The male giraffe
Hippos! They come out in the evenings and stay in the water during the day.
Look at the Rhino's lips, they're so big!
I'm feeding oranges to the elephants
Female Lion
That's me hanging off the "Destroyer" 
Male lion yawning, he was so cute!
The cheetahs were adorable, we got to pet them
Anna, Me, Stacy on game drive 2
His name is MafuAfter Capetown we headed to Aquila for a 3 day safari. It was about a 3 hour drive north from Capetown. The day we arrived it was super hot, almost in the 90s! We had a gourmet breakfast and had all day to kill before our first evening game ride. We laid by the pool and read although we weren't really prepared to have so much down time, we thought it would be Go-Go-Go. It was nice to get some relaxing in (and tanning!) Our accommodations were like little cabins in the woods, situated right next to a swamp. It had an outdoor shower (which I never used) and a sit-in bathtub. There were a lot of UKers with big familes there, they were fun people to chat with.
Our first game drive took off at 5pm -- I saw hippos, stingboks, zebras, wildabeests, ostriches, lions, giraffes, rhinos (check out my pictures!) My favorite were the LIONS, they were sooo cute and we got close to them, in our safari cars of course. The lions were separated in two sections, in the main area there were 3 female lions and 1 male. They caged off the cubs in another part, 1 male cub and 2 female cubs, because they weren't ready to be released into an open space. Romeo, our ranger, mentioned that lions only need to eat once a week, but for cubs they need to be fed more often. If kept together, the cubs would starve. Romeo also told us that his favorite animal was the horse and that he wanted to be a Jockey someday.
To give you a visual image of what the Reserve looked like, it's a big open area where animals roam around, living naturally and feeding on other animals and vegetation. Aquila has some animals of their own, such as cheetah cubs, crocodiles, baby elephant and caracal cats that they help raise and later release into the wild. Each day we'd go on a drive throughout the reserve to see the animals on their Reserve.
Our second game drive, 6am Tuesday morning, we saw the same animals but the treat of this drive was feeding the baby elephants!! Their names: Mafu and Manu. Elephants eat fruits, vegetables, bark, rocks -- they're digestive systems are unreal. It was really fun to watch them slurp the oranges right out of our hands (in my album you can see us feeding the elephants.) We were told that once the elephants got older they'd let them roam the Reserve. That night we had another game drive and saw the hippos again, this time the baby was out! Romeo made a joke when we saw one of the hippos dipping in the water. He claimed that the hippo was making a chuckling noise and Romeo said it was laughing because he was peeing in the water, haha!
The meals were the same each night, not bad but tasted all the same after a while. We joked that it felt like Groundhog's Day because we did essentially did the same thing everyday for 3 days (game drive, layout, game drive, eat) and sat at the same dinner table each night, listening to the same CD over and over again. Fun times :)
SA is a prime destination for UKers especially with the attrativeness of safaris. Not many Americans travel here though because it's so far from the States. You would have to fly to the east coast then fly to either Europe or Nothern Africa to refuel, then head south. I feel like it would take about 20-25 hours to get there. For Europeans however, it is a straight shot down.
Wednesday morning we had our final morning game drive and headed back to Capetown and Alta Bay for a night. It was nice to be back at the hotel we so loved. I loved it so much I didn't want to leave, I even came to breakfast in my robe and slippers! That night we had dinner at a cute Italian restaurant, I had salmon and a yummy salad. Delicious! Thursday morning we arrived to Johannesburg, SA's biggest city.
Picture Link:
Click Me
Our first game drive took off at 5pm -- I saw hippos, stingboks, zebras, wildabeests, ostriches, lions, giraffes, rhinos (check out my pictures!) My favorite were the LIONS, they were sooo cute and we got close to them, in our safari cars of course. The lions were separated in two sections, in the main area there were 3 female lions and 1 male. They caged off the cubs in another part, 1 male cub and 2 female cubs, because they weren't ready to be released into an open space. Romeo, our ranger, mentioned that lions only need to eat once a week, but for cubs they need to be fed more often. If kept together, the cubs would starve. Romeo also told us that his favorite animal was the horse and that he wanted to be a Jockey someday.
To give you a visual image of what the Reserve looked like, it's a big open area where animals roam around, living naturally and feeding on other animals and vegetation. Aquila has some animals of their own, such as cheetah cubs, crocodiles, baby elephant and caracal cats that they help raise and later release into the wild. Each day we'd go on a drive throughout the reserve to see the animals on their Reserve.
Our second game drive, 6am Tuesday morning, we saw the same animals but the treat of this drive was feeding the baby elephants!! Their names: Mafu and Manu. Elephants eat fruits, vegetables, bark, rocks -- they're digestive systems are unreal. It was really fun to watch them slurp the oranges right out of our hands (in my album you can see us feeding the elephants.) We were told that once the elephants got older they'd let them roam the Reserve. That night we had another game drive and saw the hippos again, this time the baby was out! Romeo made a joke when we saw one of the hippos dipping in the water. He claimed that the hippo was making a chuckling noise and Romeo said it was laughing because he was peeing in the water, haha!
The meals were the same each night, not bad but tasted all the same after a while. We joked that it felt like Groundhog's Day because we did essentially did the same thing everyday for 3 days (game drive, layout, game drive, eat) and sat at the same dinner table each night, listening to the same CD over and over again. Fun times :)
SA is a prime destination for UKers especially with the attrativeness of safaris. Not many Americans travel here though because it's so far from the States. You would have to fly to the east coast then fly to either Europe or Nothern Africa to refuel, then head south. I feel like it would take about 20-25 hours to get there. For Europeans however, it is a straight shot down.
Wednesday morning we had our final morning game drive and headed back to Capetown and Alta Bay for a night. It was nice to be back at the hotel we so loved. I loved it so much I didn't want to leave, I even came to breakfast in my robe and slippers! That night we had dinner at a cute Italian restaurant, I had salmon and a yummy salad. Delicious! Thursday morning we arrived to Johannesburg, SA's biggest city.
Picture Link:
Click Me
