Sunday, November 7th

Today we got up to go on a tour of the area.  Our guide Rob is half English and half Afrikaans.  He was very funny all day!  He kept giving us a quiz on what we remembered him saying!  My dad did great on this!
We stopped at Haut harbor for a boat ride out to Seal Beach were we were able to see the Cape Seals!  While we were there we could see some babies laying up on the rocks.  We then went to Boulder national park and walked among a colony of African Jackass Penguins.  They sound just like a donkey!  We saw some that were molting so they have to stay on land for a long time while they grow new swimming feathers.  They also have an internal thermometer indicating when they get too hot.  Their eyes turn bright red.  We also drove out to Cape Point which is the sothwestern most point in Africa.  If you go east you run into Perth Australia, west you end up in Rio de Janero, Brazil and if you go south you end up in the Antartic.  We also went to the Cape of Good Hope.  Here we walked up to the light house and along the way we ran into a Puff Adder.  This is one of the deadlist snakes in the world!  If it bites you, you will die within an hour unless you get help.  While we were driving to Table Mountain we ran into a couple of different troops of baboons.  One big one climbed up onto the van we were in.  My mom was in the front seat with the window open!  The windows in this van move very slowly!  He then climbed up onto the roof and we had to wait for him to leave.  Later we saw another troop and this one included some babies including one that was so young it could not hold on to mom too well.  She needed to be carried, so her mom ran using on 2 feet and 1 arm instead of 2!  She was still pretty fast!  At Table Mountain we road a cable car that rotated a full circle on our way up the mountain.  At the top we could see all of Cape Town andwe were even lucky enough to see a couple of Dassies.  These are small animals that look like woodchucks but are actually the closest relative to the elephant.
We are now down with our tour of South Africa.  Tomorrow we will begin our very long trip home.  After about 17 hours of flying plus time in airports we will be home!  I will see all my friends in school soon.  My mom and dad will put pictures on my blog and then you all can see what I have seen.

Saturday, November 6th

Today we left Mugwase right after breakfast and drove to the Lion Park.  Here we saw a colony of meerkats, 2 prides of lions one pride was of white lions and the other was the regular color.  We rode through the park in a caged jeep to protect us from the lions.  When Meghan began to talk to the lions one of them immediately got up and came directly over to the jeep and looked at us very closely.  She was only inches from us!  We also got to feed another giraffe and a herd of ostriches kibble.  The giraffe had an amazingly long purple tongue!  There was also a 2 day old baby giraffe that we were able to see.  She was abandoned by her mother right after she was born.  So the Park is now taking care of her and feeding her.  We also saw a few baby hyenas.  The best part was when we were in "Cub World".  We were able to enter an enclosure were there were 7 baby lions.  They ranged in age from 1-6 months old.  We got to pet them and take pictures with them!  After lunch we drove to the Jo'burg international airport and flew down to Capetown.

Thur. November 4 and Friday, November 5th

We woke up extra early and went to a movie set for "I Dreamed of Africa".  Here we met Bernie who is the woman that takes care of the place.  She has a pet Meerkat named Timon.  Timon likes to crawl all over you and then look up your nose which is his way of identifing you.  This was very ticklish!  We then got to climb into the back of her pickup truck and feed Giraf her baby giraffe apples.  Then we had to leave Zulu Nyala and drive 13 hours to our next location.  Along the way we saw some very poor neighborhoods, and lots of people walking around carrying very large packages on top of their heads!  We drove through a big wind storm too!  We finally arrived to our Guest House in Mugwase.  In the morning, we went to the welcome center for Sun City and met our guide who took us to the Elephant Wallow for our Elephant Safari.  Daddy and I rode an elephant named Mana.  He was the fastest.  My mommy and sister rode on Chikusenya, which means "Place of Crocodiles".  Her babies name was Tidimalo, which means "Silent One".  We rode all through the game perserve on these elephants!  Once our tour was over we got to actually feed them by hand.  We had to tell them "trunk up" if we wanted to put the food into their mouth or "trunk down" if we wanted to feed them in their trunk.  After this we participated in a Drumminjg Circle.  We got to play the African Drum and learn all about the instruments.  That afternoon we went back to our guest house to rest and go for a swim.

