Day 9 South Africa - School & Game Drive

We had a late departure today, 9 AM, but I got up at 7 in order to explore the grounds before we left. After brekie I found some lovely (just kidding!) warthogs. They are really, really ugly. But it is so interesting to watch them eat. Most of the time they eat like a normal pig, but occasionally they kneel down on both front legs in order to tug at some particularly delicious morsel. Tres cool!

We headed out on the highway, then turned off onto a rough gravel road, then onto some really poor pavement. In all, it took us about 45 minutes to get to the G Adventures Planterra sponsored school. It is a preschool for ages 1-5 and we were invited into the class of 3-4 year olds. It was a large class, easily over 30 kids. They sat in rows on little colorful plastic chairs and most of them stared at us in wonder, although there were a few shy ones.

Their teachers are volunteers and are supervised by someone with training. The children get breakfast and lunch as well. If the parents can’t afford the nominal fee, they can volunteer to help out instead. The classroom wasn’t all that big, and the walls had a few posters and charts with colors, numbers, etc. to help the children learn.

The teacher asked the kids to recite various things for us like numbers, colors, months of the year, nursery rhymes and songs. They actually shouted their responses and they were quite loud at times! I was surprised that they were learning the same songs that preschoolers learn back home, like “The Wheels on the Bus”.

After a bit, they children got a recess break and went outside to play and interact with us. Like kids everywhere, they loved to see their picture on the back of the camera after you took their photo.

When it was time to go, we headed back the way we came and covered some of the same road we had taken yesterday. We went past orange groves and packing plants, most of which had just completed the orange growing season. We also passed some tremendously large termite hills! I had no idea they could get that big.

We arrived at where we are spending the next 2 nights. Hurray! It is a beautiful private game reserve called Chisomo Safari Camp. We were greeted with wet washcloths and a welcome drink then given the key to our tents. Talk about luxury camping! I could certainly do this style of ‘roughing it’ more often! We have our own bathroom, shower and again, there is mosquito netting around the beds.

We were served lunch in the dining tent then we had about 30 minutes to get ready for our first safari drive. We are in 11 passenger jeeps again, but these ones are open – no roof. There is a seat at the front of the vehicle, outside in front of the bumper for the ‘tracker’ to sit. He watches the tracks and tries to figure out where the animals are.

Unlike yesterday, we drove on trails, and at a much slower speed. There are many, many roads criss-crossing the game park and we wandered up and down with our eyes peeled. We also went where I thought we couldn’t go, off-road, into bushes, water, and sand. I was sure we were going to get stuck. Many times we couldn’t even make a turn properly without going back and forth until we made it! Another big difference from yesterday was that the foliage was so close, we literally had to duck and lean in to avoid getting hit by tree branches. Some of the branches were quite thorny and we were told that others were poisonous!

We saw giraffe, white rhinos, yellow billed hornbill, tree squirrel, civet, waterbuck, and nyala. After awhile, we got to a spot and were told to climb out! I couldn’t believe my ears! Nor could I believe my eyes when we walked past a male cheetah resting in the grass! (and another one we couldn’t see very well). Our guide said we were too big to be prey so we didn’t bother them. It was an amazing and rather scary experience.

We did some more driving then stopped in the middle of a clearing for a refreshment break. They set up a table with a table cloth, some snackie type foods, and the water or pop we had ordered previously. The sun was setting and the water went down nicely after driving on those dusty roads.

Shortly after that as we were headed back we saw a leopard. Apparently it was a male and he was huge. We drove where there was no road to try and keep up with him but we lost him. The light was poor and I didn’t get any clear photos, but it was quite an experience.

We came back in the dark and the spotter shone a big searchlight from side to side to see if he could find any night animals. A civet cat crossed the road in front of us and wandered off into the night.

We arrived back at about 6:30, had a delicious supper at 7:30 and it is now after 10 PM. For some reason I am beat!