South Africa
We spent time in Cape Town then flew to Hoedspruit so we could do a Safari in Kruger National Park. While in Cape Town, we went to Gaansbi, Seal Island, and did the Great White Shark Cage Dive where we saw 8 different Great White sharks.
Dear Journal,
Today we all woke at 5:50 because our flight left at 7:00. We were all had no energy and looked like zombies. We went to bed the prior night at 12:30 am, so we hadn’t gotten enough sleep an average human needs to function. It was all chaos everyone so tired, but at the same time trying to make sure they were all packed up and ready to go. We went to the airport with our tour guide, he took us up to the airport then dropped us off. We passed security then went to breakfast at Wimpey’s (a breakfast place). At Wimpey’s the second we sat down we saw a mother and daughter who looked exactly like Cyndi and Sofia. Aleisha first noticed them and brought it to our attention, it was bizarre they could be twins. We all were starring, then we had a feeling they were staring at us, so my dad and I went over to them and showed them a picture of Cyndi and explained how we thought they were people we knew. They were laughing about that and saying they didn’t see us staring at them, even though it was obvious they noticed. As soon as we got our food we noticed we had 20 minutes tell the boarding gates closed and we were on the other side the airport. We stuffed our cheeks with food asking for the check between bites. When we paid we sprinted to our gate, then loaded onto the second bus because the first one was crammed with people. When the bus drove us to the plane, we got off, and then we boarded the plane and found our seats. The plane ride was a lot of journaling and sleeping. After we got off our first flight ,3:00 hours, we headed to our short 1:30-hour flight. They made us go through security again! When we finally passed security we passed by a store, Out of Africa, and I convinced everyone to check the store out. We found a lot of cool souvenirs. We spent 30-60 minutes at the store. After that, we all went to our gate sat down and I typed up some more of my journal. My dad brought us a muffin and croissant that we ate within seconds. Aleisha, who was charging her phone at the time, was starving, so Aleisha and I went back to the café to get more food. We each got a chocolate covered croissant then headed back. We jumped on the flight and it was over with before I knew it. I slept almost the whole time. After that plane ride we got off grabbed our luggage, while we were grabbing our luggage I sat on the conveyer belt to feel what it felt like to spin around. We had to pay 45$ per person to enter the country, show passports, and go through security.When we walked out of the airport there were people playing traditional African music, doing traditional African dances. They asked me to dance with them so I did. I danced with the natives. We had a bus driver bring us to our hotel. When we got back to our hotel we changed clothes then we decided to walk to Zambia just to say we went to another country. We decided to walk on foot there it was a 20-minute walk or so. We followed railroads, dirt paths, roads, etc. When we got to border post they stamped our passports then sent us on our way.We walked for another 150 feet ,seeing baboons and monkeys everywhere, until the next border post . At the next post, they said we had to pay 20 dollars for each my dad and Aleisha to get across the border we knew we would have to come right back, but we wanted badly to claim to have gone to 3 countries in one day. We did it, we made a U- turn entered the country turned and left the country after a few photos. Right, when we walked in there was a sign that said “Welcome to Zambia, be aware you are capable of getting malaria” nice welcome sign. We did a U-turn and went right out. A sales guy followed us he was at first trying to sell us stuff, then began naming all the presidents of the USA impressive how much people from other countries know about America. He angered Aleisha by calling her mom, though. On our walk back there were tons of monkeys fighting, and warthogs just walking down the street When we got back to our hotel we had dinner there and the guy at dinner too thought Aleisha was our mom. We teased her about being our mom the rest of the night.When we got back we got ready for bed, I journaled, then fell asleep.
