While this last week sort of defined what the next few months of school will look like, our trip to Addo Elephant National Park and Schotia Private Game Reserve certainly prevented any sense of normalcy from setting in. Classes Monday through Thursday were routine, we brushed up on South African history, musical instruments, popular short stories and the like. Good classes, learned plenty. Thursday evening Ryan Fuchs and I attended the NMMU soccer tryout. Well, 75 players showed up, most of whom had no intention of making the team. In 2.5 hours I played 15 minutes. I was not pulled aside because it's hard to prove that I am a player in 15 minutes after four months away from the game. Well, the coaches fortunately noticed Fuchs, and the fact that the varsity team needs a left back really helped him. Fortunately for me, I just hung around him once he got pulled aside and essentially willed myself into the final portion of the tryout. I got to play another five minutes playing a different position than I normally would. That said, at the end Fuchs was picked for the reserve team and an extended tryout and I was not. However, when we approached the coach after, he invited me to join the team and essentially Fuchs and I are in the same position now anyways. I am confident I can convince the coach I am one of the better players he picked in a training session that actually requires more than just flashy skills. My disappointment certainly didn't last long, considering that by 8:00 am the next morning we were on a tour bus on our way to Addo National Park. Addo is only an hour away and has one of the highest concentrations of African Elephants in the world. The park is huge, we only saw a small piece of it, but in about two hours, we saw over 150 elephants!
We ate a short lunch in the park, and drove about a half an hour to the nearby Schotia Private Game Reserve. Schotia is owned privately, so all the game we saw had been purchased and introduced artificially to the fenced off environment. That said, there were hundreds of animals living in very good conditions, and all of them live a completely wild lifestyle. The lions hunt for their food, the other animals graze, and most of the animals have had many cubs or calves since their initial purchase. The park has one pride of lions that apparently are tougher to find. Well, we found them in the first twenty minutes and spent a couple of hours photographing and simply enjoying their presence.
At around 4:00 pm we drove to a quaint farmhouse where tea was waiting for us. We took turns petting horses, and of course throwing a frisbee. After tea, we went back to the trails, saw more animals, more lions, and drove to the top of the largest hill for sunset.
Dinner was held in an indigenous Koisan style lodge, with multiple fire pits, and beautiful modern features to make the experience feel incredibly luxurious. Dinner was ostrich stew, green beans, and rice. Easily the best meal I have had since I got here. We left dinner and had a short drive back to the main lodge. We turned on the spotlight (it was dark) and were fortunate enough to see the park's hippos out of the water, and grazing in the field. What a way to end the night. The rest of the weekend we relaxed, read for class, and tried to keep up with our journaling. Quite the week! In addition, I've been here for four weeks now! I can't even believe it, but I have less than three months left here already. I better keep "living it up!" as all the locals say.
Love from the wilds of Africa,
Andrew
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