Rhinos, Hippos and critters, oh my!
Well, I didn’t get to Cape Town this weekend. All the flights were booked solid because this is a long weekend for the South Afrikaners. Actually, Tuesday is a national holiday, and a lot of people have apparently taken Monday off as well and they’ve all gone to cape town.
No matter. A friend of mine in the Mission recommended a local tour company to me, and I gave a call and booked a day trip on Sasturday to Pilanesberg Game Park near by. It is, in fact, a man-made park – about 20 years ago the land was bought up from the people living there, foreign plants and animals were removed, and indigenous species re-introduced. The 55,000 hectares is fenced in and, I learned, is basically the caldera of a long dormant volcano.
Our guide for the day was Richard, but in the morning I was picked up by his mother and driven to meet Richard and the other three people on the tour at a bazaar. Richard’s mom and sister raise award winning Australian shepherds. They’re the tops in South Africa. Once we arrived at the bazaar, since the opportunity presented itself, I got a little shopping out of the way and learned once again how poor my bartering skills are.
From there, we drove about two hours across the country to Sun City, quite a nice resort. I have to admit I was more interested in the drive than Sun City. Along the way we passed two of the biggest platinum mines in the world. I learned that we were not far from the Cullien (sp?) mine, a diamond mine that has produced four of the largest diamonds in the world. There is also a lot of gold mined in this same region, so it is quite mineral rich. The disparity between the rich and poor, though, is quite marked and (almost) everyone agrees that it does need to be addressed. The geography was interesting, too. We gradually left plains and drove into a more mountainous region; apparently this was volcanic millennia ago, hence the caldera that is now the park.
Two of my companions on the day’s trip were an older couple from Long Island, New York, and the other gentleman was about my age and from Paris. He works for Renault and travels primarily to Asia and Africa for them. All of us in the minibus had some serious travel under our belts and we shared stories.
We arrived at the park and I learned that it also has a lodge and timeshares. We had a nice lunch at the lodge and then piled into the open-top trucks for the game drive. On the drive we saw hippos, several herd of zebra, white rhinos, water buffalo (gnu?), gazelles, wildebeest, giraffes, and as the sun was setting we saw jackals and a couple species of owls. No lions, cheetah or elephants. I did get some pictures and I’ll upload some of them as I get a chance. The silence in the park, when the truck engine was turned off, took me by surprise. You could hear for miles, and all you could hear were the birds, an occasional snort of an animal, and the distant rumble of other autos.
Since my previous post, I’ve finished the training that needed to be done and spent a day visiting offices of partner organizations to take care of a little work that needed some personal attention. I discovered that another person I knew from Nigeria is here working for Research Triangle Institute, so that makes this by far the country where I knew the most people coming in. There are people in the Inspector General office, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, The Deputy Mission Director, and now RTI. And I thought all roads led to Rome. Maybe that’s in the northern hemisphere.
Oh, for the record, the water does not spiral down the drain the opposite direction here. Also for the record, the Milky Way is really bright when you’re out in the middle of the countryside away from city lights.
Tomorrow, Monday, is the last day in the office and I depart for the States in the afternoon. After a brief stop to refuel at Isle de Sol (basically a volcanic island in the middle of nowhere) I’ll swing through Atlanta and be home Tuesday afternoon.