Bye for now,
Riley Jaye
July 6th:Part two day 8
Dear Journal,
Today I woke up to the sounds of my dad leaving my room, “Good Morning daddy “I say rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, yet the second he said “I love you” back and left I fell onto the bed and went back to sleep. I heard Aleisha and my dad’s soft voices as they discussed the day. I fell asleep and woke up again at 8:45, we were up late last night so we slept in a bit, I heard the shower on which was probley Aleisha and that’s the only sound I could here. I watched YouTube for like 30-45 minutes then heard Ansley get up so I dragged myself out of bed. Ansley and Aleisha were both doing their makeup, so I went to get dressed. You can probley guess where we went for breakfast, the buffet. We ate there quickly then ran back to our apartment to wait for our driver. When he did arrive we all hopped in his car ready to conquer the adventures of the day. First, we went to Table Mountain, our driver dropped us off and we hopped in line to get photos. The line was about 20 minutes, when we finally got to the counter we were relieved. We got our tickets and didn’t expect another line, but sure another there was another line, a longer line. We waited for 45 or so minutes to get on the gondolas, when we did though they were so cool: the windows looked straight out to the surroundings of the mountain and the floor rotated so we could see every angle. When we got to the top Ansley at first was terrified at how high we were up, but began to forget about her fear. We were taking lots of photos, everywhere, and when we were passing there were to Americans building a tower out of rocks past the boundaries, The tower symbolized safe to travel or something like that, so we went over and watched them while talking to them. We took a few pictures there, then a guy called down to us asking us to look for his son around the mountain edge we looked but didn’t see a little kid running around playing over boundaries. We walked away from the guys and looked around a bit for the child, but when they found the kid we collected rocks to bring to the people to build with. They used the rocks and Aleisha had a deep conversation with one of the guys, they told each other a bit about one another and well Aleisha found her dream boy.They left to get lunch then hike down. Aleisha admitted she liked him so we were gonna follow them to lunch, yet we stopped at a good picture rock and took a couple hundred photos. By, the time we got to the lunch place it was too late they already left, luckily Aleisha took photos of them and was going to send them to them so she got their email. We went to the place for lunch, which the lunch tasted very interesting, Aleisha only ate two bites. We left the café then Aleisha noticed her wallet she left in the place. We ran back and the wallet wasn’t there. Luckily the lady who cleaned our table recognized us and showed us to lost and found. We got Aleisha’s wallet which was in the gift shop, then we looked around in the gift shop were we all got souvenirs, then we got back on the gondola and headed down the mountain. At the bottom, we purchased the photo the people took of us while we were in line. We went to 3 or so different gift shops at the bottom of Table Mountain, I got an I love Cape Town shirt for 3 dollars. After that, our guide came and picked us up and took us to the cheetah interaction. We signed in and learned the safety precautions then we went in an enclosure with a Cheetah and got to pet him and lake photos with him, he couldn’t stop purring. We were in the cage for 7 minutes then had to leave. Then the cheetah we met was a 13-month old cub named Romeo. After the encounter, we looked around at the other animals like merrier cats, jackal, and jaguar turtles.After the cheetah encounter our driver dropped us at home were we did a vlog(I had to carry Ansley outside to where we were going to shoot the vlog then I had to put a cape town shirt on her, with Aleisha I only put a scarf on her and she walked out).After we did a vlog we did a life musically, our first. After that, we chilled until my dad got back and that’s when we got dressed and headed to dinner. I wore Aleisha’s high heels to dinner to see if I could last. We chose a native South African place for dinner. I had spaghetti and red sauce.After we ordered Ansley and I became the restaurants entertainments as we began to sing and dance. My dad was freaking out at how foolish we looked. After dinner we had dessert. I had a piece of chocolate cake, after dinner and dessert we went to the Ferris wheel and bought tickets to go on it. When we got on we went around 4 times seeing the lights of the city and then on our third time around Ansley farted nearly suffocating us all. It smelt so bad. We all ran out of the Ferris Wheel cart when they opened the door. When we finally got home, I threw off the high heels I wore all night, my feet hurt like crazy. I got my PJ’s on, brushed my teeth, packed for the next day early flight, then jumped in bed.I wrote myjournal then went to bed.
Good Bye for now,
Riley Jaye
July 5th:part two day 7
Dear journal,
