Safari!!!

Today, we made our way to Kwandwe Game Park. We left the Garden Centre Apartments at 6:30 am, and made the long, nine-hour drive to Kwandwe. The drive was fun and scary. There were a few times, especially when we were really close to Kwandwe, where we were driving down really narrow roads that winded around the mountains. To add to our fears, the car that Collin, Tara, Michael, and I were in was running on Empty at the time. But, by coasting down the hills and some luck, we made it to Kwandwe safely. Getting back, however, may be a challenge as there is obviously not a gas station on the reserve, and all of their reserves are diesel reserves.

Anyway, we got here around 4:30, and after signing in, got into a open-top Land Rover at 5:15 pm. Along our way to the Lodge we are staying in, we quickly got to see some animals up close. There was a giraffe that walked across the road behind us; it couldn’t have been more that 20 feet away. I tried to get a picture of it, but unfortunately my camera died. My tour guide reassured me that if there is one animal we will see without fail on this trip, it is giraffes, as they are very used to the cars and will come up to us.

We also saw a red hartebeest, a type of antelope. For more information go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hartebeest. They, apparently, are much more skittish to cars, because as soon as we were near it, it scampered away. Our tour guide told us that it did that because it was so windy, and the animals’ sense of smell is thrown off by the wind, and therefore will run away at the slightest noise.

After a twenty-minute drive, we made our way to the lodge we are staying at for the night. I have taken some pictures that I have posted for everyone to see. This is, seriously, the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in (and I stayed at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles with the football team). The pictures are the best way to understand what it is like is to see the pictures. It is a $3,200 a night room, that we are only paying $1,200 a night for ($250ish apiece). We find this is a steal.

We also have our own tour guide. His name is Murray. He has worked here at Kwandwe for three years now. He told us that we are going out for a game drive at 7 am until around 11 or 11:30 am tomorrow. We were going to go out tonight, but it got late and the weather was still bad. Instead, we stayed in (at our all-inclusive hotel) and had dinner. We ate a bread pudding, some corn chowder, ostrich steak, and then had soufflé for dinner. We also got lots of hot chocolate with Amarula. Well, I think most of us are going to head to bed, as we are getting up so early in the morning. Good night everyone! I’ll try not to get eaten by a lion tomorrow! Also, expect lots of pictures after the early morning drive, and another blog update!!