Finally another blogg xD

I never thought keeping a blog took so much effort, really the writing is not the problem. The inspirition on this holiday is not the problem.. just the time. I am honestly surprised by how much i don't want to sit behind a computer and sit down and write. We've made friends here.. we eat together talk together and go on excursions together and than go to bed, dead tired. But today is a different day.. this morning we got up around 7.. Went for a shower.. power went down half-way.. and ate some breakfast.. went to see a hippo and now i'm in the sun up in a tower... relaxing on a matras typing this.

But of course a lot happened the past few days, i'll try to keep it chronicly correct :) So let me see where did my last blog end...  Ahh the tribal village, the day we arrived. yeah that was amazing! But we were so tired of the 30 hour trip that we went to bed quite fast. Sunday we woke up and it was leisure day.. so nothing happens. We sat by the pool talked a bit listened to music, ahh yes music ! *puts on some coldplay* And i wrote my last blog that day. Crazy to think a week  has passed already and i'm still alive :) Almost forget we also had a talk about our trip, what we wanted to do.. what was possible.. and what we could do when we leave here. The possibilities.. it's amazing xD

Well let's get to the point MONDAY! To be honest.. i have no idea what we did monday i had too look it up. And than realized  monday was an amazing start. We went to another lodge and did this thing called "Walking with the wild". Crazily enough the name covers it quite good. You either get a chance to have a walk with a lion or a few cheetahs. We got the lion, now you might think omg.. what's he gonna do.. i kinda had that too. But for some reason here it feels normal. Quote: "Yeah let's go for a scroll with a lion!". We walk a bit further down a path and have to wait for a bit. Than the guide comes back with a dog and a lion. They are playing with each other as if they where too dog. And you feel like you are walking with a dog, playing with it.. touching it, toying with it. Except it's a lion... a small one but still. So strange! But great fun! 2 caracal's joined the walk and a pig joined us during the walk which was made it weirder by the minute. But we survived and enjoyed it all a lot.
After the walk we had lunch there, and honestly it surprises me over and over again how amazing the food is. It's all good :D.
After the great lunch we had some time to play with the cheetahs as well.. they where just laying in the shade, next to the lodge we where at. Standing around it as a bunch of school kids too afraid to do anything i decided to try and stroke one of the fastests predators on earth.. And it went good.. and not minuts later everybody was stroking.. and the cheetah's just looked like harmless(which of course they are NOT) cats. Than we where called, because we where going to look at another project they did at this lodge. A breeding project called: "Lions and leopards". It was very nice, we got to see another very small lion. A full-grown lion and lioness with 1 cub. And 2 leopards all from pretty up-close.

I just realise.. there is so much to tell.. but this blog is getting long already. So if you have any questions please ask! I will not talk about everything we do. But the things that excited me the most :)

So enough chit-chat in between, TUESDAY! Well tuesday is not hard to remember.. another experience i'll never forget. I never thought i would experience something soooo beautifulll.. and no i'm not exaggerating. Now i think about it again great memories come back! WHAT YOU DO WHAT YOU DO? you think? :P

i'll tell you.. we went on a hike.. the best hike i ever did. I remember simon posting something about it, and i was like ""Oh My God... that's crazy". But we went to do it.. "the manoutsa hike" read this blog if you want to have the same feeling i had before hand.
But i'm so glad i did it... every step you take you find yourself in another amazing spot in an amazing green canyon. Actually it's one of the largest green canyon's in the world.We even ran into some natives doing a ritual naked under a big waterfall.. no i didn't go look! But the waterfall was amazing.. made a jump of 8 meters high off a cliff into the water.. walked for 4/5 hours.. and was stunned by the view 10 times a second.
Actually i was walking at the back of the group.. being stunned.. running up to catch up than being stunned again.. Wish i could have stayed there for weeks. I really believe it to be the most beautifull thing i've ever seen! We had all day for it, so we took our time.. had lunch half-way and gotten frozen cold by the swimming.