Today we slept in until 8:00, then got dressed and ready to go. We went to breakfast at a buffet place where we all ate a super sour fruit of some sort. We then went back to our apartment complex and waited for our driver from 10:00 to 10:30, then called my dad because he still wasn’t there. Finally, we went up to our apartment and told the front desk guy to call us when someone comes in the building requesting us. Of course, the second we walk in the door the phone ringed, so we went back downstairs. We got in our tour guides car, first, we went to lunch at a salad wrap place. We all got veggie wraps, then our tour guide gave us Wi-Fi, or at least Ansley and Aleisha it I left my phone in Texas. When we had to switch cars to our actual tour guide’s car, instead of the manager of the company, we (Aleisha and Ansley) were kicked off the hotspot that gave them Wi-Fi. First, we went to lion’s head mountain, where we took tons of photos, that also is I discovered I left the video camera in the other guy’s car. We called the guy and he said he would take us home and I could get it then. Next, we went to the beach where we took photos, looked at some art displayed there, and played in the sand. At one point Ansley and I were both on Aleisha’s back, then I fell off face first into the sand. Next Aleisha and Ansley were taking a photo, so I ran over and jumped down sliding in the sand getting sand in both Ansley and Aleisha’s shoes. Ansley was shaking the sand out of her shoes, yet it appeared in the photos she was about to kick me. After that we went to the dock to see the sea lions, there was a guy there giving the seals fish, so we got to touch and pet the seals while they sat still, there for us to pet them. They have a very slimy feeling to them, yet they have a main looking thing like a tiger that’s like wet dog hair. We took photos with the seals. We went to give a 20 rand donation then the person said he charged twenty rands for every person in a photo we took. Our tour guide was trying to be very polite and tell that weren’t paying that much. He was trying to be very polite in front of Ansley and me, that they were arguing for a good 10 minutes or so, then Aleisha had enough, she stepped in and basically said this isn’t your seal, you have no right to charge us, and we are being very generous giving you a donation of 20 rand. After that, we all walked away. Next, we drove to a place that overlooked the ocean and that’s when the wind kicked in. We were holding on for dear life as the wind nearly swept us off our feet. The wind was so strong! We took a few photos: our hair flying backward and us all holding on to a metal fence, grasping on as tight as we could. I’m serious that wind was strong! We ran back to the car and jumped in. The view of the ocean was breathtaking on one of the roads we went on. It was so picture perfect. We then went to a native African art shop to look around, it had so many cool souvenirs, Aleisha got two bracelets. We then started our hour long drive to Cape Hope. I slept most the car ride. When we arrived; we paid for our admission into the natural park. We then parked and instead of getting a cable car, we decided to walk up to the top where the lighthouse was at the tip of the cape. We took lots of photos. We looked out at the vast ocean ahead of us, it was so cool we were at the southernmost point of Africa. When we headed back down, not only was the wind our problem but it also started to rain. We were getting soaked and the rain hurt because the wind was making it hit us at high speeds face on. So yeah we were running down cape hope, freaking out that the rain was drenching our clothes head to toe.We ran to the gift shop, for cover, and because I love gift shops until the rain died. Our tour guide pulled the car up and we jumped in. Before we drove out of cape hope national park, Ansley and I jumped out in the pouring rain, barely able to see from the heavy rain in our face to a sign that said cape hope and its longitude and latitude. In the pictures, our eyes were closed and we were drenched head to toe, but it is proof we were there. After that we had an hour drive back; we stopped half way through to see a penguin colony. The rain luckily stopped but most the penguins were nowhere to be seen, there are usually hundreds and we saw no more than ten penguins. One came so close to us we could pet it if we wanted, we took lots of photos with that penguin. After that, we headed back to our apartment and back at our apartment we got ready for dinner. We went back to the Italian place we did the first night, we looked at other options but none looked as good as that place. I got minestrone soup, fettuccine Alfredo, and a chocolate molten lava cake. We met the funniest guy there, we were the manager of the restaurant and told the funniest jokes and everything he said made us laugh. He called Ansley a walking contradiction. Every word he said made us burst out laughing. We stayed talking to him for an hour or so then noticed it was 11:45 and we left. We were not excited to walk the streets late at night so we went quick, I still had time though to push Ansley under the roof of a building witch was leaking water to make a waterfall, Aleisha promised me 5 dollars if I pushed her under the waterfall thing so I did ,we made it back alive luckily! I journaled until my dad returned home; then filled him in on the day, finally, I fell asleep.
Bye for now,
Riley Jaye
July 4th:Fourth of July!Part 2 day 6
Dear journal,
Today we woke at 7:00 or so, got into decent clothing, then went to a buffet before our exciting shark diving experience. Aleisha, we discovered, was mourning the loss of a close friend who she loved so dearly. The tragedy was hard on Aleisha, but he handled it well. After breakfast we went back to our hotel where we found the bus that was taking us to shark diving, we looked down at our sweat pants and t- shirts certain we were not in the correct attire for shark diving in freezing water. We told the person we would just be a minute, so we ran upstairs threw on our bathing suits and layered in warm thick clothing. After getting dressed we found the bus was gone when we arrived at the bottom of the stairs, quickly we found out by a quick phone call that the guy went to pick up a few others while waiting for us. When the bus arrived, we jumped in and sat in the back row with 4 seats all together. The bus ride was two hours, Aleisha massaged me for 30 minutes or so of it, I talked for 1 hour or so, then I laid on the bus floor and slept the rest of the time. When we arrived, I jumped out the car with neither of my shoes on after taking them off while sleeping. My dad left his phone in the car, so I brought it in gave it to Aleisha and we hid it till he noticed. We signed in, went to the gift shop, we