Elephant Poop and Potty Training...kind of!

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The two weeks we spent in Addo Elephant Park were a nice change of pace from Kruger. Instead of waking at 4am to get ready in the dark to go game driving, we spent time and energy rigging up towels and blankets at the windows every night in order to allow the kids to sleep in as long as possible. Instead of eating dry cereal in the car, we'd have toast, coffee, and cereal with milk on the verandah. So civilized! (Ok, not really with a two and four year old!)



Most of the time we were staying in a "forest cabin", which is pretty funny as there's nothing resembling a forest here! It was a forest cabin, though, in that it was a cute fake wood log cabin with a built-in bench table and small attached bathroom. It was buried deep in the thick brush along its own little path, just like the other nine forest cabins. After living in the u-shaped long house in Lower Sabie, where you saw your neighbors every time you went out, this seemed quite lonely in comparison.



The game driving here was quite different to Kruger too. There were, as the name suggests, lots of elephants. They had a habit of emerging from the dense brush in front of your car, which was a bit unnerving! The best part was when a herd of 50+ decided to visit a watering hole. It was fun to watch them interact and play in the water. Apart from that there were lots of jackals, warthogs, elands and hartebeests, but no cats. Well, actually there are supposedly 11 lions and a few leopards, but they are near impossible to see. We got lucky in our second week in the park and saw a male lion quite close to the road. It made us want to be back in Kruger!



On day three in the park, we decided to try what we'd been putting off the whole time in Kruger: potty training. We were going to be heading to Thailand in just over a week so it was now or never. We have heard that it's difficult to buy big enough diapers in Asia because, 1) their kids are generally smaller, and b) they tend to potty train earlier than in the west due to the high cost of diapers. Yikes! When we trained Kyla she was accident-free by day 3. Going on that, we decided to devote three full days to potty training Jake and then evaluate. We spent three long days just hanging around camp, only game driving on his nap when he was wearing a diaper. We spent a lot of time at the playground and would take the potty with us. Luckily, the laundry was close by so it was easy to keep up with the constant demand for new clothing. By the morning of day three he had started telling us he needed to go and we were feeling more optimistic, but by the end of the day we decided he was still having too many accidents and it was time to call it quits for now. Even though he was excited to use the potty because of the reward of an M 'n' M, when he awoke from his naps he didn't want to take his diaper off. We decided that he wasn't yet ready. It would take too many more days to train him and then we'd be on a long haul flight so would have to go back to diapers anyway. So close, yet so far. I guess we have to hope that diapers in Asia are like wifi in Africa: there is a constant threat it's not going to be there, but somehow we can always find it! I hope so. Otherwise we will have an interesting week or so of forced crash-potty-training!



After we decided to ditch potty training, we could go back to our normal routine of game driving in the morning. I think it was a bit of a relief for all of us! We also had a couple of move days, spending one night in a two-room cottage and another in a large chalet, both with views of the elephants in the distance and a kitchen bigger than that we have back home!



The whole time we'd been in the park we'd talked about going to the floodlit waterhole hide at night to hopefully see some nighttime critters. We kept putting it off as we knew it would totally mess up the kids' sleep pattern. On our second night in one of the bigger chalets, scott came up with a plan to alternate sneaking out after the kids were asleep to check it out and see if it was worth taking them to. In our usual forest cabin, the kids' beds were right by the door so it wasn't possible to sneak out. This was our opportunity! We put them to bed at 7:30 as usual but of course they had a hard time settling in. By 8pm they were still wide awake. How do kids know when you have plans and need them to fall asleep fast?! We decided to just go for it all together. The kids were excited when they heard the plan and we quickly got their sweaters on over their pajamas and headed out in the car. When we walked into the dark hide there were at least ten other people all completely heeding the signs that call for "silence!" Unsure how long we'd last, we found a spot and sat down. There were no animals on the watering hole but the kids were excited just to be there in the dark and were remarkably quiet. Still, after ten minutes we decided it was pointless and instead walked up to the picnic tables overlooking the watering hole. The stars were amazing, and I even saw a shooting star! Kyla and Jake had fun watching the shadows of their heads grow and shrink as scott moved the flashlight around. By the time we got back to our chalet at 9:30, we all crashed for the night. Kyla awoke bright and early the next morning at 5:15am and they were both really moody all day. That reminded us of why we don't get out much at night!



