Fall Break in Cape Town.

Last week we had time off from classes for fall break, otherwise known as vac. I had a nice time staying in Cape Town and catching up on homework, although I didn't get to visit any museums, which had been one of my priorities. However, I did get the chance to go for unlimited ribs and prawn with some of my Zimbabwean friends at a restaurant called Aqua, which was fun but also complicated since we forgot to print out our vouchers before we came and had to find a place with free wireless so we could pull them up on the computer screen for the manager. But the food was good, we ate up the rest of the restaurants ribs, and the waiter was nice and let us take doggy bags even though we weren't supposed to. Apparently, there was also a South African movie star at the restaurant. Afterward, we stopped by a salsa club to watch the more accomplished dancers. Ngoni tried to teach me the basic steps, but I definitely couldn't compare to the awesome dancers who were there.

On Wednesday, Quinton, the CIEE program coordinator, surprised us by taking the people who were left in Cape Town on a safari. We went to a game reserve called Fairy Glen. Since it is a game reserve it is much smaller than a national park. The more common animals like Springbok and Zebras are bred on the reserve while the protected species like rhino and lions have to be bought and are usually rescued animals or animals that caused problems in the national park and would have otherwise been put down.

I was surprised at myself for actually being intimidated by some of the animals. We first saw two rhino, who seemed pretty tame until our guide told us that there used to be a hippo on the reserve until it got in a fight with the rhino. Apparently, when the hippo opened its mouth to bite the rhino, the rhino gored it in the roof of its mouth and actually lifted it off of the ground!


Rhinos are endangered because their horns can be sold for a lot of money in Asia where people think that ground horns can cure cancer. Horns are usually about 7 kgs and are worth $36,000 per kg.

We were also able to see some giraffes. According to our guide, giraffes are unable to lay down for long periods of time or to sleep because they need to keep high blood pressure to get blood from their hearts to their brains.


I found the buffalo to be the most intimidating because one of the buffalo we saw had mauled our guide on the reserve about a year ago. It was also aggressive when we drove by, and ended up trying to charge the vehicle!




The elephant was my favorite animal. Elephants eat and destroy about 3 tonnes of vegetation a day, so they constantly have to be planting more trees on the reserve. This elephant had lived in Kruger National Park, but was going to be put down because it had a habit of damaging fences and buildings in the parks. Since the animals on the game reserve are somewhat protected and don't really need to defend themselves, the reserve was able to take in the elephant and cut off its tusks so that it wouldn't be able to damage the property. This one was busy uprooting a tree when we drove by...



Lastly, we saw the lions. They were a sad story because they were rescued from captivity and could not be released into the wild because they never learned how to hunt.




P.S. All of the pictures are courtesy of Farai because I forgot my camera. Thanks!