It may be day 10 or 11, but my days are messed up because of travel days, time zones and lack of sleep, but I'll go with day 9 for the sake of sequence. Our day begins in the Johannesburg airport after we tried to get some sleep on the plane from Frankfurt to Johannesburg, with a little help from Benedryl and Dramamine. One of the flight attendants took a particular liking to James (not the first person to do so on our trip) and made sure he saved the last chicken dinner for him and the last available orange juice. The sleeping on the airplane didn't go so well for me, so as soon as we sat down at the Johannesburg airport (after being greeting with an African chanting chorus) I put my bag on my lap to use it as a pillow and I was out. I think everyone left me to "watch" the bags while they went to a nearby candy shop for treats.
Our flight to Port Elizabeth was a comparatively quick 1 1/2 hours. We walked off the airplane on the tarmac, and proceeded to a small building for baggage claim. In our peripheral vision, we saw two people waving and jumping up and down. Who could that be? Without stopping for our luggage we ran to Grandpa and Grandma Wheeler and started laughing and crying. Well, they boys were laughing and I was doing both. The people around us were laughing as well, as we were creating quite the scene. Mark dutifully stayed by the baggage claim so we wouldn't be without clothes and toiletries. It was a fun reunion after not seeing them in person for nine months.
Grandpa and Grandma rented a white, VW, stick shift 10-passenger van to haul us all around. Thankfully, Grandpa was kind enough to do all the driving because we would've crashed the minute we set our hands on the wheel as it was on the "wrong" side of the car and on the "wrong" side of the road. More than once, Mark and I squeezed the arm rests as we knew we were going to hit another car making a right OR left hand turn. I don't think I ever got used to that. After stowing Grandpa and Grandma's usual car, we took of to find Kragga Kamma game preserve close by. When we drove into the smallish park we were greeted by:
Warthogs! ("When I was a young wart hog!" we sung many times)
Ostrich
Giraffe
Wildebeasts
Bontebok
Zebra
Springbok
Rhinoceros
This one got a little too close for comfort. This is after we saw our first, fairly close rhino that Mark just had to get out of the van to get a better picture. Crazy man.
Before we entered the park we were told that there were new cheetah kittens, a baby giraffe and a baby African buffalo. We came upon the cheetah kittens first. . .
. . . and the Mama keeping a close eye on us.
Not sure what is growing on this bontebok, but it is a beautiful picture (good job Mark).
We drove through a long loop of monkey area, but we were disappointed when we couldn't find any. Finally, D.J. spotted one, high up in a tree. That was the only one we saw for the day.
You can't see it very well, but the the middle left of this picture we spotted a mongoose scurrying away from us.
We finally got to see the baby giraffe! It seemed so tall that it was hard to believe it was only one day old. The most impressive thing was when the Mama started running! Watching a giraffe run is like watching waves of vertical water.
Daddy, Mama and baby.
This is one of the coolest trees I've ever seen.
You know you wanted a close up of a wart hog. Not the most beautiful animal, but striking in its own right (hopefully not striking at you, with those tusks).
At a cafe in the park, some of the cheetahs were caged. D.J. wore an appropriate shirt as he was the first to want to get close to it.
After walking over a suspension bridge, we came within eight feet of the cheetah pack. I knew we were protected but I got chills just being so close to them.
The similarities of monkeys and my youngest are striking.
Spencer was very hesitant about being out in the open with animals. Grandma was kind enough to wait and gently coax him while the rest of us just left him to come to his senses maybe. They traversed the suspension bridge to join us.
Grandpa, Grandma, D.J., Spencer, Lisa and James. And a cheetah.
And there's Mark the elusive camera man.
The cheetah decided he was bored with us and so took a nap. While he was purring and dosing, he opened his mouth and let out a . . . . . dainty meow. Just like a house cat. We weren't expecting that!
I hesitated to include this picture, but I just have to as it was a memorable moment. That is, I can't wipe the scene from my mind, as much as I try. At first glance you see a cavorting wart hog. Then in the periphery, you see an ostrich relieving itself. As the whole party in the van watch unwittingly, there was a synchronized "EWWWWWW!" as we watched protrusions and expulsions as well as the clean up from the ostrich back side and felt our eyes burning as we drove away.
As we exited the park, we caught a glimpse of the baby African buffalo, the little light brown guy by the Mama.
As the sun set, Grandpa and Grandma took us to a restaurant they frequented while in Port Elizabeth, where the boys continued their consumption of hamburgers. We discovered that when you ask for a napkin, you are asking for a diaper and the boys made fun of me the rest of the dinner. A napkin is called a "serviette" in South Africa. On the way to Port Alfred, we stopped to see Sister Barrus, a member of Mom and Dad's congregation. She gave James a huge shell in gratitude for helping raise money for some of the members of the branch to go to the temple in Johannesburg. Her husband had just passed away and Mom and Dad helped (and still help) her with all the funeral arrangements and the grieving that follows. She also made us a traditional African dessert called a milk tart, which is sort of like a custard pie, but not as eggy. When we arrived at the flat, we talked a bit, but then fatigue gave way and we slept for 10, unmedicated hours.
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