Bernie ordered for the group and everyone else headed into the tent area to drink and meet new people. Our food arrived and it was literally a bucket full of meat for 15 people - and it was only $35. Though not very sanitary, it was really delicious.
Some people headed to the botanical gardens, but I went to the craft market off of Long Street instead. I wanted to find some local crafts and ended up buying a lot of beautiful beaded jewelry, which I was excited to bring home to show my mom. We walked to the ship to get ready for dinner at a Thai restaurant nearby with the 20 person group.
After we headed to Mitchells, a local bar where a lot of the SAS kids were. We drank Old Wobbleys before heading to a club called Café Capris.
The fourth day I had my Amy Beihl service visit. Early in the morning, we went to their office where we watched a short movie about the foundation and Amy's story. She had been working in South Africa and was walking one day when four men stabbed her to death. Two of the men who killed her decided to begin the Amy Beihl foundation, contacted Amy's parents and worked with them to start the foundation. We were able to go to one of the sponsored schools where the after-school program was. The students performed all kinds of dances and songs including a hip-hop dance with saxophones. It was so much fun and great to see how much of a difference these programs have made for all of these kids.
Once at the ship, I got ready and met up with Alanna, Chels and a bunch of people to go to Moyo for dinner. Moyo was memorable - it's hard not to remember a restaurant that is an actual treehouse. We had a big group of 20 and it was a big buffet with booths of all kinds of delicious foods. The desserts were out of this world! I bought two pairs of croakies at the shop there before making a detour at Mitchells bar and then a dubstep club. It was crazy - a lot of headbanging. On the way home, Alanna, Trip and I had the most hilarious taxi ride with loud music and lots of pictures.
We woke up to another beautiful South African day to go on our day safari at the Aquila Game Reserve. On our way there we had to stop because there was a disturbance in one of the townships on the way. They wanted the government to give them houses because they were living in self-made shacks. We saw small fires and the police running around the perimeter with guns and batons. Our driver told us to stay away from the windows. The dichotomy in what we saw during our drive and the rest of our day was eye-opening and troubling.
After about thirty minutes, we were able to drive on through the vineyards and finally got to the reserve. The ride took us nearly two and half hours. We were greeted with sparkling wine and a delicious breakfast. Then, we set off in our safari vehicles and saw lions, zebras, elephants, dung beetles buffalo, things that look like deer (but prettier), hippos, ostriches, rhino and other animals.
It was a lot of fun and we were so close to the animals. We stopped along the way and our driver, Johnnie, gave us some more sparkling wine as we stretched our legs.
Across the street was a rescue center where we saw lions, cheetahs, wart hogs before going back to the restaurant for the buffet lunch. We were supposed to go to an ostrich farm on the way back but everyone was too tired so we unfortunately skipped it.
South Africa was amazing and I hope I can go back very soon. Overall, I had a lot of fun and feel like I got a lot done in our short 6-day glimpse of South Africa.
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