went upstairs it was only a little snack like thing so I went down to the gift shop, I heard a video so I went up to check it wasn’t important so I went back down to the gift shop. I went back up and noticed my dad was looking for his phone “I think I left it in the van “he ran down stairs Aleisha gave me the phone and I ran down to give it to him before he went all the way outside to check the van, yet I was too late, so I waited in the lobby till he returned. I gave him his phone when he walked back in and he wasn’t surprised I had it. II ended up getting myself a golden shark tooth necklace and a gift for someone at the gift shop. After the informational video, we headed outside where we got our life vests and orange coats. We waited for the boat then boarded on with our heads held high. We drove really fast over the waves and it was awesome. So much fun. When we got there they started calling out people’s names and handing them their wetsuits. I was first out of our group and quickly threw on the perfectly fitted suit and arranged us to go first. There was only one problem; they didn’t have the correct size wetsuit for Ansley and they couldn’t find the correct size. We were first so in the process of confusion and not knowing what to do the people handed Ansley one that was a size too big. We got in the cage Aleisha first, me second and so on. It was awesome, the second I got in the water I saw multiple sharks. The people screamed, “Down left!” “Downright!” every second I barely had time to breath. It was so cool; sharks came up right in front of the cage. We saw at least 8 different sharks each like 4 times. We were in the water for 15 minutes or so. The first group saw more sharks than any other group. The water was freezing, but all I cared about was the sharks. Ansley’s water boot fell off and Aleisha had to swim down and get it for her and put it back on. After our 15 minutes was up I noticed how cold I was I had little strength to pull myself out of the cage. I was shivering and my arms were filled with goose bumps “she must have been real cold” someone said. I shivered feeling unable to move. I gained enough strength to get dressed then we sat on the top deck eating chips and watching the sharks the whole rest the time. My dad and Aleisha both became sea sick but recovered after we got off the boat. When we got back to the shark room the people gave out vegetable soup and played footage of the day. We purchased that footage, as well as three shark necklaces, and my dad donated one hundred or so dollars to shark research and help towards preventing sharks from going instinct. We headed back which I slept the whole time, then we got ready for dinner. We showered and dressed up for our 4th of July dinner. We went to a harbor house restaurant where I ordered Gnocchi. We ate and had dessert then while my dad paid, Aleisha, Ansley, and I went to the grocery store to get some groceries. There was only one problem it was closed. We waited for my dad, and when he finally arrived the security guard pointed us in the direction of another grocery store. (By the way on the way there I walked up the down escalators and down the up escalators) we got water, peanut M &M’s, you know the important stuff. We went to bed back at home ending our tiring but exciting day.
Bye for now.
Riley Jaye
July 3rd:part 2 day 5
Today our morning started at 5:30 when we got a wake-up call. I answered it,” Yeah, mee up, gonnaa get readyyyy, thank “I put the phone down and collapsed back into my bed. We woke up at 6:00. My dad and I rushed to get our safari clothes on. We then noticed the phone I answered I set down in a glass of water, haha! We ran down to get pastries struggling to find Ansley and Aleisha. No offense to Aleisha, yet there was a woman in her mid-30’s or early 40’s and my dad and I both at different times almost sat down next to her thinking she was Aleisha, I stared at that women for 5 minutes or so trying to figure out if it was Aleisha or not. After tea and pastries, we jumped into our jeep and started on our adventure; we started right off the bat by seeing two leopards. One walked in the bushes right next to us, a male, the other walked right in front of our jeep, a female. After that we saw an Elephant, then a buffalo, then 3 rhinos and a whole herd of buffalo all eating together. They kept showing hatred towards one another and showing warning signs of aggression, but there was never an official fight. Next, we saw a young male lion, not my favorite memory of the trip, if you have my dad on Facebook you will know why I was in tears, anyway, that made all of the big 5 in one morning. We stopped for coffee and pastries for 10-15 minutes then headed back out. We first approached an elephant sleeping, it was 6-8 years old and adorable, then we saw a herd of at least 30 elephants or so, a highlight of my day. We then saw more buffalo, who blocked us for a while and wouldn’t let us pass. We saw zebras, giraffes, kudu, the usual after that. We headed back then packed up, we left our suite cases at the door then went to breakfast, no that is false, Aleisha and I went to the gift shop. We were there for 30- 45 minutes before checking out which took another 10 minutes, really their cash registers are so slow! When we got back Aleisha and I rushed to eat, Ansley shoved a croissant onto my plate that I stuffed into my mouth then ran out the door to catch up with my dad at the main lounge. When we were all checked out we went to the airport, the smallest airport I have ever seen in my life, and passed security. The Wi-Fi was awful so waiting for the plane felt like forever. When we got on it was only a 30-minute flight that my dad and I spent reading our book about each and every South African animal. After our flight, we jumped on a bus to take us back to the airport from our small baby plane. We went in and everything was going well until Aleisha was pulled back due to a souvenir that couldn’t clear. While my dad Ansley