Safari & Beyond

April 26th

Our last safari day. It was definitely bitter sweet. We have had so much fun and hate to leave but the good part is we still have plenty of vacation left. So we again, got up before the sun, backed up our backpacks, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out one last time to see what we could find.

This morning was pretty quiet. We had spent enough time in the park that impala, kudu, birds, zebras, elephants, giraffes and rhinos were just normal animals to see and pass on our morning drive. We saw a crash of rhinos (that is what they call a group or herd) which was pretty cool. There were eleven of them together and that was apparently highly unusual. There were babies and momma all over the place.

mongoose

We explored different areas and landscapes and passed by some controlled burning areas. We even saw the remains of a bird that had been eaten the night before.

It was just so much fun to drive and look and imagine. This area is just so beautiful.

But it wasn't long before we were traveling to our next destination. We headed out of the park for good about 11am and drove back to Nelspruit. Mark dropped us off at the local mall (his discussion not ours) so we could grab some lunch before we got back on the CityBug.

He recommended us to eat at Spur. It was basically the South African version of Red Robin. It was good but didn't quite have the local flare we were looking for. We walked around the mall for a little while until Mark came back to get us. It was your typical mall, the only things that were really different were, they had a grocery store attached, a bumper car track in the food court and a casino entrance at the far end. It was nice to walk around before all of our upcoming traveling.

Time passed pretty quickly and before we knew it we were on the CityBug heading to Pretoria, South Africa. We were supposed to go straight back to the Johannesburg airport but the CityBug headed to the airport was already full, so we took the next best thing. Pretoria is about 30-45 minutes north of Johnannesburg which was no big deal. That is until we started doing some math. So here is how it played out. Our flight out of Johannesburg was at 7:35pm. It was our understanding that we would be in Pretoria at 5 and at the airport at 5:30. So when we were still on the Citybug at 5:15pm we both started to stress out. We played it as cool as we could but on the inside I think we were both a little stressed.

Verity met us in Pretoria at 6pm. I jokingly (kind of) asked if she thought we would make it as Jed was working on getting our backpacks. She assured me we would be fine. The airport was just down the road and we would be there by 6:30. You could tell she was stressed about it but handled the situation very well. It was frustrating but there was something relaxing about knowing that she was going to handle the problem and we could try not to worry about it. The drive was great and she is just so nice and friendly and we had a great conversation. We learned so much about her family and South Africa by the time she dropped us off at the airport, I felt like we were a part of her family. Even with the small hiccup, I cannot say enough great things about this company & these people. They were just amazing, amazing, amazing!

Jed & I jumped out of the van and pretty much ran through the airport trying to figure out domestic flying in South Africa. It was frighteningly easy. We thought for sure it would come down to the wire but a quick trip at two different kiosk machines, no line at security, no need to remove shoes or liquids and we had made it to the gate in 15 minutes! We even had time to check out some shops and grab some dinner before we boarded the plane.

The quick two hour flight was uneventful and we were landing in Cape Town in what felt like no time. I was so excited when we saw our cab driving waiting for us when we got off our flight. We were on the home stretch. Our cab driver was awesome! (Are you seeing a trend? The people of South Africa are the best!) He works on oil rigs around the world six months of the year and drives 24 hour shifts for the cab company during his "off time". He was nice enough to drive us down the main hang out, Long St. He let us know places to eat and the best way to get around.  When he dropped us off at the Adderley Hotel at 11pm, we were ready to drop our bags and head to Long St to explore. That is until we checked and got our message from the tour company that was picking us up in the morning. We figured we were done with crazy wake up calls but this one was going to be the earliest of them all so we decided to call it a night. Long St would have to wait another night.

Our place in Cape Town