Pilanesberg National Park

On Sunday we visited Pilanesberg National Park in search of wild African animals. I am sure over the course of this blog there will be lots of posts about safaris and wildlife. The next time we go to see animals I will have a better camera! Using my phone and the ipad is really not cutting it. 

Pilanesberg is over 2 million years old and is one of only three alkaline volcanoes in the world. Do we have any geologists out there who have any idea what this means? Pilanesberg was declared a national park in 1984 and the park covers 220 square miles (572 km2.) It is the philosophy of Pilanesberg to conserve biodiversity while maximizing the park's economic contribution to the regional economy. 

The trip to Pilanesberg takes about 2 hours each way from where we are staying. We woke up at 4 a.m. and got on the road by 5 a.m. It seems the first rule of wild animal viewing is that in the summer (which it is here now) animals get up early in the morning to go to the water holes. As the day gets hotter the animals tend to lay low and they are harder to spot.

The first part of the trip was kind of harrowing (depends on who you ask because Mr. Deep would say it was totally fine) as we drove through some not great areas of Pretoria in the dark. Once we got on the motorway things improved and we drove through some really small towns and saw some interesting things. First of all the phenomenon of highway pedestrians continues. There were so many people walking along the roads and this was before 7 a.m. on a Sunday. I am thinking people were probably going to church. There are also a lot of people trying to hitch rides. At first we were confused because the would be hitch hikers were not using the thumb gesture as you would (or more likely wouldn't because you wouldn't be hitch hiking) in the U.S. They kind of wave or make like a slow down gesture by moving their palm in a downward motion. We also saw a lot of shanty towns, which is something unbelievable to see and I will definitely write some posts about this in the future. There were also huge fields of sunflowers in full bloom. I tried to get pictures of some of this but there really was no way to pull over so they turned out kind of blurry and as usual don't do the actual scenes justice.

We arrived at the park just a bit around 7:15 a.m. After paying at the gate you get a map/booklet and go into the park and just drive along dirt roads looking for animals. First, we made our way towards a water hole. The first exciting animals we saw were hippos. Just like you'd imagine they were kind of lying there and you can only see part of their bodies and their huge eyes.

A bit later, we saw a male lion. He was in the grass so it's practically impossible to see him well in the pictures. 

We saw a lot of what we started affectionately calling "deer" including impalas, kudu, springbok, eland etc. Here's a short video of a wildebeest walking right by our car.

There were many zebras out and about which was quite cool. Here's a photo and a short video of some zebras just hanging out and eating grass.

You would not believe how intently you are staring when you are trying to spot animals. It's exciting but exhausting because you are looking so hard at the landscape. I can't tell you how many times one of us yelled out "wait, what's that?" only to discover it was just a rock or a tree. I will say though that I think I am a pretty good animal spotter. 

Mr. Deep and I were really hoping to see elephants and finally we did see one. Back to my earlier point I realize it's not a competition but I did see it first. When we first saw him he was alone just eating grass. Then I guess he wanted to walk toward the water hole and he started walking down the road. We ran into some people who clearly didn't read their map booklet because they pulled their SUV up close to the elephant. You're supposed to back up and stay out of his way! Mr. Deep may not get nervous about driving around sketchy Pretoria in the wee hours of the morning, but he was none too excited to have an elephant walking toward the car and he was definitely not taking any chances. We later saw more elephants at another water hole. Below is a photo and a short video of some of the elephant sightings.

We didn't get to see any giraffes, baboons, vervet monkeys, cheetahs, leopards, buffalo or rhinos. We'll definitely go back to Pilanesberg and will also visit different parks in the future! Here are some more pictures of beautiful scenery from the park and one shot from the ride home. 

Some kind of nests that we saw a lot of throughout the day. I tried to Google to figure out what they were but couldn't find anything. 

Isn't this just how you'd picture an African sky to be? 

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Driving Myself Crazy

There are many things that have made transitioning to life in South Africa fairly easy. Everyone speaks English, the weather is warm and the dollar is strong. There are also things that seem extremely foreign and challenging. One such thing is driving. I have now driven a few times and I seriously wonder if I'll ever get the hang of it. Mr. Deep on the other hand would think nothing of taking off right now on a five hour road trip. He is perfectly comfortable. I guess we are just different that way.

Here are some of the things that I think make getting used to driving here extremely difficult  for an American.

1) Which side? We've been here a week and I am still about half the time walking around to the wrong side of the car to sit in the passenger seat which here is the driver's side. Old habits die hard! When you sit in the passenger seat you can't see yourself in the rear view mirror because its turned completely right toward the driver. Then when you are driving you have to stay in the left hand lane. Not a problem on a straight route but make a turn and you might fall into old habits and get in the right lane. That is until you get yelled at by your husband. Making turns when other cars are present also seems overly complicated. If you had to turn right onto a street in the U.S. and a car was stopped at a stop sign waiting to pull out from the street you were turning into, you would pay that person no mind at all. They'd just be way over on your left. Here, you have to go all the way around them so that you are staying left. And don't even think about making a right on red. You'll cut across traffic and die! So let's say you've got all of this down and you are ready to make your turn. You're going to flip on your windshield wipers to signal your turn because the windshield wipers are where the directional should be! Once you finally remember your directional is on your right, then it's all backwards anyway because you flip it up for left and down for right. All of this doesn't really matter that much because....

