The Safari

This morning we got up early and drove 2 hours out to a Safari expedition. We arrived at 8:00, and they fed us breakfast. We stood by little heaters for another half hour trying to warm up before heading out. The Aquila Wildlife Reserve is a privately owned Safari. They stock the land with certain animals, just a few at a time due to land size and population of the species.

African Safaris MUST have what you call "The Big Five," Lions, Elephants, Rhinos, Water Buffalo, and the Leopard. You're almost always guaranteed to see these 5 on every excursion, among other animals.

We loaded in to open jeeps with stadium seating, and off we went. Our driver was our guide. He would stop the car and talk about each of the animals as we would see them. He knew a lot about each one, and I fell in love with these animals. It was so cool to see them in their natural habitat and roaming around. Not behind bars. My personal favorite was the hippo. I told Evan before we left that if I could just see a hippo, I'd be happy. That was the first animal we came across! It really made my day.

Here are some pictures of the animals. I would post more, but this little laptop takes forever to download them all, so I'll post more when I get home.

Overall we saw hippos, elephants, rhinos, wildebeasts, zebras, intu, springbuck, giraffe, cheetahs, and lions. We didn't end up seeing the Leopards or Lions in their natural habitat. They have a large "caged" area to keep some of them safe, as they're on the extinction list. Makes sense. I didn't care much about not seeing Lions. We drove around and around, but they must have been hiding. I got to see the hippo, so I was happy!
We were fed lunch before we left. The drive back was beautiful with valley after valley and mountainous drives. There were some sad cities that consisted wholy of these:

Little "shanty towns" we'd call them. The people were out and about, and it made us sad to see people living this way. Even worse than we saw in Chile. We do remember from what we've seen in life that poverty does not necessarily mean unhappiness. We are truly grateful for everything we have and all the blessings we enjoy. How lucky are we to live in such a blessed nation? I love home and all the opportunities it affords us.