April 7 - BUNGEEEEEEEE

I actually bungee jumped!!!!! I do not think anyone will believe me so I got some great pictures of the entire thing. 11 of us jumped from the 4th highest bridge in the world, and the highest commercial bungee location in the world. The entire experience was absolutely amazing and I would love to do it again....sometime. The feeling right after jumping off the bridge was absolutely amazing, there is nothing but silence and the wind rushing against your face and the image of the ground getting closer and closer and closer..... The only tough part for me was hanging upside down for 60 seconds after the fall. But, it was a lot of fun and I can not wait to show people the pics. After the Bungee jumping we left TNP for Mossel Bay where we stayed for 3 nights in a backpackers lodge. I am sure there is much more I could write about this day but I can not remember much after the bungee jumping. I will write about the rest of the trip when I have more time, but until then I hope that everyone is doing well and I hope that everyone had a great Easter Holiday!

April 6 - Zip Line

During this day everyone in the group and our instructor, Sandy, went Zip Lining at two different places around the National Park. This was a lot of fun, and no one freaked out or got hurt so it was a very successful day for all involved. Other than zip lining we did not do a whole lot. It is hard to explain how much fun it was to be above the waterfalls and zip across the lines as fast as we were going.

April 5 - Waterfall Hike

On Sunday the group went on a hike along the coast towards the freshwater waterfall at TNP. The hike took about 2 hours because we stopped along the way to take a bunch of pics and explore around the caves/rocks/etc. Jeff, Jessica, Anna, and I all climbed up the rock face to get to a cliff to jump off of into the water. The cliff was about 30 feet above the water. The jump was a lot of fun and I would love to do it many more times! After we swam in the water Jeff and I went on a hike up the Otter Trail for about another hour and saw some snakes and other freaky animals. There were tons of evidence of Baboons in the area, but luckily we did not run in to any. Something very interesting happened on our hike back to our cabins. When I was hanging out by the pool I heard a faint thunder sound and then all of a sudden a lightening bolt was within screaming distance of me. It sort of freaked me out, but it makes for a fun story. On a side note from my fun trip, on this night I was taught how to make the bridge when you shuffle cards!!!! I was so happy to learn how to do this.

April 4 - another safari

In the morning we decided to go on another early morning safari hoping to see the same kind of action, but we did not.... We left Addo Elephant park later that morning and headed to Tsitsikamma National Park for three nights. The drive to TNP was about 3 hours. Most of the day consisted of driving so not a whole lot of fun stuff happened during the day. When we got to the park Jeff and I decided to do some climbing on the low tide rocks along the ocean. I was amazed at how high some of the rock faces got in the ocean and the fact that in just a couple of hours the rocks would be flooded with water. After we got back from our hike we could not find anyone who belonged to our group. So Jeff and I decided to make friends with some of the people living next door. We had some drinks and enjoyed a great meal with some local South Africans. Jeff and I learned a lot about the culture and the people of South Africa.

April 3 - LIONS!

at 6:30 AM 8 of us with Pierre and Antoinette went looking for some wild life in the park. Within 15 minutes of leaving our cabins we spotted 2 Male Lions! This was the first time that our tour guides had seen Lions in the park (they have been there over 25 times!). This was absolutely amazing because these we wild Lions that looked like they had just got done eating a fairly large meal. I have some amazing close up pictures of the lions because they got within 5 feet of our van. We followed the Lions around for a very long time and decided to head back to the cabins after a couple of hours. The place we were staying at had an outdoor pool that all of us spent time at in the early afternoon. The South African sun is very hot and I got a pretty nice burn that afternoon, but oh well! We decided to go on another safari later that day and ended up seeing more and more animals. We ran into the same Lions we had seen earlier in the day. We also saw warthogs, kudu, zebras, tourtoise(sp?), etc. After our second safari we ate dinner at the restaurant by the park and had some drinks as a group. It was a great/exciting day for everyone.

April 2

On Thursday we continued our drive towards Addo Elephant Park after we ate breakfast at a local museum/restaurant in Knysna. The drive was very long, but extremely beautiful because we spent the entire drive along the Indian Ocean. Our tour guides Pierre and Antoinette loved to joke with us about the fact that the Indian Ocean looks different than the Atlantic. We arrived at Addo early enough to have the chance to take a short safari into the wild life park. The park was full of wild animals who were placed into the secured area in order to avoid poachers. Within minutes of entering the park we saw a number of Kudu (huge deer) and a bunch of Elephants. We were lucky enough to see two elephants fighting, which was pretty amazing. It got very intense and I did not feel comfortable being so close to them. But, it was a great experience and I got some great pics of the entire thing. When we got back from our safari we had a brai (BBQ). Pierre, Jeff, and I had some fun conversations while we were braiing the food. He is a great guy to talk to, our conversation ranged from politics to American Idol to Baywatch.

April 1

I have just returned from my 2 week holiday vacation....what a great time! I kept a journal and took notes about everything our group did during the 2 weeks. We left on April 1 at 7:00 AM. At 5:00 AM I had a prank played on me by Anna and Alex. Apparently they placed our cell phone under my bed with an alarm set for 5 AM to fool me on Fool's Day. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out what had happened, so I decided to get them back by setting the alarm for 520 AM and sneaking into their room and playing the same trick on them. My room is on the complete opposite part of the house we are staying at and I heard how loud the alarm was and it was absolutely hilarious. But anyway, we left at 7 AM for holiday and traveled from Stellenbosch to the town of Knysna. On our way to Knsyna we stopped at a couple of wine farms and tasted some of the local wine. The first place was Springfield, and the second place was Van Loveran. I bought a bottle of red wine from Van Loveran just so I did not feel guilty about drinking all of their wine. After wine tasting we continued on our 5 hour drive to Knysna where we stayed in a dormitory/hostel for the night. For dinner we went to a restaurant called 34 South. I had some of the best Hake I have had on the trip. Hake is like White Fish (if you are from Michigan you should know White Fish). The restaurant was located in the harbor at Knysna, which was absolutely beautiful. The night ended with some euchre and random conversations on the porch.