Wed. Nov 3

This morning we met our guide William for a trip to the Zulu Culture Village.  Before we went into the village, we had to spit on a stone and toss it onto a big pile of stones.  If our stone stayed on the pile we would have good fortune.  If it rolled off we would have evil spirits follow us.  All of our stones stayed on top except my Papa's stone.
We were then allowed into the village.  The men had to walk in first.  We were then led around the village and told about the Zulu life.  I did weaving and then threw a warrior spear into a target!  After our village stay we went on a birding walk.  We saw a tree full of Weaver birds weaving their nests, and a pond full of frogs on frogs.  After lunch we went to a Cheetah Rehab Center.  I saw African Wild Cats, Cheetahs, Cervals and Caracals.  My sister and I were not allowed into the enclosure because they said we were too young.  But after we had spent time with the guide he surprised us and had another guide come over.  They took us each in!  So we did get to pet a cheetah and he licked my arm.  It felt like wet sand paper.
That night we went we went on another night drive looking for a leopard.  We didn't see any but we did see a Flap Necked Chameleon (which I want as a pet when we get home), more Nyalas which is why our lodge is called Zulu Nyala.  We also saw Big Tailed Bush Babies, a common Foam Tree Frog, Cape Buffalo and a herd of Water Buck. Waterbucks have a white ring on their butts that look like they sat on a wet toilet seat.

Tuesday, Nov 2

This morning we went in a van to the town ofHluhluwe and it's primary school, Intuthukoyanalulu.  They have grades R-7.  The school was very different then ours.  They had desks arranged kind of like ours, but everything else was very different.  We gave out school supplies that we had brought with us from home.  I gave my Hot Wheels car to a boy named Siyanda Masuku.  My sister gave her toy flower to a girl named Mbali Ngcobo.  When I was in the 3rd grade classroom I found that they were learning the same things tht we are.  They were working on multiplication and division.  And they had posters on the wall with nutrition facts and the months of the year written in English and in Zulu.  While we were at school the children began to have their lunch.  Everyone ate the same thing.  Rice and Beans.  After the school we went to KFC for lunch!  They have no drive through or biscuits and they call their fries chips.  We went to a Zulu museum and souvenier center to get some presents for friends.  After dinner we went on a night drive looking for a leopard.  We didn't see one but we saw a steenkvo, and a scrub haired rabbit.  It was too windy for most animals tonight.

Mondy, Nov 1

We went on our safari drive lookng for cheetahs hunting.  We found them eating a male Nyala.  We learned that they eat 4.5 kilos of meat a day and they can pick out a perfect sized animal to feed their group the right amount of food.  We saw Guinea Fowl, and a Red Horned Hartebeest.  On our next safari, we went to a national park called Phinda.  We saw a mother lion with 3 cubs.  We also saw a very large eagle called a Marshal Eagle.  It got very dark and we drove right past a large Bull Elephant.  We followed a white tailed mongoose for awhile and then went back to our Camp.

On our way...

We left home yesterday for our trip to London.  Our 6-7 hour flight turned into a 14 hr one!  Our plane had a mechanical and then we onl flew as far as JFK in NY where we had to wait for them to find us a new airplane before we could continue to London.  This means that we lost one whole day of sightseeihng in London.   So we only spent one day in London and took a tour on a double decker bus.  We saw London Bridge, Green Park, Big Ben, and the London Eye which is a huge ferris wheel.  We also went to Buckingham Palace and saw the guards.
After an 11 hour flight to Johannesburg we drove 9 hours to KwaZulu-Natal provence.  This is where our Game Lodge Zulu Nyala is located..  On our first day of safari we found green and copper dung bettles making dung balls the size of golf balls.  They can get as big as a tennis ball.
We found a coalition of cheetas 2 male, 1 female, and 3 cubs.  A large crosssing of zebras, a herd of elephants with a 5 year old baby. A journey of giraffes with lots of babies.  A male giraffe doesn't have much black hair on his horns and a female does.
I found a lower jaw bone of some animal.  Probably a wildebeast.  you can tell it's a herbavoure because it has flat molors and no cutting teeth.  We also found a wildebeast skull.  Our guide is named William and I like listening to him talk about the animals.