The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009
Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert
Part Eighteen
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November 17 (Tuesday, Day 20, Richard’s Bay, South Africa) (continued) -
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| Beached hippos |
More after the jump . . .
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| A stork goodbye |
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| A hippo goodbye |
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| Sunset over Lake St. Lucia |
We saw several different kinds of birds, too. It was a great trip. According to the people that went on the tour this morning they didn’t see the activity that we saw. When we were there, the hippos were very active. We even saw one bull male “mark” his territory by pooping and wagging his tail simultaneously to fling his poop all over the place. It wasn’t that pleasant, but it’s what male hippos do! Luckily we were far enough away so that none of the poop came our way, but we were close enough to see it fly around. We also saw lots of examples of hippos “yawning” to show their strength to the other hippos.
We got back to the ship and decided to immediately go to dinner to beat the rush without even going back to our cabin. It was a great day and South Africa is much, much, much wealthier than Kenya or Tanzania.
November 18 (Wednesday, Day 21, Richard’s Bay, South Africa) -
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| Old 718 |
We woke up at 5:30 AM to go on our game drive to Hluhluwe Game Reserve. We drove 1.5 hours in the bus and our guide told us all about South Africa while driving there. Apartheid ended in 1994 and there is now 40% unemployment among blacks. AIDS (or maybe just HIV?) has infected 30% of all South Africans but the guide thinks that official number is way too low. He says that people are dying every day from it but autopsies aren’t performed so no one really knows. It sounds like there are still huge discrepancies between blacks and whites in South Africa but I guess it will take longer than 15 years to correct that wrong.
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| Zulu home |
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| Hluhluwe (pronounced "Schloo-schlooie") Game Reserve |
When we arrived at the game reserve we got into our jeeps. Filbert called “shot gun” and got the seat right next to the driver and Snookums sat behind him. We immediately saw a herd of cape buffalo and some warthogs. The topography was very different from what we saw on our Kenya game drive. Hluhluwe Game Reserve is very green and lush with undulating hills. It was so “overgrown” that it was harder to see the animals, but we managed to see them nonetheless. We were lucky to have a rhinoceros cross the road right in front of us and we also had the same thing happen with a couple of giraffes. We saw zebra, baboons and impala, too, including an impala with her 2-day old baby impala. It was a great game drive and we enjoyed the drive back to Richard’s Bay with more commentary from the guide.
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| Cape Buffalo |
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| Zebra rolling |
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| Impala and zebra |
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| Giraffe really like roads |
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| Giraffe really like roads, part 2 |
Next: RHINOS!!!