Safrica Day 6

It was a miracle. We had set out to depart for the Addo National Elephant Park at 9am and we were packed and outside the hostel at 9:10am. We were nearly on time. Unfortunately, our van was not. In fact, not only was our van late, but when it did arrive, we soon discovered that it was about two seats too small and reluctant to start. So, we phoned the rental service and requested that they drive a van that was breakdown-free and to change the reservation to include a trailer, or “boot” for our luggage. The only bright side of this story is that the rental company offered to give us two smaller vans for the same price. Of course, that would delay us another hour. It was nearly 12:00pm when we finally headed out to Addo.

The trip was not without its own obstacles. For me personally, I had woken up with a vicious sore throat. It was as if my tonsils had swollen to the size of a grape and swallowing became quite the task. We were already running three hours behind schedule and the drive was slated to last about eight hours without the small stops we had planned. The first stop was at a winery to do some wine tasting and to possibly pick up a bottle or two of local wines. We eventually settled on a winery and headed toward the tasting cellars. The wines were great and the tasting price was reasonable. In fact, it only strengthened my belief in the previous statement, “alcohol is ridiculously cheap in South Africa.” I wound up buying a couple of bottles of quality red wine and will probably have one or two to bring back.

After the wine tasting, it was back on the road. Don’t panic. We were civilized wine tasters and spit out most of the wine we tasted. As we traveled onward, we noticed that the drive along the coast from the West Cape to the East Cape was bound to take longer than eight hours. I can only make it from Illinois to Pennsylvania in eight hours. It wasn’t long before we encountered sunset which was rapidly followed by darkness. Nightfall had crept in and we weren’t even halfway there yet.

We wound up driving for another six hours and reached Addo National Elephant Park around 1:00am. Just as we were sure that pillows and beds were within our reach, we noticed that the gate was down and nobody was staffing the entrance to the park. We were assured that we would be able to access the grounds at any hour, but we weren’t sure that midnight was ever in the minds of the preserve staff. We backed out toward the entrance and headed out of the park. We were brainstorming with ideas about how to handle this situation. We decided to return to the entrance and hope that the ranger was just napping in the office. Sure enough, as the high beams penetrated the office window, a head emerged from the darkness and the door opened. We received our keys and were on our way to dreamland.

We split into pairs and ran towards our respective cabins. I had no idea how nice the accommodations would be. We were paying R200 each night which roughly converts to $30. This was for a beautiful cabin which abuts the fence to the preserve. We had warthogs feeding literally feet from our patio. We were very fortunate to have come across such great housing. With that, we all are tucking ourselves into the beds as jackals and hyenas wail at the moon. Sweet.