Safari

Cape Town is the biggest city that we've visited since I joined in Bali.  There is so much to do and see here that I had to make a special effort to get out of the city and see a little more of South Africa.  As always there were too many options and not enough time or money to do all the things I wanted to do. If one could afford to one could easily spend several months in Cape Town and the surrounding area without running out of new things to see and do.  One of my new shipmates, Norma, from Sweden, and I decided to do a 2 day safari at a private game reserve.  The place is called Aquila Game Reserve. They are about a 2 hour drive North-east of Cape Town and both the drive there and the game reserve itself were great.  The prince for the safari included pickup at the V&A Waterfront near the ship, meals, lodging and 2 game drives on the reserve.  The captain and his family happened to have scheduled the same safari and Norma and I so had them for company on the road.  It also happened to be Tammy's birthday as well, which we celebrated at dinner.

Aquila Safari is at point B.  We passed through some mountains and the valleys around them were filled with vineyards.  South Africa is wine country.

The halfway point snack stop.  The area reminded me of Southern California, just outside of Death Valley.

The vineyards started very shortly after we left the service station and the entire valley was full of vineyards, except for a few small orchards.  Some of the vineyards appeared to try and provide decent housing for their workers but many of the vineyards had shanty townships on them.  Small corrugated metal shacks crowded together in some dried out little bowl that must not have been suitable for grapes.

In some areas the grapes were heavy on the vines.  It appeared that they have sections that ripen in a cycle so the entire vineyard doesn't have to be picked at once.

They went on for miles.  We must have driven for 30 or 40 minutes with vineyards on both sides of the highway the entire way.

We're there!  It's funny how long a 2 hour drive in a van feels after spending a couple of months at sea.

This is the back of the main lodge.  There is some new construction on the left side but I didn't ask what they were adding.  The whole wall of windows is the dining room.  All the meals were buffet style and they were very good.  There is a large salt water pool just outside the dining room.

Swim up bar on this end and an infinity edge on the other end, looking out over the reserve.

The luxury accommodations, adjacent to the lounge building.

Inside the lounge.  There was a bar and several comfortable seating areas with fire places and TVs.  Then the back side of this building was a huge kids play area, indoor and outdoor.

This pond was beyond the end of the pool and the bungalows were beyond the pond.  There was a fence between the main grounds and the pond because the pond was within the preserve grounds.

This was our bungalows.  They were little duplex units with their own patios and each had a small fireplace.  Firewood was provided but we didn't have a fire.  The rounded section was the shower.

The accommodations were very nice.

I used the shower but I didn't try out the lovely bathtub.

Yes, there were also animals. I was a little disappointed to learn that the big cats are kept separated from the other animals.  They have their own large enclosure but they don't really hunt for their food, they're fed by the reserve and they're pretty used to people and the safari vehicles being around.  The reserve is over 18,000 acres of hilly scrub and offers safaris by horseback, quad runner or by truck, which was what we did.  Nate did the horseback safari and said he enjoyed it a lot.  He also said the countryside reminded him of his home in Wyoming.

So, without a lot of commentary from me, here are some animals:

Springbok

Wildebeests, the young one is onely 4 weeks old.

Youngish male White Rhino.  It looked like he was going to charge the truck we were in so we had to move away a little.

Female White Rhino.  Females have longer horns.

The young zebras were about 4 months old.  The zebras and rhinos were all herded together.

The other truck got closer than we did.  No windows or even walls on the trucks but the lions just ignored us.  They appeared to be pretty well fed.

Kudu.  I can personally testify that Kudu, Springbok and Ostrich are all delicious with Ostrich being the best and most tender of them all.

Aquila has an Animal Rehabilitation Center (ARC) where they were rehabilitating a pair of cheetah that were found nearly starved.  They said they did not expect to be able to release them back into the wild.

Cape Buffalo

These guys were about 40 yards from the pool on the day we left.  I didn't get to taste Cape Buffalo.

Yep, I was a bit surprised myself.  This was the biggest rabbit I have ever seen.

They also have a leopard on the reserve, though we didn't see it.  It isn't contained with the lions and so hunts for his food and we did see some of his handy work. It had killed a springbok the night we were there and we found the carcase.  One hind quarter had been eaten and the rest was just left laying. My guess is that it knows there are no other predators looking to steal the kill so it can go back whenever it wants to eat more. All in all the safari was a great experience and I'm very happy I did it, even though it was a little over budget, how can you come to Africa and not go looking for animals?