Today was a pretty usual day for me , we woke up for our 6am drive and i was picked to sit on the tracker seat!! thats always fun, I spotted a giraffe, impala and zebra , nothing out of the ordinary so we sat and watched them for a while and then pulled off the road for a outdoor class session.

Our outdoor classroom

 We were in this clearing which was a big circle surrounded by tall grass, perfect for any predator to hide in, it was very windy so windy thit completely ripped a page out of the book!! we talked about animal behaviour and what to do if we were approached by a dangerous animal on foot. it was quite entertaining to watch sean act like both elephant and lion. When someone asked ” now how exactly are we suppose to scare off a lion” ? he gave us the perfect example by taking off his hat throwing it like 30 feet in front of him , screaming and yelling f**k off!!!! it was one of the funniest things i have ever seen, but he said when you are in a situation like that your adrenaline will be pumping so bad that all you will do is just curse and swear ha ha. After a few more situations he put us in we decided to head back to the campus for lunch. 3 of the people in our group stayed home for the drive because they are really sick, nowone knows what is wrong with them, but i fear there is a bug going around. Even my roomie has it , which means im probably next!! Apart from that it was a pretty quiet day just took a nap and am getting ready for my lion presentation which is tomorrow. So goodnight!!

After a long night and a few casual drinks at n the boss which i paid for myself thank you!! I headed off to bed around 4am( lol) I was awoken at 6am by my roomie who asked me if I was going to Kruger. Without any hesitation I said no thanks have fun! As I laid in bed trying to go back to sleep I wandered “should I have gone” yes I probably should have. Luckily for me Owen came banging door to door to see if there were any stragglers left behind who wanted to go ? so I threw on some clothes and headed out for Kruger. When we got to the Orpen Gate I had to buy a wildcard which will allow access to any park in Kruger for a year!! and it was pretty cheap as well. When we went through the gate me , Owen and James in a little whoopie car we were very excited and opened the map to see if we could find the same waterhole that battle at kruger was filmed at, but there was literally 50 different waterholes to go through se we gave up on that idea quick. Kruger wasnt really what I was expecting sure it is the size of Israel it was huge and no matter what road you went down you could just drive endlessly. There was literally a line of cars you had to travel behind, which was good in a sense because you knew you were going to see something based on how many cars and 2ft lenses were at one area at a time, but in another sense it wasnt as private and natural this way either, it was like being at a zoo with a line of peole around an exhibit and you have to wait your turn to get a glimpse of a tiger or gorilla. We were at Kruger for about 9 hours and we saw plenty of giraffe, impala, gazelle, wildabeest, cape buffalo, kudu, many bird species, elephant, crocodile, baboon, vervet monkeys, zebra but no cats still !! sadly. We went to this little tourist shop a couple times and they have this chart where people mark where they had a sighting, there were about 5 lion sightings, no wild dog sighting because of how highly endangered they are, and a couple leopard sightings. By the time we got to the watering hole where a male and 2 females were spotted, they had left with no traces other than a fully eaten carcass. At the shop i bought some post cards and a really cool board game that teaches you all these fun facts about wildlife and such, so maybe that will help me learn more. I cant believe how close the animals allowed us to get to them, we were literally like within feet from them, they are just so used to cars it doesnt fade them. I would have to say the coolest sighting would be watching an elephant bathe in the watering hole. it literally got all the way in with just the top of his head and trunk out of the water!! that was really neat, i wanted to go swim with him so bad, but i would have been kicked out and arrested. When we got back to campus i was pleased to find out that the other group that went saw the BIG FIVE ( leopard, lion, buffalo, elephant, rhino) I was sooo jealous of all the awesome pictures and stories, i think everyone has seen a cat now except me , why am i being punished!! the way this is going im probably going to get more than i bargained for with a cat when one finally does show up!! anyways in all it was a good day,

Well i just got done with my first exam and it wasnt as bad as i thought it was be but deffinately hard. I deffinately couldnt answer those questions i just did before I came here thats for sure!! I probably missed around 10 answers out of a hundred. But lets hope thats enough to pass , we have to have a 75% pass mark on all tests, so fingers crossed. We now have the rest of the weekend off to do what our heart pleases. Tonight we rented two cars that will talk us to this bar called in de bos which translates to ” In the bush”so this should be an intersting experience, it is an hour away though which kinda stinks but obviously i am not going to be driving, because I cant ha ha . When we are done with this trip we are headed straight to Kruger hoping to arrive there at 5:30 am to have first dibbs of all the wildlife as the gat opens at 6am!! man i can already tell you this is going to be tiring, but we are all very excited to hopefully get a chance to finally see a cat!!! i dont even care if its a wild house cat i just wana see one. Thats about all for my agenda for the day , probably eat alot, work out and try to start a game of volleyball. I cant believe how fast this week went by!!