There are a few things one must see if one comes to Africa...zebra and giraffe :) Of course, most people would also love to see elephant, lion and rhino, but those can be a lot harder to come by. Not to leave you hanging, we didn't see any of the latter while Todd's parents were with us, but we gave it a good effort. We took a game drive at a big 5 game park not far from Pretoria and had a really fun time! It was pretty much a private tour as we were the only ones in the truck apart from our guide.
Here're Todd's parents, ready to get rolling! It was the bumpiest ride I think I've ever taken...if Ty had been full term it may have produced a trip to the labor and delivery ward afterwards, but thankfully he wasn't and it didn't :)
Here we are stopping for some drinks. I'm mostly just including it so you can get a good feel for the truck :) So safari-ish!
And now for some animals...
Check out how huge these eland are...absolutely massive. We're told they can jump 6 or 7 feet from the standing position.
The clouds behind this giraffe make him look like he was taken out of his original picture :) I assure you that is not the case (though I don't suppose any of you doubt Todd's talent in this department).
The game drive was a lot of fun, even if none of the big 5 made an appearance. It's always a gamble...sometimes you see 'em, sometimes you don't. We had a great time anyway. After the afternoon drive we had a really nice dinner at the lodge and then went back out on the truck for a night drive! That was a cool experience, but I won't be including pictures for obvious reasons. Unless a bunch of little glowing eyes would be of interest to you, you're not missing anything.
In my opinion, we didn't see nearly enough zebra on our game drive to validate a trip all the way from the United States to Africa, so the day before Todd's parents left we took them to a little park in the city, Moreleta Kloof Nature Reserve. This is a park with zebra, bok (different kinds of "antelope"-type animals) and some ostrich. There are walking and hiking trails and the animals just mill about freely. It's a fun, low-key place to take visitors.
It was one of those rare days in Pretoria where it rains and drizzles off and on, very uncharacteristic even for the rainy season. Here we are taking shelter under an obliging tree :)
And here is our "Africa" group picture. What makes it African, you ask? Oh, nothing...just the zebra butts in the background, of course.
Oh and y'all, we saw the absolute tiniest little baby zebra I've ever caught a glimpse of, and I've glimpsed a lot of them in my year on the continent. It was so cute and so obviously unintimidated by humans. It couldn't have been more than a couple days old so I wonder how much people-exposure it's had yet.
The mother let me get pretty close before ambling out of the thicket to chomp some grass nearer the baby.
After Moreleta Kloof we made our way to the Union buildings, which are some really nice buildings with beautifully-kept grounds. I'd never been before. And yes, that statue with outstretched arms is Nelson Mandela.
A nice cloudy, rainy, not-too-hot summer day in Pretoria...my kind of day :)
It was with very heavy hearts that we dropped Todd's parents off at the Gautrain station the next evening. They didn't make a big deal about leaving and maybe that was for my sake, I don't know. But it still took me all of about 2 seconds to realize that saying goodbye to family will probably never get any easier, no matter how many times I have to do it. At least this time it was only for about 10 months instead of 12, which was an encouraging thought.
And so ended our lovely holiday. It took a long time to get here and was over much to quickly, but we are so grateful that God brought them safely, kept us all healthy the whole time, and used their visit to pour out blessing after blessing on Todd and me. It was a very good holiday :)
O wow these photos make me miss home! Anita
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