and I were eating breakfast, Aleisha had to check her backpack, and she managed to get it checked for free after explaining to the guy how this was totally unfair she had to check her backpack. When Aleisha returned we jumped on to the plain, which the pilot let us come back into the cockpit to look around, then we went back to our seats for takeoff. After takeoff, I wrote journals the whole three-hour flight because of troubles with my computer dying and me being behind by like two or so days. After we got off we went to the bathroom, met our driver, and headed down to the car we would be taking the easy right. There’s only one problem with this story: it didn’t go this easy. Aleisha left her phone in the bathroom, so she raced to the elevator jumped on to hit the wrong floor, got off on the wrong floor, got back on the elevator, went to the right floor, and finally raced into the bathroom to receive her phone. When Aleisha returned we were driven to our apartment, staring at the beauty that was table top mountain. When we got our apartment we looked around packed our clothes and changed then went out to dinner. We went to an Italian place. I got minestrone soup for my starter, spaghetti marinara as my main meal, and chocolate molten lava cake as my dessert. At dinner, my dad briefed us on the safety precautions of South Africa and how to avoid being kidnapped. After dinner, we went to a hotel where we all ordered beverages. Aleisha had been called mom one too many times that we started asking people how old they thought she was these were the results about 5 people thought she was 27, 1 person thought she was 31, two people thought she was 25, one person thought she was 35, one person thought she was 24, and one guy trying to be nice said she looked like she was 16, After those terrifying results we switched to a “how old do I look app”. It was pretty accurate on me I got 12, four times and 15, once. Ansley goes 10, three times, 18, once, 12, twice 11, twice. My dad got 36 once, and 40 once. Aleisha got all over the place, she did it at least twenty or so times getting a range of 16-38. She only got her real age once! She got 27 and 28 like five times each. After that we went back to our apartment, fake throwing one another into the river as we walked along side it. In the elevator it went dominoes on us, Aleisha fell causing all of us too, laughing about I forget what. We went to bed the second we got home.
Bye for now,
Riley Jaye
July 2nd:part 2 day 4
Once again Aleisha woke us up at 5:30, followed by a 5:31 wake up call. We got ready for our safari, then headed to coffee and pastries. We loaded into our safari jeep and were given our blankets and hot water lap heaters. Our journey began. At first, we only saw the usual, then we found fresh lion paw prints. In the mix of following the tracks, my dad felt nauseous and threw up. Our guess was he got sick over dehydration and lack of sleep. He laid down across the seats for a while trying to regain strength. We continued to follow the footprints ending up finding a young male lion walking along the road. We followed him for a while till we lost sight of him. We tried to relocate him but never could, heading to a new area. We didn’t find anything for a while then, out of know where we ended up crossing paths with elephants. Finally, my dream came true we found elephants. There were like 25 of them young, old ages ranging from 1 week to like 45 years. We had a close encounter with a middle-aged elephant; the jeeps (there were 2) accidentally blocked the elephants path making the elephant mad and he was getting ready to charge, but luckily calmed down and turned around and found another way to the other side of the road. We moved our vehicle after that. We watched for a while amazed at how well the elephants got along: they all looked after the young and displayed peace towards one another. I loved the elephants! We saw a few common more animals then stopped for our mid-ride snack. Also during our mid-ride snack, we found the perfect tree for our baboon photo! We took the photo and it turned out great (I will upload to my memories 3). Then after we had some hot chocolate and snacks, we headed back out. We then saw at the water hole like 10-15 giraffes 1/5 of them were taking a drink. It was so cute. After that, we saw the usual most common species until we saw three male giraffes doing something out of the ordinary, fighting. They were fighting for dominance, swinging their necks at one another, stabbing each other in their chests with their short little horn like things. We watched for a good 15 minutes or so then headed back to the hotel. At the hotel, my dad went back to the room to sleep while Aleisha, Ansley, and I went to breakfast. At breakfast, Aleisha and I teamed up to share two entrees, I got pancakes covered in chocolate and gave her one, and she got a veggie omelet and gave me half. This breakfast started out normal, Ansley and I looking for boys for Aleisha, taking snap chats, talking then got crazy real fast. Our waiter brought out my hot chocolate, not paying attention to the fact that it’s hot chocolate and it might be hot, I took a quick drink and it burned my tongue so I shouted “hot!” as I dropped the cup, that was luckily plastic, and it spilled all over the table, myself, and the floor. I started bursting out laughing at the commotion I caused. Ansley and Aleisha staring at me wide eye trying not to laugh. As if that wasn’t bad enough, everyone in the room turned to stare at us. I continued to laugh, Aleisha’s cheeks blushed with embarrassment, Ansley just stared. After making a scene, we had people staring at us all of the breakfast. We then rushed back to our lodge to pack up. We threw all of our clothes into our suitcases and threw our electronics, books, toothbrush, and more into our backpacks. We put our suitcases by the door and jumped in a jeep to head to the elephant interaction we signed up to 15 minutes before the departure