I went to Africa a few months ago on a trip with my mom and sister, and I just realized this would be a great place to post the pictures! (I like this blogging thing!)
On the other hand, my sister wrote a GREAT piece on our trip, which tells the story of the trip so well, I wanted to share.
"What a trip! My mom was right when she said that it takes a few days after you get home to digest a trip like this. I'm still processing what it was and what it meant to me. I had such a great time - so many laughs (Holly pretending to eat tall grass and be a giraffe so as not to "clue in" the real giraffes 50 feet away during our bush walk comes to mind) and such awe inspiring things to take in. Capetown was really cool. It was a much more progressive city than I expected. We were clearly in the cool touristy part of town so we may not have gotten the nitty gritty of what the city was really like but I think I was expecting something resembling a city in India and what I got was something much closer to Santa Barbara, California. We had a very fun day of wine tasting in Stellenbosch (which Holly and I quickly referred to as Sloshenbach) and some wonderful dinners out in Capetown. Our entire group was about 40 people and Mom and Holly and I quickly became buddies with about 4 other folks. Our smaller group of 7 had A LOT of laughs throughout the entire week. I had expected to have a reasonable amount of free time on this trip but the trip planners just packed in activity after activity followed by a big huge meal with all of the food and spirits you could handle. The great part about that was that you were always moving and the jet lag really didn't affect us - there was no sleeping, the next fun thing's happening in just one hour!
On Tuesday, we got back on the airplanes and flew to Sabi Sabi via Johannesburg (Joburg if you're South African). From Joburg we all flew on 3 small chartered aircraft. Let me just say that Sabi Sabi is amazing. The resort is all open air and the buildings are all disconnected (a ranger has to walk you to your room at night because of leopards and hyenas who troll the grounds sometimes!). The rooms are big suites and are just beautiful with a very African safari feel. The service is fantastic and we had a great ranger and tracker who our small group stuck with for the 2 days we were there.
The fascinating part about the safari is how REAL it is and how hard it is to grasp that concept. We all kept talking about the Disneyfication of everything - "So hard to believe that I'm really here, these animals are WILD and real and living in their natural habitat and I'm out smack in the middle of the bush in AFRICA!!!" The natural inclination is to expect that you're going come around a corner and see the backlot of the "safari set" any minute now. BTW, mom, you were right, they did position the giraffes bones along the road (I insisted that it must have died of natural causes with it's legs crisscrossed right on the side of the road!) but only because the giraffe wandered out onto their rugby field and died!
I saw some amazing animals up very close. The female lions sleeping 3 feet away from our rover were amazing from the start but I think seeing the male leopard sitting upright very regally at sunset was pretty incredible too. I also saw giraffes, rhinos and cape buffalo and had a very close up experience with a big group of elephants. I have a really cool picture of a mom and baby cuddling affectionately - that was so amazing to see.
The animals were incredible to see and the skies were just awesome - I saw THREE shooting stars out the airplane on the way home! BUT, the most amazing thing about the trip was just being on the African continent and learning more about it and realizing that the people who live there are just like you and me. South Africa has had an incredible struggle over recent history but they really seem to be on a road of healing and recovery. It was amazing and so inspiring to see all of these people whose skin color ranges from very dark to very light living in relative harmony and recognizing that everyone has a part to play in the racial healing. Our tour guide in Capetown (whose grandfather was Malaysian) told us all about how the government used to categorize people as black or colored or white. Your classification determined where you could live and what rights you had. He said that he still uses those terms (LOTS of people do) to describe people because that's what he grew up with but hopefully his kids would use them less and his grandkids wouldn't even see a need to make reference to skin color.
On the last night, there was this group of singers that sang at Sabi Sabi during our big finale dinner. It's hard to describe how moving it was to see them. They were just singers from a local village but their songs and what they represented brought at least mom, Holly and I to the verge of tears. As I watched this group of 20 singers, I had all these thoughts flying through my head ranging from, "These people are absolutely beautiful! What an amazingly exquisite and rich culture they have!" to a sad feeling of "Man, these Africans really got a raw deal once the Europeans and Americans showed up their shores!" It was quite an experience and I'm definitely the better for it.
One other thing mom said was that these trips are good because they make you pick your head up and see what the rest of the world is like. You are so right Momba! Thanks for taking Holly and I on the trip to share it!
Love, Laurel"
Click here to see the pictures I took....
