- one of the roads was closed bc of the rain and by the time we got to the entrance of the reserve, it was so foggy we could barely see BUT in the process of our ecology lesson (and stopping for pictures of steenbok (antelope) and ostriches, but unfortunately only a single passing baboon) and driving more, it was completely clear by the time we got to the actual point! we didnt have time to go allllll the way out to the tip as far as you can go, but we were so lucky with the weather that it was amazing anyway! on our way back up, we stopped near simonstown to Boulders Beach to see the PENGUINS!!!!! there were SOOOOO many! the "jackass penguins" (you should hear them!) formally known as the African Penguins were incredibly cute and i think we all took more pictures than really should be allowed! heh, SUPER fun!

we spent a day doing the stellenbosch wineries - some good, some not so much, but we all splurged at the last one for a gigantic buffet- very touristy/cliche but we got to EAT ostrich, kudu (antelope), more warthog, zulu cabbage, anything with curry, and our favorite wine(s) from the day's tasting! woot!

Table mountain SO did not disapoint me other than we kinda rushed across it- wasnt too much of a fan of the cable car going so quickly up the hill and turning at the same time (aka you cant hold on to anything but you're moving in every direction! aaaaaah! gonna crash into the side of the mountain!!!!!! aaaaaah!!!) but the view was incredible and again we lucked out to get VERY clear weather! at one point i did an entire 360 video view of everything around me- AND since its a TABLE, i didnt have to get too close to the edge of the almost vertical cliffs to get a good view-phew!

kirstenbosch garden is a gigantic botanical garden- i wish i knew more about biology/ecology/plants/birds bc it would have been MUCH cooler if i did, but it was the nicest weather day we've had on our trip - o and there was a medicinal plant area w/ signs as to what the plants could be/were used for- along with LARGE signs telling us not to self-medicate......heh.....maybe they should have told our guide that.....jk......almost....

Anyway, i guess thats a lot of blabbing for now but tomorrow is our SHARK cage-diving trip!!!! scary. not gonna lie, i'm scared, esp since its so stormy today..... :( we actually had to reschedule it for the morning instead of the afternoon bc of the storm :( no woot for 4:30am bus times! we also have the rest of the weekend free so we're gonna hit up the museums of cape town and do some longer hiking!!! woohoo!!! and only one more week here in CT until we go to the game reserve to see all the super-cool animals! woot!

anyway, hope all is well! sorry for the long post! much <3!