dad stayed behind, still feeling ill. We saw the common things along the way then when we got there we saw the two elephants we would be interacting with. At the interaction we first got a 20-30-minute lecture, then we feed a 19-year-old elephant, then we all got to touch the elephants tongues, Funny story after I felt the elephant's tongue the trainer guy called it so it went to turn and I was under its trunk so it hits me with its trunk almost knocking me with its tusks right to the floor. Luckily Aleisha was fast in response and grabbed me the second the elephant knocked me and tugged me out of the elephants range she exclaimed: “I think I saved your life!” Next, we tuck pictures with the elephant. Then we were introduced to a 6 years old elephant who was so cute and sweet. From there we went back to the lodge then got my dad and headed off to our next destination. Our next lodge was huge, it had a fancy garden, pool, covering and more. We got to cabins, one for my dad and I and the other for Aleisha and Ansley. We got settled into the cabins then headed down to the lunch buffet. After lunch, I blogged, Ansley slept, and Aleisha edited photos. I went to find a good scene for my blog, expecting to take a quick blog then leave. Then I stepped in a pile of thorns in my socks, let’s just say I threw those socks away. After that later on their pool was filled with magets and it was dirty water, not to mention the fact it was cold out. Aleisha sent Ansley on a mission to push me in if she did she got 5$. “Hold up, five dollars for pushing me in, I will jump in right now for five dollars,” I remarked. “No way, I’ll pay you five dollars to jump in right now in your clothes” Aleisha appeared shocked. Next thing I knew I had Ansley and Aleisha snap chatting me then telling me to jump. After that, we relaxed for an hour or so then got ready for our evening safari. We met our guide and the other people that would be with us, we were not expecting others. That safari was windy so it messed with the animal’s pattern making their sense of smell and sound difficult. So we saw barely anything, even the impala was short in number. We did see one of the big five: rhinos, four of them. Two of them actually got in a fight. We saw something new among a number of animals we actually found, a porcupine. His spikes looked so sharp and painful and when he saw us he grew in size. After our short safari with a quick snack break, we went back to the hotel where we changed for dinner. At dinner, we met up with our tour guide and the people on the safari with us and hung out with them. Their daughters are 11 and 6, yet my dad, Ansley, and I were so much noisier than them on the safari. We all talked and ate dinner, then dessert. When we finally left and Aleisha and I returned within five minutes to retrieve my coat that I forgot. When we got back to the cabin we fell right asleep after both my dad and my computer died and we had no American outlet to charge it. Guess I’ll have to wait to tell the plane ride to charge my computer.
Bye for now,
Riley Jaye
July 1st:part 2 travel day 3
“Girls, time to wake up” these set of words whispered by Aleisha woke me from my unconscious state, my peaceful sleep. I dragged myself out of bed rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and began my rush to get ready. We got ready then headed down to coffee and pastries. At 6:30 we departed from camp. Our expedition began with the usual giraffe, zebra, kudu,etc. On our goal to find a herd of elephants. We searched for over an hour but didn’t experience any luck. Along the way, we found buffalo, which we had never seen before, waterbuck,Jackle,and more. We soon gave up our search for elephants and just roamed. We found monkeys and then baboons, we took a picture of the baboons and each was given a baboon to imitate then did the same position in a tree. We ended our safari then went t breakfast where I ordered pancakes drenched in melted chocolate. Ansley and I scouted out possible canadiens to be Aleisha’s boyfriend lost count of how many people have mistaken Aleisha to be me and Ansley’s mom. Today at least two people thought Aleisha was our mom, Aleisha is worried she looks way older than she is. After breakfast, we went back to our lodge. We explored an island in the middle of the river outside our house and had a photoshoot there. After that we went swimming in our pool and played a few games, shivering in the supposable heated pool. We then sunbathed watching the river banks come to life with monkeys, impala, kudu and more. A monkey came right up onto our house rooftop and ran across. Next, we went to lunch where they served this rice like food in alfredo sauce. After lunch, we scouted for the perfect tree for our baboon picture, in one tree we got in the tree was so dead that the branch Aleisha was holding onto broke and she fell, out of a tree. We didn’t find the perfect tree, yet we did discover in a new story full of humor. So Aleisha told us to stay where we were and not move while she went into an area dense with vegetation, well we didn’t, we followed her and when we went to exit the area Ansley walked through a tree with long branches full of thorns. She got stuck, if she truly was stuck is still unknown, but Aleisha claimed she walked over and only saw one small branch stuck in her hair. So she kept telling Aleisha and I she was stuck, but out of disbelief, we ignored her. “Ansley we’ll leave without you if you don’t come now” Aleisha called. Ansley kept complaining she was stuck. She started to facetime someone, so Aleisha and I walked away. We were going to not leave her, but next thing we knew Aleisha got a text saying there was a monkey in our room and it stole Aleisha’s sunglasses. She panicked her nice sunglasses were in the hands of a monkey so we left Ansley and sprinted back to the room as fast as two girls in hiking boots can go. We throw open the door and Aleisha yelled: “where is he!” My dad told us he or she escaped