Tuesday, September 23, 2014

South Africa (second post for September 23)

Working backwards from things most recently happening to things that happened a month ago, I did, for those who missed all the hints and references, go to South Africa in a week in August. I flew down from Rwanda to meet up with a friend of mine, Mareike, who had worked with me at L'Arche Mobile during JVC round 2. I flew in late on Friday night and got just a few hours of sleep before heading off at 5 in the morning to go on a safari in Kruger National Park. The safari lasted 4 days and (felt) super luxurious, even though it was one of the most affordable one's out there. They cooked for us, we had a morning wake up call, a campfire every night, no dishes, warm showers, and a lot of fun. For some strange reason, no one else signed up for the same four days as Mareike and I, so while the group before us was a random assortment of like 8 people and the one after a group of 7, Mareike and I had basically a private safari. We spent some time with the other groups around the campfire as they departed and arrived, but our day activities were solo. The first morning we were going to be in the park, it was pouring rain and so the guide, I since there was only two of us, invited us into the cab of the truck (rather than the open back) where it was nice and warm and dry. We spent the whole morning in there driving around the park and hearing lots of stories from the guide that we wouldn't have heard otherwise. After brunch we moved to the back of the truck for better viewing. That evening we had a night drive, then the next day back to Kruger (keeping nice and warm up front until the sun came out) for the whole day. We saw lots of rhinos, some lionesses, giraffes, elephants (even a baby one!), hippos, birds, vultures, warthogs, zebra (who always, no matter what, turned their back to you) and tons of other cool things including two crocodiles wrestling. After the safari we returned to Johanesburg for a night before heading to the mountains of South Africa, the Drakensburg. I can't say much to the benefit of Johanesburg, that might be because of the neighborhood we were staying in or maybe it was just the city, but it reminded me a lot of certain places of Mobile with the fast food resteraunts, everything kind of run down, half the shops boarded up, that sort of thing. However, walking around, we did come across a super cool used book store run by a little old man with a very thick accent who clearly spends all his time in and out of the shop reading the books there, so naturally I had to buy something from him. That was probably the highlight of Johanwsburg for me. Then off to the mountains. They were beautiful, but they reminded me less of the mountains at home and more of like Montana maybe or a little bit a eastern Washington too. They were mountains because everything else around them is flat so they stand out, but they themselves weren't particularly peeked like mountains.They just rise suddenly out of the ground these tall rocks with flat tops. We went on a hike one day, but it was super cold so it was hard to enjoy. We had to scramble up this ravine at one point to get to the top and on the way back we climbed down these chain ladders and I thought my hands were going to freeze off touching the cold metal. The best part was the people we met on the hike. We were accompanied by 2 Germans and a French man and that night we all ate dinner together at the hostel and had a great time laughing and chatting. The next day Mareike and I split up. She continued South while I headed back to the city to fly back to Rwanda. 

My impression of South Africa was that it reminded me of home. They had granola bars! I ate granola bars! And fast food pizza. They had huge gas stations with a convience store, large restrooms, and a fast food chain all servicing it. They had, in some places, treated water you could drink from a tap, big grocery stores (though they were more European than American), and lots of industrial farming. But at the same time, lots of what looked like squatter villages to me. According to my safari guide, the average income just isn't that high, and social services work strangely. Apparently everyone can qualify for government housing (and you can tell what it was, small square houses in a development that all look the same) but if you take the housing, you have to pay for ammenities like water and electricity. However, if you live in a hut you can get things like electricity for free. So you'd see lots of thatched roofs or shanties simply because people choose to live that way. The people were really nice though. Two of my highlights were petting a cheetah and almost being run trampled by a baby giraffe. The pictures are all on my camera though, so I can't post them until I get home.

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