2) You are brand new to the area and have no idea where you are going anyway!

3) The roads and parking spaces seem overly narrow and the rental car we have seems overly wide. Someone who shall remain nameless already pulverized a side view mirror backing out of a narrow parking space where there was a pole.

4) No sidewalks and lots of pedestrians. And not just pedestrians. People walking double file, kids, people walking dogs, women balancing packages on their heads, people on bikes, some type of trash collection that looks like that large rolling canvas dumpster that people use in the states when someone leaves a job and all of their office contents get thrown away to prepare for the new employee. Only these dumpsters are piled high three times the size of the dumpster itself. 

5) How far and how fast?  I was that person in school who thought, "I'm never going to need the metric system." 

There is more that I could go into here. The traffic lights, the aggressive South African drivers, the hawkers. There is no shortage of content out on the roads. I'll save it for another time. 

Feeling good after driving and surviving! 

My What a Big Box of Q-tips You Have

We are currently living in a guest lodge. It is a nice place and I should know because I spend a lot of time here. We still only have one car and I'm not at the point in my driving (too scared) to where I can drop Mr. Deep off at work and keep the car for the day. So most days I am home during the day hanging out in my little one room "apartment" or outside on the grounds.

One day, I got to chatting with the lodge housekeeper when she came in to make up our room. After talking for a little while she asked me where I was from. When I replied the United States, she said "oh I thought so." It turns out that it wasn't my accent that gave me away it was the giant box of 500 Q-tips. She said Americans always have big boxes of Q-tips. I asked if Europeans and Africans use Q-tips and she said they do but they "would probably only have a box of about 100 at one time." She then asked me why we need so many Q-tips - did I use them for putting on make-up or something? I really didn't have a good answer for this one. I wish I could say that I stocked up thinking maybe they wouldn't sell them over here but that's not it because Mr. Deep and I have been using this box for over a year. I mean let's face it, using up 500 Q-tips takes time.

The Farmer's Market Excursion

Yesterday we visited the Farmer's Market in Fourways which is about 20 minutes from where we are staying. What a wonderful experience! This market is open every Sunday and seems to be extremely popular. It opens at 10:00 a.m. and by the time we arrived at 10:45 it was so crowded we had to park in the overflow parking lot. There were very few (if any) farmers at this market. It would probably be more accurate to call it an Artisan Market or a Food and Craft Market. But I'm not judging. They had live music and the guy sang "Sugar Man" which we thought was cool because it proves that people here really do love Rodriguez. Plus it was coincidentally Oscar Sunday. Check out the pictures.

This is biltong. It is jerky and is very popular here. I am going to conduct a biltong tasting and will create a future blog post to share thoughts. 

Close up of biltong

Cheeses for sale

The most popular booth was selling these cocktails. They came in ball jars and had either rum or vodka and various fruits. Interesting because in the U.S. glass would likely not be allowed an at event like this. You had to return the glass before leaving. The bee was included free of charge.

There was no shortage of booze at this market

The seating consisted of hay bales and stumps

Lots of gardens and plants for sale

This was the most popular food item. It seems to be chicken strips and fries with either blue cheese or mozzarella cheese.

Cute girls that we met. They gave us a lot of suggestions regarding things to do and places to visit. Notice the fruity drinks they had. I had champagne.

Not Bad Just Different

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We've only been here in Sunninghill, Gauteng - South Africa for a little over 24 hours but I want to share with you how I am going to try to approach the expat life. Notice I say try because I think this approach is going to be a work in progress but maybe if I share it here I will try a little harder and you can keep me honest.

Everything that you read about maximizing the expat experience says that rule number one is not to compare your new life and surroundings to that of your home country. This is not easy to do when you have lived in your home country all of your life and you are used to certain customs, behavior, culture, rules, amenities and on and on. In the short time we have been here I have noticed so many things that are completely different from what I've experienced in the U.S. What I am going to try to do is explain these things without judging and without giving an opinion about which "way" is better. So for example I will try not say things like, "can you believe they don't have Target or a Target like store here?" Well that really sucks! How am I supposed to get everything I need in an easy and convenient manner?" Instead I will try to say I went shopping and here was my experience and here is how it is different from the U.S. If I find something really egregious then I will have give an opinion but I am going to try to save that for the really big things.

So here's one. In the U.S. you rarely, if ever, see people walking along the highway. When I say highway I mean like I-95 for example. I think in my whole 44 years I have maybe seen three to five people walking on the highway, usually within a mile of seeing a broken down car and normally with a gas can in hand. Wednesday, driving 30 minutes from the airport to the place where we are staying, I saw at least five people walking on the highway. No broken down cars in sight. Don't think that there is a special pedestrian lane or an extra wide shoulder or anything either. There isn't. Interesting right? I assume that these people are going to and from work and that this is normal. Maybe not entirely safe but a way of life just the same.