We stayed at the Pretoriuskop camp in Kruger for three days and two nights. In those three days we were able to go on four 'game drives,' which is what they call your safari rides. The game drives last about three and a half hours. We stayed in tents with cots and were served breakfast and dinner at the camp. The chef was very good. All of our meals were so delicious. The staff was very accommodating as well, serving snacks and juice throughout the day and always having purified water ready to drink. I would highly recommend spending at least two nights in Kruger to anyone who is visiting the country. I was surprised when I got here that wild animals were not roaming around as much especially in rural areas. Like I said before, Kruger is really the only part of the country where animals big cats live.
The weather was great for our game drives, and we saw tons of animals on each one. Although we did not get to see any lions unfortunately, we did see many other animals. I was fortunate enough to see part of a leopard, though. We saw elephants, buffalo, zebras, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, wild dogs (with really cool coat patterns), and many species of birds and antelope. I did take pictures, as you can see below, but they are not very good quality. I did not bring an actual camera on my trip because I did not want to spend the money and most of my pictures came out great with just my iPhone anyways. I could have used a real camera on the safari. The feeling of being so close to all of these huge animals was inexplainable. In that instance, you remembered what it was like to see them in a zoo, but at the same time the feeling was much different not having any fences between you and them.
I would say, however, that my favorite part of the Safari trip was meeting so many unique people from all over the world since Kruger is a top tourist destination in South Africa. It was so interesting to talk to people over dinner about their respective countries and backgrounds or what brought them to South Africa. Jen and I had the fellowship pitch down pretty well by the end of the trip. We met people from Costa Rica, Italy, Poland, France, India, Dubai, and, of course, South Africa. Experiences like this really make me appreciate my education even more, especially one unique to Providence College. I am a huge proponent of the liberal arts and interdisciplinary education I am fortunate to receive at Providence College, but I now have another reason to encourage this kind of learning. I have hear of many people, some I have known personally, who get hung up on traveling the world after an experience like study abroad. People decide that they may want to take a break from school or hold off on getting real world job experience until after they travel the world. But, I think it is a mistake to even consider the possibility. The reason why I enjoy traveling and meeting people from around the globe is because I enjoy having conversations about things occurring in both our counties and other countries around the world. If I did not have the last two years of college in my mind, there would be no way that I could hold conversations with people especially about things outside the United States. How are you suppose to have semi intellectual conversations about art, music, language, politics, science, education, healthcare, and other cultural topics. You cannot do this without a solid education. And I understand there are certainly people for whom a college education is not the right choice after high school or who need to begin making money as soon as they can, but for those for whom this kind of education is possible, I deeply encourage you to see this advantage to learning and experience it for yourself.
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| Wild Dog (yellow and black coloring) |
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| This was the closest we got to a large animal. It was unbelievable. |
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| It is hard to see, but there are two giraffes in this picture |
JW
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