out the door we left open all morning. Aleisha didn’t believe him then she went in her room and her sunglasses were missing and there was monkey poop on her bed. She panicked. Our tour guide the prior day told us never to let a monkey in the house or it will steal your stuff, so you can understand Aleisha’s worry. My dad burst out laughing and apparently he hid Aleisha’s sunglasses and brought in monkey poop from outside and placed it on the bed. The moment was interrupted by 12 angry texts from Ansley telling my dad to pick her up. Aleisha and I briefed my dad on how Ansley was lying, yet he still went on after her. While he went to save Ansley Aleisha and I went out to explore the wildlife. Aleisha received many messages followed by the tone of rage from Ansley. When she got back it became a dispute Ansley vs Aleisha who should apologize. They both ended up apologizing, Ansley for not listening to instructions and Aleisha for leaving Ansley trapped in the trees. Then we all got ready for our safari. We jumped in the safari jeep and then headed out on our adventure. We first encountered, you guessed it, the usually, dozens of giraffes, zebras, waterbuck, impala, kudu etc. We then saw two rhinos, one the big five we hadn’t seen yet, a mommy and her child. The youngster was so cute! We then stopped for our mid-ride snack and were having a usual snack time till our tour guide told us about a South African contest that we all gasped at. An impala poop spitting completion. First, Aleisha wanted to do it and our tour and tracker said they would do it with her, then Ansley wanted to do it, and they bribed me into somehow agreeing to do it. We all picked up a piece of the poop then Aleisha went, our tour guide, our tracker, Ansley than me. I almost barfed; I was second to last in front of Ansley behind our tour guide. Our tracker won and Aleisha got second place. My dad videoed it(which I will upload to my blog) then after we all participated we convinced my dad to too. After that we packed up then we continued our search, only finding the usual for a while, then we spotted a pride of lions. There were 3 female lions, 1 male, and 4 cubs. Almost all of them were asleep, but on high alert checking us out. After the lions, we headed back but found a python that was being viewed by serval vehicles. After that, we went back to the lodge and got ready for dinner, where we met our guide. We had dinner with our tour guide. My dad, Aleisha, Ansley, and I all got the vegetarian option, which was Fettuccini Alfredo. After dinner, we headed back to our lodge where we went right to bed.
Bye for now,
Riley Jaye
June 30th:part 2 travel day 2
Our day started at 8:00 this morning, well Aleisha and Ansley never ended because they were up all night debating over how long the safari would be, and much more.Then they went to the gym at 6:00.We went to the airport in a shuttle, then went through security avoiding all the quarters begging for allowance to assist and make a bit of money off tips. We went to a restaurant called Wimpy for breakfast then got wind breakers for 3 hours long, cold safaris that await our attendance. We waited for over 1:30 minutes until they finally let us board the bus to deliver us to our plane. Then an extra 30 minutes before the bus moved. You can do the calculation of how delayed our arrival was. The plane ride was 1:05 minute, it was so short. I read half the time and Aleisha and I looked out the window the other half. We saw from above two giraffes in the middle of a dirt road and a warthog. When we arrived our tour guide lead us to her safari jeep. On the 30 minute drive to the hotel, we saw a giraffe, a bird that looked like a turkey, impala and much more. At the hotel, we were offered a warm rag to wipe our hands, then some berries juice. We were escorted to our hotel lodge. It was huge! It had a pool, Five or six rooms, two bedrooms and much more. The best part was the deck that viewed a watering hole roaming with monkeys andimpala taking drinks of water. We went to lunch at the hotel" kitchen". I got pasta. After that, we jumped down from the infinity pool and watched all the animals taking little expeditions on our side of the river watching the waterhole come to life. At 6:30 we left on our safari with our tour guide and tracker. We layered up expecting the worst. It was pretty windy but we had blankets. The safari went something like this. After leaving our hotel grounds, we spot 5 or so zebras, so we pull up next to them and watch intrigued. Then we spot a giraffe then another one, then another. We spot at least 15 giraffes. We see millions of bushbucks, impala, and other deer like organisms. We ran across an endangered, rare species that was like an armadillo-like organism that we stopped to pet, we weren't allowed to pet it but the tour guide said it was a once in a lifetime thing that barely anyone gets to see. Next, we find two lions and follow them around, a female and a male, they came right up to our safari jeep and roared at us. We followed them for a while then came across hippo's sleeping on a piece of land in the middle of a small lake/pond. After the hippos we came across more deer like organisms, Giraffes, Zebras then we crossed paths with the sight oftwo honey badgers, another rare sight, fighting with one another. Next, we saw an animal that was like an anteater and hog mix, Another rare sight due to their lack of time spent in the open. We were notified of a leopard near bye so we identified its location under a tree. We watched and took pictures of it for 30 minutes or so. We then saw more of the usual stuff, giraffes, birds, impala, zebras, bushbucks and more. We ended at 9:30 or so then went to change then dinner. Dinner was a cookout, I loaded up with everything they said that was vegetarian, trying new fruitsand vegetables of all kinds. After dinner/dessert we walked back to the lodge where we got ready for bed. I went to around an 11:30 after finishing my book "Finally".
