Day 4 in South Africa

For the pictures that accompany this blog post, go to the end of the updated photo album!

Brrrrr! A cold front I wasn't ready for came in today, and I wasn't dressed as warmly as I should have been for our trip to the elephant sanctuary and cheetah park. These game parks give you a chance to 'meet' animals that have either been injured or discarded in some way. Some of these eventually are placed back into the wild. It is much less expensive and more personal than safaris, and almost as thrilling. It is somewhere between a zoo and a safari, since guides get you up as close as they can to the animals, without putting you in danger.

At the elephant sanctuary, we got a bit of education about elephants, followed by the chance to feed the elephants, a chance to pet them, and if you wanted, a chance to be kissed by them. These were large African elephants we were with, but no enormous bulls. After all that, we had a chance to take the elephant by the hand/trunk, and lead them around a ring on a nice little walk. It was fun even though I'm not an animal lover. The most amazing things about elephants are their life span, their formation of families, and their sensitivity.

After a quick lunch, we headed for a three hour tour of a cheetah park, where we not only got to pet one cheetah, feed others, and have many of them hang around our jeep, but we also got to be 'hunted' by african wild dogs, and see some other incredible animals behind bars. The cheetah is quite a machine - petting one was like putting your hand against a running engine. Our tour guide at cheetah park was a true Afrikaaner - a fun guy who talked with that think Afrikaan accent that made his English fun to listen to.

Overall, like I said, animals are not my first love. I would rather hike around, but this was a perfect day with the Andrew family, our hosts, and we enjoyed spending more time with them, before heading back to the house for a private Mass with Fr. Scott, a nice dinner, and a fun watch of the Brazil/North Korea game.

I'm happy to hear back home that there is still a Big 12, and that the rain is keeping everything interesting. Tomorrow we are heading for a long drive through a national park here that has the Big 5 animals. I'm not much of a spotter, but I'm sure something fun will happen. Stay tuned.

3 days until USA/Slovenia - I'll be there! We need this game!