I think i can keep talking about that place.. forever! But let's move on :)

The next 2 days i'll put together because it was one trip *hoping to save some lines*. We started WEDNESDAY early and drove through the kruger park, towards a friend of some people here. There we partied till we went crazy.. and the next day drove back a long the most amazing panoramic spots. Some where good some where a bit dissapointing. To be honest.. we had a great time that night, all drank way too much. And where broken on THURSDAY. Luckily it was a quite relaxing ride, watching some great views, waterfalls, and strange potholes. The day before was a long ride through the kruger park, so some wild giraffe, zebra's, birds and finally some elephants!! Finally my wish came true, we had done a few drive around campfire safaris but not seen any elephants yet. Though we still haven't seen wild lions, cheetahs, leopards and rhino's yet. We enjoyed it very much.. still it's always dissapointing when you don't see everything. But we keep hoping. They can always come to the gates of campfire safaris as it's all connected. Most gates are gone so anything can come pass me by while i type this.

It's hard typing in the full sun.. all i feel like is lay down.. and fall asleep xD which simon is already doing next to me. Luckily he is not in full sun so he'll be ok. Luckily nice fresh breezes of air come by so now and than.

Well let's keep this up, almost there! FRIDAY:
We had to get up this day early. We asked if we could do another drive through the bush here and we only had time that morning. The wake-up call was 5:15 i know it sounds crazy, but here the time is different. We are in the same timezone.. but well it doesn't feel like ware. The sun comes up @ 6 and goes down @ 6. We go to bed around 9-10 and usually not a sleep any later than 11-12. And get up between 7-8 normally. So strangely enough it's not as bad as it sounds. But anyway we went for a drive.. in the end it was a bit dissapointing again. We saw a jackal and some nice eagles and even an owl. But none of the big ones. It was a very quiet morning. After that we had the privilige of joining a lecture on animal behavior. Which was very interesting.. but we where so tired from the short night we had trouble not falling a sleep.
Than we had some time to eat and had to rush off to a reptile park. So before the day really started we had done all kind af thing's already but the days sometimes to just keep going. Time moves nice and slow.. Time to do a lot.. but than again.. for somethings their is never time enough. Wow.. i'm wandering off.. the heat must be getting to me.

Alright! the reptile park.. we went in.. a beautifful parrot was just above my head in a tree.. monkey's everywhere. A very nice welcome.. than we had a crazy hour long lecture about reptile's. Very interesting but in a room with horrible acoustics, we got thaught about the different type of snake's and why they are totally not dangerous! After the lecture we got to view some reptile's and snake they had on display there. Got to feed some kameleons.. got on a picture with a snake.. and hold some gekko like creatures. And finally some lunch.. it was rushing through the reptile park.. so much to do in such little time. And even too little time to eat so soon we had to get started again. And than something happened...

We walked to a small field of grass on the side... and there where some boxes and.. chris. Chris was our guide so far, and was going to give us one more presentation... It was amazing.. he had some very dangerous snakes in front of us on the ground. Telling us about each one of them.. why they are so dangerous..  and at the same time telling  us.. they are totally not. Very educational! Too be honest, nobody should have to be afraid for snake's, as long as we realize to leave them alone and respect them. Snakes will barely ever attack a human and he showed it to us. We saw it with our own eyes. And i'm impressed :) After it we where allowed to have one of the rarest spiders on our hands which are almost extinct and are only to be found  here in hoedspruit. Got a scorpion walking on my face. And got stung a 50 times by muskito bugs. But it was worth it. I would love to go and work there some time, so who knows...

God i've been typing crazy..  and i haven't even explained about the hippo.. well we went see Jessica the hippo today.. go look her up if you are really interested. It's the only human friendly hippo in the world.
http://www.jessicahippo.com

Pff now i'm really tired of typing... i hope i can satisfy all your needs for a while again.. and if not feel free to ask questions and i'll see if i can answer them all :)


Oh i also have these 2 links! They are gps tracks. The first is of our hike. The red part is the part we walked.
http://www.trackr.nl/user/silentsimon/ryfdscy6/manoutsa-hike
This second is of hour route through the kruger park. It's fun te see that everywhere our speed drops to 0 we probably saw a nice animal xD
http://www.trackr.nl/user/silentsimon/p65bc4p2/krugerpark

Thank you again for reading!!!
Time to move to the shade.

ps.: the blog has gone to english because of some international friends.