Wow, what a week! I had three exams so I spent the majority of the days studying my ass off. The "review" sessions in class consisted of the professor going through every chapter we read (between 5 and 6), reading the heading of the sections, and telling us to know everything in that section, a.k.a. know the entire textbook for the exam. Surprisingly, this did not help me narrow down the important concepts for the test so I had to re-read everything and go over my notes again. The tests here are very different than back home. I'm used to multiple choice with a few short answer questions in most classes and problem sets in math-based courses. Here, almost everything is case studies and practical examples. My marketing exam was a a long case study with short essay questions and a few multiple choice questions that all related to different concepts and processes of marketing. If you didn't know these 10 processes with 6-7 steps each, then you were screwed. I studied hard so it ended up being okay. My accounting exam was half theory-based questions, half practical examples. We had an hour to take it which meant we had to FLY through it. I barely finished everything before the time ran out and I didn't have a lot of time to check my answers so hopefully luck is on my side. Friday night, I went out for drinks with some friends for some much need R & R.
Saturday, I went on an excursion with the international program. 20 of us got into a minibus and went to Addo Elephant Park and Schotia Safaris. The bus, which was supposed to arrive around 8:30, arrived around 9 or 9:15. The morning was spent in the Elephant park and this place was humungous! It's an area of about 110x50 miles ("about 1/3 of The Netherlands")so we obviously didn't see everything. We had a guide who knew the park pretty well and took us to spots he thought we had the best chance of seeing elephants. His tip for finding the elephants in the bush was, "look for the brownish-grey moving rock, that's an elephant". He also warned us that we may not see any animals because there is a lot of space for them to roam. Three minutes after saying this, we saw our first elephants. They were about 100 yards away but walking down a path towards our car. We all snapped some pictures and they kept getting closer. It turned out to be three elephants trudging along. The first two were wary and stayed as far away from the bus as possible but the third on came within 15 feet of my window. We followed them down the road where they met up with a few more smaller elephants and began eating lunch. They snacked for 15 minutes or so and we moved on in search of other animals. We saw a few more elephants, warthogs, a water buffalo, and kudu (a breed of antelope). After a few hours of this and lunch, we exited the park and went "next door" to Schotia.
Schotia was similar to Addo in that it was a large game reserve full of animals to see. It differed in that there were no real roads, just dirt tracks, so we got out of our vehicle and into 12-seater range rovers. We toured through the old section and found some lions stalking wildebeests before heading to the newer part. We also saw some domestic water buffalo (cows) and unstripped zebras (horses) in the park. There were fences separating these two sections so once through the gate, our guide let one person sit on the roof of the car in an outdoor seat. I went after my roommate and got the best view of the giraffes including the baby who was only 3 months old.
After my time on the hood, we went to get some tea. Our guide was disappointed that we didn't see any rhinos but that's life. I had some Rooibos Tea for the first time. If you can find this product and like herbal teas, buy it and drink 7-8 cups! It is really good for you and tastes great. It's very popular in South Africa and may also be called Redbush tea but I'm not sure if we have it in the states.
After tea time, we went back out into the park. As we passed the watering hole near the tea house, we saw the rhinos getting a drink so we stopped and took pictures. I was standing on the right runner board of the rover as the rhino walked past on the left. When it was behind our car, it turned and looked me dead in the eye. I figured this was a good time to get back in the vehicle but not before snapping a few pictures.
We went back into the older section of the park to find the lions. We heard that they had made a kill and we radioed other rangers to find their location. We waited in a line of three or four other cars before getting close to the lions. One lion followed our car for a bit before joining his friends who were devouring a zebra. You could hear them crack the bones in their mouths and see the stripes from the zebra disappear into the lion. When we got to the closest point, the smell of the meat was HORRIBLE! We could only stay for a minute or two because it made everyone in the car a little queasy. The alpha male wasn't there so we tried to track him but couldn't find him before dinner time came around.
Outside of the dinner lodge, there was another watering hole and we saw two hippos taking a bath. One gave us a show and splashed around before yawning. She was quite the show-off! Dinner consisted of rice, potatoes, kudu goulash, barbeque chicken, and a bread pudding for dessert. Everything was scrumptious and I was very full by the end. When we were finished, we heard a few loud moans outside. We went out and were informed that the male lion was somewhere near by so we got into our cars and went on a hunt. We found him sitting in the middle of a field, calling for his family to join him. The roar was intimidating close up and, even when he was facing away, you could feel the vibrations in your stomach whenever he roared. Every five minutes or so he would give three longs moans and then five short grunts. He would then wait for a response before repeating the process. If his family heard, we didn't hear it and our car left after 15 minutes or so.
After a long day, it was nice to come home and sleep for a few hours.
Side note:
I just figured out how to put pictures into my posts so expect that more often than not!
coooooool!
ReplyDelete