Final day in South Africa

Warthogs woke me this morning.


And Morris delivered my cheetah on our last drive! On our very first day, he asked what I would like to see and I requested a male lion and a cheetah. On our first drive, he showed me a male lion, and on our last drive he showed me not just one cheetah, but four!!! A mama with two boys, and a lone female. They were beautiful, and I was very excited. Morris is awesome!




We also saw rhino, zebra, giraffes, wildebeest (and a carcass from last week), elephants, African hawk eagle, baboons, impala, and more.

I packed up and checked out of Shiduli, and Dylan came to fetch me. We had a nice time on the 6-hour drive through the Drakensburg mountains back down to Johannesburg, and he had me crying with laughter as he told me about his tough day yesterday that culminated in a honey badger stealing his dinner. The Drakensburg range juts up several thousand feet from a grassy plain below, so the drive offered wonderful views. At one point, we were stopped (lots of roadwork underway in preparation for the 2010 World Cup) so we bought some homemade marula beer from a woman on the side of the road. Someone suggested I try it before leaving, and Dylan obliged even though he cautioned me against it. As soon as I opened the bottle, his face soured at the smell. I took a sip, and he agreed to take a small taste, too. We both thought it was disgusting, so we screwed the lid back on and put it back on the side of the road so the lady could re-sell it.

We stopped for lunch in Dullstrom (home of South Africa’s highest railway station at 6811 feet above sea level) at a great place called Harrie’s pancakes, where we each had a savory pancake before splitting a sweet one for dessert. My savory pancake was delicious, and the easiest description would be to say it was a thai burrito wrapped in a pancake instead of a tortilla. Don’t knock it until you try it :) I’m still impressed with the quality (clean, nice) of the public toilets in South Africa. We stopped at one this afternoon and there were flowers on the counter. Wonderful! While I was in the ladies room, Dylan went in and bought me jelly babies so I could try them before leaving. The name and package make me laugh, but the oddest thing is that the candies are actually shaped like babies (belly buttons, diapers, and all). I tried each of the 6 flavors, and pineapple was my favorite. I told him “these candies are wrong in so many ways” and he just laughed.

This blog really should end with Dylan dropping me off at the airport so I could catch my two long flights back to southern California, but I must share one new experience I had on the first leg of my flight (Johannesburg to Amsterdam). After some technical difficulties (not sure what, they never told us), we backed away from the gate and within a few minutes the pilot announced overhead that a passenger had been “cruel” to the flight attendants so we’d be turning around and returning him to the gate. Evidently, the guy was drunk and berated a flight attendant, so they kicked him off the plane before we even left. In the end, our flight was delayed over an hour, but I had a long enough layover in Amsterdam that it didn’t affect my connection at all. Also, sleep deprivation over the last week definitely has its upside! I slept for 8 hours on the flight and felt great heading into the second half. On the last 10 hours of the flight, I read and made these videos.

I made it to LAX this afternoon and now it’s 5am and I still can’t get to sleep. I have to work today, so it will be a long day… No matter, it was well worth it!