T.I.A.

So, for my last three days in Africa in was in Kwazulu Natal, a national game reserve. At 4:15 am on Tuesday, thirty very sleep deprived students met on the ship to begin traveling to the reserve. I was so afraid of not waking up in time that I stayed awake all night. The traveling consisted of a 45 minute van ride to the airport, a 2 hour flight to Durbin, and then a 3 hour drive to the reserve. Even though I slept through most of the traveling, I was exhausted when we finally reached our destination.

Our accommodations were pretty nice – platform tents with bunked beds. I made sure to get a top bunk so the hyenas would eat the people on the bottom first. After we got settled in we did got a safety talk and heard about the agenda. Our camp was literally in the middle of the reserve so wildlife comes through there all the time. The most important rule was to always walk with someone at night. Our guide told us, “You don’t have to outrun the animal, just the person you are walking with.” There is no electricity anywhere so the only light we had at night was our campfire and a few lanterns. At night we could actually hear the hyenas around camp.

The next day we got to drive around the reserve in these really cool open-air vehicles. I want one. We saw giraffes, rhinos, baboons, wildebeest, impala, hyenas, antelope, zebra, nyala, vultures, warthogs, elephants, and buffalo. We saw 3 of the “Big 5,” missing out on lions and leopards. We may not have seen lions, but we did hear them. On the second night, we were around the campfire singing when one of the guides called the others over to her. Then they came over to the fire and instructed everyone to quickly move to the deck. The deck was our go-to place if anything was wrong. All of the students pretty much ran to the deck, we were all so scared. Once we were up there we all went silent and we could hear lions roaring what sounded like 15 yards away. I can’t put into words how cool it was. There was no light except for the campfire, the sky was full of stars, and thirty scared college students were huddled together listening to lions roaring. One of the guides pulled a truck up to the deck and used some powerful lights to look for the lions. We never got to see their bodies, but you could see their eyes glowing through the grass.

Oh yeah, we also got chased by an elephant. Our guide had just finished telling us how elephants can kick around a truck like a soccer ball, when we came to one in the middle of the road. It was the biggest elephant we had seen so far and it was just standing there eating a tree. We parked the vehicle for a while so we could all take pictures. After a little while the elephant turned around and started coming right at us. Our vehicle had to reverse for a ways down the road before the elephant stopped. It was pretty exciting and I got some nice pictures.

After three straight days of waking up early (we woke up at 5 am on the safari), I basically sleep walked my way back on the ship yesterday. It’s so hard to catch up on sleep on this trip because everyday at sea is a class day, and when you’re in port you don’t want to waste time sleeping in. We usually only have about 4-5 days on land and we cram in as much stuff as possible, so once you get back to the boat you’re exhausted but you have to get back into class mode. The next 11 days will be pretty rough. I have about 3 papers to write and all of my classes have midterms before we get to India. But hey, I’m not complaining, I’m traveling around the world.

This is Africa. (Blood Diamond, anyone?)