Halloween in South Africa

You may have already guessed that pumpkins are not exactly sold in their full form here in South Africa. So the pumpkin patch and pumpkin carving (two of my favorite Halloween activities) were out of the question this year. We decided to celebrate the holiday South African style...with a self-drive safari. I mean, what could be more thrilling than driving a bright white Toyota Corolla through a large game park packed with lions, rhinos, hippos, elephant, etc.?

I think the scariest part was waking up early to make the 2 hour drive to the park. But we managed. Even Chris, who had only been back in South Africa for 4 days (he was in the States). Pretty impressive. When we arrived at the gate, we had to exit the vehicle to purchase a park pass. Our animal sightings started early... baboons were climbing on top of the car when we returned! Sadly, I didn't get my camera out quick enough to capture those active little guys! So, baboon free, we jumped back in our car and drove into the park for our safari.

Ben took it upon himself to take a tally of all of the animals we sighted. Fortunately, Kelly had an animal guidebooks Ben was able to use to identify the various animals. Don't worry, I will include the tally at the end of the blog for your enjoyment.

Right off the bat we were greeted by another car full of hopefuls who informed us there were "lions up on the right." WOOHOO!! Kelly and I were about to jump out of the car and run to them, but we remained inside at the direction of our husbands. As we drove forward we searched and scanned on the right....but no lions. Ben's "lion" column was left blank. I guess they were either hiding from us or on a different "right." At least we found giraffe on the left... and they were super close! One poor giraffe became spooked; however, and started running round and round....but he eventually calmed down. Poor guy.
(notice the bird on the giraffe in the lower picture. In the upper picture, his head is swarmed with flies)
At Ben's insistence, we continued our drive through the "Hippo Loop." Unfortunately, the hippos weren't in the mood for revealing themselves at that moment.... but we did see plenty of wildebeests, zebra and other not so timid animals. Our next exciting find was an elephant, "Ellie." Yes, I named her. We almost missed her, though she was standing right by the road. She didn't appear to be interested in facial shots and instead presented us with her backside throughout our photo snapping.

And so the safari continued...but we heard a strange sound coming from the inner console of the car. After puzzling about the sound for awhile, we finally pulled the car over to inspect the source. As Chris bent down to take a look, a dark black insect leg stuck out between a crack in the console. Holy Moly! These South African bugs! Chris, being the brave man he is, was able to remove part of the console to release the culprit. Turns out he was a quarter sized "dung beetle." A dung beetle is a beetle who rolls dung. Google it. After his new found freedom, we started seeing those dung bugs all over the place!

Smartly, we packed ourselves a picnic lunch and ate at an enclosed picnic area in the middle of the park. Quite fun, really. Though our particular picnic sight was slightly run down.... No scares at this location, the animals weren't in the mood for putting on a show. At least we had yummy Halloween cupcakes. Mmmmm.

The rest of the day was spent searching for more animals, and while we did see some rhino, another elephant, more giraffe, zebra, and so on, we never did see those big kittys. I decided that means we have to go back....because the more often we go, the more likely we are to see them, right? Lucky for Ben, we did finally spot some hippo. One even yawned a couple of times, which got Ben quite excited. I just wish the hippo had been slightly closer so we could get a better picture...not to mention the fact, we were basically out of time. See, the park closes at 6:30pm sharp...and if you are still in the park when the gate locks, you are spending the night. While I wouldn't have minded the adventure....we decided to obey the 6:30 rule.

And so that was that. I will close with Ben's recorded list of animal sightings:

Zebra: 20....but then Ben wrote "infinity"
Baboon: 5
Wildebeest: infinity
Common warthog: 8
Southern Giraffe: 21
Impala: infinity
Millipede: 1
Grasshopper: 1
Springbok: infinity
Turtles: 2
Boring brown deer thing: 12
Ostrich: 1
Hippo: 13
Kob: 1
White Rhino: 7
Kudos: 6
Black backed jackal: 1
Elephant: 2
Klipspringer: 3