Addo Elephant National Park was like a combination of I Spy and I’m Thinking of an Animal. . . but in real life. We drove around with our heads peered up against (and out of) the van windows, looking for animals to mark off of our charts. We really wished we had more than one pair of binoculars.
She was being really funny, “Why did we pack jackets today? I’m sweatin’ like a sinner at church!” We were actually relieved to be visiting South Africa during their cooler, winter temperatures.
We were somewhat impressed with what we had seen, but we had really hoped to find an elephant or a lion or a dung beetle, so we kept driving around. But we mostly just saw lots of birds and lots of warthogs:
And then we realized there were two elephants:
Then Steve yelled at us to look out the back window. The next two or three minutes were unreal. A small herd of elephants ran right towards our car:
It was one of those experiences where Steve and I looked at each other in disbelief. . . this was really happening!
This last elephant made us a little nervous. He stopped, looked right at us like he was bothered, waved his trunk around at us, but then he finally turned back and kept going into the brush with the other elephants:
Rachel immediately asked, “Is that an extra trunk?”
Steve about died laughing. He caught it on video. . . so I’m sure she will be teased for decades to come.
And with that, we decided it was time to go. . . because it’s always best to depart on a high note.
There is lodging available at Addo Elephant National Park, and if we were to go back again someday, I would want to spend at least one night sleeping in the park.
On our drive back to Port Elizabeth, I asked Steve to pull over so I could take this picture. But I should have taken it as a panorama. . . it was the largest cemetery I had ever seen:
Since we had been in the car for most of the day, we stopped at Hobie Beach to let the kids run around and play.
Here’s my picture of Shark Rock Pier:
But it sure was it windy. Hence the reason we packed our jackets:
There were a lot of comments that came out of Steve’s mouth, including things like:
“I don’t know why anyone would ever want to live in Port Elizabeth.”
(Hmmm. . . maybe it’s because they have miles and miles of pristine beaches. . . or maybe it’s because of the scuba diving, surfing, kiteboarding, or world famous whale watching.)
“Every single time we come to Port Elizabeth, it’s windy.”
(That was especially funny to me. . . because you know, we’ve been to Port Elizabeth all of three times.)
“If we had to move to South Africa, this is the last place I would pick to live.”
(Not true. . . but Steve clearly didn’t like the wind.)
We went back to our hotel and met up with Derrick and Gcobisa, who had spent the day at the local mall. Derrick bought Gcobisa a pair of red Converse All Stars. Even though Gcobisa has small feet and wears kids’ sizes, the shoes still cost $50 USD.
I was starting to get nervous about all of these great pictures we had taken on our trip that had been downloaded onto my computer, but weren’t backed up anywhere. Since internet speeds were relatively decent at the hotel, I decided to pay for 24-hours of internet to get as many pictures as I could loaded onto my blog as a backup.
We hadn’t ever really eaten a real lunch and the kids were starving. So Steve, Derrick, and the kids went to eat dinner at the hotel’s buffet.
The cost was something like $20 per adult, so I decided to stay in our room and work on uploading pictures. Gcobisa stayed behind with me, so I could get her registered for a visa interview. There weren’t any appointments available in Durban, where we had planned to have her interview, so we made the appointment for Johannesburg.
Steve texted me: You want to come.
Me: Are you sure? I just ate a bunch of crackers and half a pound of cheese.
Steve: Salad, fruit, rice, potatoes, lots of desserts.
So I went. The salad was lame. The fruit was picked over. The rice was served with curry. Menudo curry. (Menudo is cow stomach lining and has the most putrid smell ever.) None of the other entrees were the least bit appetizing. The desserts were gross.
I ate a small salad, a dry roll, and pushed the rest of my food around on my plate. . . All I could think about was how good the salads and pizza had been at Charlie’s Pizza and Pasta the night before. Lesson learned. Always, always, always, walk around and check out the buffet before you pay twenty bucks to eat.
But you know. . . you win some, you lose some. And the elephant experience was definitely a win.