Arriving in Thulani
On Sunday night, after a 6-hour drive, I arrived at a lodge near Bushbuckridge, South Africa, named Thulani. There we met Charline, our cook, Kelvin, our driver for game drives, and Mbuso, our assistant chef. We ate a delicious dinner of pasta and headed to bed. We woke up the following morning refreshed and lazed around until 10 am, when my brother and I had mud massages. Mud massages are not done with actual mud but with a sand and cream mixture, which gets rubbed all over you. Once it is thoroughly stroked in, it is insanely cold, and you go and take a shower, and you come back and get old, and then it is over. I enjoyed it, even though it was more like a sand rub than a massage. I loved it. At around 4:30, we left on our first game drive. It was for the sunset, and I got a fantastic time-lapse.
Going to the School
On Tuesday, we woke up at 5:30 am for a morning game drive. We came back for breakfast and shed our extra layers of coats. After breakfast, we met Trygive, who works at A Spring Of Hope. A Spring Of Hope is an organization that works to improve school life for kids: they provide wells so that the children may have drinking water nearby and not have to miles on end to get a bucket of water. They also help provide similar resources to the kids, such as food, clothes, shoes, books, and help grow incentives and offer garden materials to build at home. Trygive drove us into town so we could buy some plants to plant in the school garden, and we also bought oranges for the kids. We met the kids and played violin for them, and they sang along. After that, we went home.
An Animal Rehab Center, Kruger National Park, and an Elephant Rehab Center
On Wednesday, we went to an animal rehab center, where there were various animals: vultures, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, etc.
On Thursday, we went to Kruger national park and saw many elephants.
On Friday, we woke up at: you guessed it, 5:30 am. We got up so we could go to an elephant rehab center. There, we got to meet and feed three elephants.
Going back to the School and Goodbye
After we met the elephants, we went back and ate breakfast and went back to the school that we went to on Tuesday, and we made many friends and played tag in the classroom. After that, we played netball, and then we had to head back to Thulani. I very much enjoyed my stay at Thulani. I am now headed to Kenya.