Advertisement
Greetings all! Unfortunately my time in South Africa has come ot an end. What an amazing 12 days it has been. In this post we have: my safari, attacking monkies, Johannesburg crime, and the apartheid museum. Let's get started...
Upon my arrival in Johannesburg I was greeted by Patrick, the owner of the hostel I was staying at. That night, we had a couple drinks together and watched cricket until 2 in the morning. I guess you could say that we're pretty much best friends by now...
The next morning I was whisked off to Kruger National Park to chase some animals on a three day safari. to be perfectly honest, the safar ididn't quite live up to my expectations. Out of the big five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo) we only saw two- a rhino and a herd of buffalo. As my dad might say, "2 for 5- not bad in baseball, but it's just not going to cut it in Kruger." That being said, the safari wasn't a complete disappointment. Among other animals we saw lots of giraffes, antelopes, zebras, babboons, and a little chameleon that danced across the road in front of our land rover.
The real excitement came when we stopped for lunch on the second day and encountered a ton of crazy tree-jumping monkies. They weren't the least bit afraid of us, and brazenly dropped from the trees onto our picnic table and vehicle in search of food. While we were eating, one monkey came running by and stole a fork and spoon off the table. Another one managed to grab an apple before our tour guide, Vicky, could scare it off. To cap it off, four or five of the monkies were jumping in our vehicle and when Vicky went to get them out one left me a nice parting gift on my car seat: a giant terd! I definitely didn't expect to be cleaning up monkey poop on the trip.
One thing that has been very shocking to me has been the amount of crime and dange rthat the people of South Africa are forced to live with on a daily basis. Almost every house is surrounded by towering fences with spikes and barbed wire at the top. Johannesburg is arguable the worst. Patrick was telling me that two weeks before I arrived his friend's house was broken into and robbed. A week before I arrived his neighbor was car jacked in downtown Jo-burg in broad daylight. Patrick himself has been robbed at gunpoint, and has had his house robbed 25 times. When I asked if he owned a gun for protection, he smiled and said, "I'm far too unstable to own a gun." I can hardly blame him. It was just hard for me to imagine how people live lin constant fear like that, especially coming from Bellingham where I rarely lock my house or car.
Yesteday, I toured the apartheid museum in Johannesburg. It was fascinating and incredibly well done. I honestly started to cry when I saw all the photographs of hundreds of children and young adults left dead in the streets as a result of the Soweto riots in 1976. After, Patrick and I grabbed some food at a Jamaican restaurant and then drove through the most dangerous part of Johannesburg. Don't worry, Mom, by the time you read this i'll already be in Ireland...far away from danger!
My time in South Africa was almost done, but just as I suspected, South Africa didn't bid me farewell quitely. As I was standing in line at the Johannesburg airport two guys got into an all out fist fight right behind me. A fitting end to my time in Africa... Now, it's onto Ireland. More updates to come!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.068s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0463s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
monkey man
non-member comment
Turds, TURds,and More TURDS
Well done, Laddy. Glad to see that your days and nights are adventurous. Sorry that you had to bid farewell to Patrick. He e-mailed me say that he had dropped you off. What a nice guy. Glad Ireland is your present location.