The Wandering Chocoholic

The word of the day today? Elephants. And unlike Thursday, this time I mean that literally.

Sunrise safari

Another pre-dawn wake-up today, but unlike yesterday I was (a) not hung over and (b) I’d had a good night’s sleep. So it was all good. Besides, there’s a big difference between waking up for work, and waking up to see wildlife in Africa. Living here could well turn me into a morning person yet. Okay, maybe not.

We headed back out in the safari vehicles to see more wildlife. This morning, the herd of springboks were playing, the wildebeest, cheetahs and rhinos were eating, and the giraffes were again hanging out ridiculously close to us. We saw lions again, and this time the male lion spotted us and started heading for the vehicle, so we got out of there in a hurry.

And then, we saw… elephants! Two of them. They aren’t wild at this game park; they were adopted as orphan rescues from a rehabilitation project and they’re fed and cared for. But they were elephants, with tusks and trunks and all. So awesome!

Upon returning to the lodge, we went to check out their small reptile house and see the range of African snakes. They had a python that you could hold if you wanted to, so I did. And there were some other tortoises and crocodiles in a pen out back. All in all, nothing I haven’t seen before, though the snake varieties change from one continent to the next. But seeing them in glassed-in pens is probably better than coming across them in the wild.

Knysna and Elephants!

We left the game lodge reluctantly to head back to the coast. We stopped off for a quick lunch in the seaside town of Knysna, and browsed some of the shops a bit. We’ll be back in Knysna tomorrow to see more of the town and check out some of the scenery, so this was just a quick pit stop. But the sun was coming out and the wind had died down since yesterday, and it turned into a really nice day for a scenic drive.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better… This afternoon, we visited the Knysna Elephant Park, a conservation and rehabilitation park where rescue elephants who can’t survive in the wild are adopted and cared for. Their elephants are quite used to people, so you can actually head out into the park and get right up close and personal with them. We spent an hour or so walking alongside, petting, feeding and making friends with the elephants. And I have to tell you, this is right up there among the coolest experiences in my life.

Evening at Tsitsikamma

After leaving the elephant sanctuary, we drove further east to the entrance of Tsiksikamma National Park, where we’ll be spending the night. On the way there, we passed the seaside resort town of Plettenberg Bay. On the righthand side of the highway, we could see the sprawling holiday mansions that belong to the sort of people who fly there from Jo’burg by private jet. On the righthand side, literally across the street, there was a township, with its cramped temporary wooden shacks. This stark dichotomy is one of those realities about South Africa that serves as a reminder of the many serious problems in this country. With a 25% unemployment rate and a large number of people living on less than $100 a month, South Africa’s income gap has no easy solution. I’ve passed by a large number of these townships since arriving here, but seldom is it so blatantly obvious as it was in Plettenberg Bay.

We arrived at the tiny town of Storms River, which serves as a gateway to the national park and a stopover for a lot of people traveling between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. We arrived at the hostel and  settled in to have dinner and watch the rugby with the other travelers, who include a pair of Canadians from Victoria, a French woman who’s traveling around the world, and a few South Africans. This isn’t the lap of luxury like last night, but it’s far more my style of place. Anyway, who cares? I met elephants today.