Bye for now,
Riley Jaye
June 29th: Part 2 travel Day 1
Yesterday, Aleisha got in town, Ansley and my dad went to the airport to pick her up while I was at soccer practice.We went to dinner at Blue Goose restaurant. When we got home we watched the bachelorette, did a few snap chats, and then Aleisha went out with an old friend ,that's a guy, to get ice cream.She took Ansley and I up to bed before he came over because she knew we would embarrass her.The next day,today, Ansley overslept in the morning till 8:30 when she had 9:00 cheer camp. It was chaos finding out who was taking her, how she would get her cheer stuff from my moms,etc.Finally, my mom brought Ansley to cheer,so my dad and I went to pick up kolaches. I forgot that I made arrangements with my mom for Aleisha, my mom, and I to go to breakfast, so in the car I called Aleisha to wake her up and tell her we were leaving soon.When Aleisha finished getting ready we ran out to my mom's car and jumped in. We went to my favorite crepe place, I got a banana, Nutella crepe.After breakfast, Aleisha and I went to the Stonebriarmall.Aleisha recognized the mall the second she walked in contemplating if she had been there before, she established belief of the possibility of coming to the Stonebriar mall when visiting Texas for a soccer tournament.We went to Forever 21, where we spent all of our time,looking at and trying on clothes.My dad requested that we be home by 1:30 and we spent about an hour and ten minutes in Forever twenty-one. I got a white shirt with an eagle on it for the fourth of July, after finding out I had nothing to wear that day, and a red headband also for fourth of July.Aleisha ended up getting 3 shirts and a two makeup face contour kit of some sort.We noticed we were short on time, Aleisha paid and then we ran out of the store aiming for the car , but on our way out running into a Godiva chocolate store."Those chocolate covered strawberrieslook so good"-Aleisha "Yeah, they do!"- Riley"But we don't have time; we have to get back to your house"-Aleisha we ran past the store then Aleisha exclaims"Actually I think we would have had time", I did a 90 degree pivot turn to face her then exclaimed"What?!". Without a second of thought, we both whirled around and ran to the chocolate store to get two bags of chocolate covered strawberries. We speeded back then jumped into my dad'scar to drive to pick Ansley up from her cheer camp at 2:00, 2 hours early because we had a 3:45 flight and her cheer would have ended at 4:00. We picked up Ansley she changed into her airport, flight clothes,then we raced to the airport. In the mix of hurried confusion to get to our gate on time, I left my phone in my dad's car so I won't have my phone for two weeks. My dad brought our luggage to the airport early, yet because the person has to be there when checking their luggage my dad checked them all under him.This cost an extra 200$ because one person only gets 3 free bags. We ran to the luggage desk to refund that.We passed security and my backpack beeped for no reason. Finally, we jumped on our 2-hour flight to Atlanta, where I slept almost the whole way, then in Atlanta, we jumped on a 17-hour flight to Johannesburg.For 17 hours I watched 3 movies: Eddie the Eagle, The Jungle Book, and My Big, Fat Greek wedding 2.The rest the time I slept or read. I slept on the floor in the chairs for 2 hours on the plane,so I could actually lay down.After the flight, we road a bus to our hotels got settled in our rooms, then went down to dinner. We went to dinner at a Greek restaurant. At the restaurant, some 16-year-old girls wee celebrating a 16th birthday party. They were doing this Greek dance and let us join them. Then we all picked up these clay plates and smashed them.It was so much fun!We had dessert then retreated back to our hotel rooms to sleepafter our long day.
Bye for now,
Riley jaye