During our final few days in the park we decided to do a couple of excursions. The first one was to a wildlife sanctuary just ten minutes out of the park in Addo town. We had trouble finding it as the name had changed. It turned out that the original crocodile and lion park had closed down after an "incident." The restaurant manager had gone out to a bar one night and got inebriated, then came back and teased the lions, going part way into their cage. Of course, wanting to maintain their status at the top of the food chain, the lions pulled him in, killed him and ate him! When it reopened as Addo Wildlife, the only cats were caracals and African wildcats. At least there was no chance of being eaten! Apart from that, they mostly had birds and reptiles. It was pretty small so we were easily done in an hour and then headed to the beautiful restaurant for lunch. Kyla was impressed when her eggs on toast came decorated with real flowers. She was less impressed with the black grill marks on the toast though. Typical four year old!



The next day we went on a bigger excursion to another wildlife sanctuary that focused on the big cats. Since leaving Kruger, we'd all been missing seeing big cats so we decided it would be fun for the kids to have some guaranteed sightings. It took almost two hours to get there through various neighborhoods (including townships) and on some pretty fast, scary roads. When we arrived at the gate, Kyla pointed out a giraffe. I thought it was just a statue but then it moved! It was so fun to see giraffes again as they are absent in Addo Elephant Park. The first twenty minutes was a drive through beautiful scenery looking for free roaming animals. I was impressed as it seemed very nicely put together with cute hand painted signs and information boards about all the animals. Then we arrived at the lions and tigers part. At this point you got out of your car and looked for the cats roaming in big enclosures. It wasn't at all what we expected. There were no other tourists and no staff members to greet us, just us and the cats, separated by a flimsy looking fence. We gingerly went forward and watched some white lions in their enclosure at a distance. We then walked across a central field, past broken picnic tables and braais, to another huge enclosure. A white tiger saw us from the far side and instantly stood up and started walking towards us. We got nervous and decided to head back to where we'd seen some volunteer huts. After calling out for a few minutes, an unofficial looking lady came out and offered to walk with us. She took us past the white lions and to a tiger that showed way too much interest in us. It stood up as we got near and kept its eyes on Kyla and Jake, following us along the fence. When it went back in its den, there was just a flimsy metal gate keeping it in, and a two foot high fence. Scott was nervous it could escape and the kids started to freak out so we decided to turn around. We asked the lady if any of the cats had ever escaped and she hesitated and then said that they had, but before she'd started working there. When we then asked if they'd attacked anyone she just laughed. It wasn't very comforting, especially given what had happened at the lion and croc park in Addo. I was suddenly in agreement with scott and we were soon back in our car and heading up towards the restaurant and smaller animal cages.



Once we arrived there we felt much more comfortable. There was actually staff working there to greet you and a minivan full of school kids arrived too. This part was pretty good as you got to walk on a raised wooden platform and view the animals from above. Our favorite was the black leopard. It was quite animated, roaming around its enclosure a lot. The kids liked the walkways but Jake surprised me by being a bit afraid of falling. He's normally fearless! There were definitely parts when he could have slipped through, though, so we had to monitor him closely. Safety standards here are nothing like at home, hence our fear of the big cats escaping. We had lunch in the restaurant and chatted a bit with the volunteers. They said their accommodation is close to the lions and they can hear them all night long!



By this time we decided we'd better leave and get Jake his nap. It was apparently just a 30 minute drive to Jeffrey's Bay, famous as home to one of the best surf breaks in the world. We planned to drive there, drive around a bit and see it from the car, then head back towards another game reserve. Well, I think we could have made it in 30 minutes had we driven the speed limit of 120 km/h the whole way. We drove more like 80 km/h given that the roads had no crash barrier in the middle for most of the way and therefore traffic was coming head-on at amazing speeds. The drivers here are crazy too and do dodgy maneuvers such as overtaking on blind bends. It's pure suicide!



Jeffrey's Bay was really nice and actually reminded me of smaller coastal communities in California, until you see barbed wire and electric fences and remember that this is South Africa! Still, we wished we'd booked a night or two here as it looked to have a beachy laid-back vibe. As the drive had taken longer than expected, we decided to forget the other game reserve and just head back home. We were glad when we made it through all the townships and bad driving, incident-free, back to camp.



Today is our last day in Addo and tomorrow we start our journey to Thailand, flying via Johannesburg and Abu Dhabi. I'm not looking forward to the travel, but I'm looking forward to arriving in Asia for a change of scenery. Goodbye, Africa, it's been truly amazing!



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