10/10/11, 8:08 p.m.
A trip to Africa is certainly not complete without a safari, so with that in mind several of us went on a daytrip to the Aquila Game Reserve yesterday in the hopes of spotting some of the famed “Big Five” animals (lion, elephant, black rhino, Cape buffalo, leopard) and to have a weekend adventure. Our driver told us on Saturday that he would pick us up between 6:15 and 6:45 a.m. the next day. We prepared for an early start, but you can imagine our surprise when the security guard told us our transport was ready at 6:05 a.m. We threw ourselves together and the van started moving at 6:25. Granted, we were 10 minutes late from the time we expected all along, but the driver accused us of making us extremely late for picking up the next people (we weren’t informed there were others) and even forced Melanie to sign a form when one party cancelled literally at the last minute. They must have had other issues because who cancels a safari because their ride is 10 minutes late?! He growled that he had to make up for lost time so he drove FAR too fast on surface streets and the freeway alike, and even sped through a blatantly red light. For those of us who thought they would get the chance to sleep in the car, it was now out of the question. Luckily most of the trip was spent winding through endless vineyards and noble-looking mountains.
Much to our delight we arrived alive at Aquila 2 hours later, and the rest of the day was phenomenal! We were greeted with breakfast before heading out on a 2 ½-hour game drive through the reserve. I’ve been to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and seen animals roaming free, but it’s another experience entirely to visit them in their own home. It’s quite surreal to let two adolescent elephants cross our path (those pedestrians ALWAYS get the right of way) and then watch them dust themselves like giant, wrinkled chinchillas. We drove right up next to a mother white rhino and her three female children, one of which was only 10 months old, who blinked sleepily at us in the almost 100-degree heat. The hippos in the water hole had the right idea for the weather that day and only surfaced their noses every so often. We passed herds of buffalo, zebras, elans (antelopes), and springboks, who were all pretty glum because their rugby-playing counterparts lost to Australia that morning and will not be advancing to the World Cup quarterfinals. The best part was when we went through two levels of security that was oddly reminiscent of Jurassic Park in order to see the lions. Right as we entered we were welcomed by four lionesses sunning themselves like the big kitties they are. Well, big, bloodthirsty, kitties with fearsome incisors. Two males, the father and son, were astute enough to recline in the shade of some bushes. Heck, I wouldn’t want to have a full, luscious mane during the African summer. Sometimes it’s hard being sexy.
On the way back to the main building for lunch, we stopped at Aquila’s Animal Rescue Center. There were a couple of warthogs, who seemed to be fond of pineapples judging by the stems littered around, some alligators attempting a dog-pile, and two lions rescued from a company that was illegally raising wild animals to be hunted. My favorite was the female cheetah. She was scrawny but beautiful, and only there because they were trying to breed her with a male that we didn’t see. Apparently he was a jerk or something because they weren’t having much luck and were actually in search of another suitor. Part of me says, “Yeah, girl power!” and then I remember that cheetahs are very endangered and too genetically similar for their own evolutionary good. I suppose if the human population bottlenecked (due to some zombie apocalypse-related catastrophe, of course) we wouldn’t be allowed to be choosy either.
Before heading home to Cape Town, we stopped at the Karoo Ostrich Farm, which is a lot more interesting than you might think. For one thing, our guide had a pet year-old springbok named Chantal who he had since she was 3 days old, and she followed us like a faithful dog for awhile. For R10 (a little over a dollar) you could purchase food pellets with which to feed the ostriches, and even if you only put one in your palm they have quite good aim. We saw the incubators, where the eggs are kept for 42 days until they hatch. Not only are the eggs enormous, they are very strong because the shells are so thick. Our guide dared us to stand on two unfertilized eggs and even put all our weight on one, and sure enough they held everyone up! We saw the hatchlings’ room, where some of them were only 2 days old, and even got to hold a soft, little baby before he got too skittish. We passed the pen with the adolescents (which are awkward in every species) and the pens with the giant adults. The breeds have names like Zimbabwean Blue and Kenyan Red because of the color of their skin. However, the legs of all males turn reddish during this time of year because it’s mating season and they’re excited. Cue the Barry White. I learned they certainly are bird-brained, with their eyes weighing 60 grams each and their brain only 40, but one can already tell that from their dopey smile. Plus, the common belief that they stick their heads in the sand when scared is a myth, because it only looks like that from a distance when their heads are lowered. They do get stressed easily, though, and it can even kill them. That combined with their brain size explains the lack of representation of the ostrich community in our world’s surgeon supply.
At the end we poked around in the gift shop for a bit, but after a tour like that I don’t see the appeal of then buying an ostrich skin wallet. “Oh my God, I’m buying a slow learner.” I’m sure on a farm like that, though, they use the meat and everything else too, and from this trip I do know that ostrich steaks are quite tasty. Afterwards, we piled into the van again with our driver for the long drive back to Cape Town, and thankfully it was much more civilized than the first time around. I stepped back into the CCS homebase sometime before 5 p.m. filled with good memories and astonishingly without sunburn. It finally dawned on me that I was actually living in Cape Town on other side of the Prime Meridian AND the equator about a week ago, but because of the Aquila trip it now really feels like I’m in Africa. And it’s an awesome feeling.
No comments:
Post a Comment